Latest news with #cosmicradiation
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Science
- Yahoo
Cosmic Rays Could Help Aliens Thrive in The Barren Wastelands of Space
Too much cosmic radiation can sterilize a planet – but a surprising new study has found that under the right circumstances, it could actually make uninhabitable worlds habitable. Ionizing radiation has enough energy to damage the organic compounds that are fundamental to biology, which for organisms like us can lead to health problems like cancer. Not only does this include ultraviolet light from the Sun and X-rays and gamma rays from further afield, but high-speed particles making up cosmic rays are also notable for blasting away at biochemistry. Here on Earth, we're protected from the worst of it all by our planet's magnetic field and atmosphere. It's usually assumed that without these kinds of defenses, life wouldn't stand a chance. Related: But the new study suggests that life could not only survive ionizing radiation, but depend on it. The idea is that high-energy particles from space could knock electrons out of molecules in underground water or ice, in a process called radiolysis. Hypothetically, this could produce enough energy to feed microbes even in cold, dark environments. The researchers ran simulations of radiolysis at work in key locations in the Solar System to figure out how much energy it could potentially produce. By their calculations, Saturn's moon Enceladus is the cosiest home for aliens, followed by Mars and then Jupiter's moon Europa. The study has major implications for how common life could be throughout the cosmos. "This discovery changes the way we think about where life might exist," says Dimitra Atri, astrobiologist at New York University's Abu Dhabi campus. "Instead of looking only for warm planets with sunlight, we can now consider places that are cold and dark, as long as they have some water beneath the surface and are exposed to cosmic rays. Life might be able to survive in more places than we ever imagined." The research was published in the International Journal of Astrobiology. Related News Something Massive Could Still Be Hiding in The Shadows of Our Solar System Star's Violent Death Could Reveal a Rare 'Missing Link' Black Hole What Would Happen if a Baby Were Born in Space? A Scientist Explains The Risks. Solve the daily Crossword
Yahoo
02-07-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Astronomers detect first known ‘death wish' planet
The outlook isn't great for the exoplanet HIP 67522 b. Over the next 100 million years, powerful magnetic fields and destructive cosmic radiation will continue eating away at the distant planet, reducing it from its current Jupiter-sized mass down to a size resembling Neptune. But these apocalyptic conditions aren't the fault of a nearby black hole. Instead, they're a result of what astronomers describe as the exoplanet's 'clingy' relationship to its host star. 'I have a million questions because this is a completely new phenomenon, so the details are still not clear,' Ekaterina Ilin, a researcher at the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy (ASTRON), said in a statement. Long theorized but never observed, the first known 'planet with a death wish' is described by Ilin and her colleagues in a study published July 2 in Nature. Astronomers have been studying this exoplanet and its host star HIP 67522 for years with high-tech tools like NASA's James Webb Space Telescope and Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS). They already knew that HIP 67522 is slightly larger and cooler than our 4.5-billion-year-old sun, but is also much younger at just 17 million years old. HIP 67522 is also a far more active star than our sun, and routinely emits much stronger energy flares. It also hosts two planets, but HIP 67522 b has a faster orbit than its sibling and takes only seven days to complete a circuit. 'We hadn't seen any systems like HIP 67522 before; when the planet was found it was the youngest planet known to be orbiting its host star in less than 10 days,' explained Ilin. Knowing this, Ilin's team decided to try getting a closer look at HIP 67522 b, and enlisted the European Space Agency's (ESA) exoplanet satellite CHEOPS, for help. CHEOPS is capable of targeting and observing individual stars, and soon documented intermittent flares coming from HIP 67522. 'With CHEOPS we saw more flares, taking the total count to 15, almost all coming in our direction as the planet transited in front of the star as seen from Earth,' said Ilin. This correlation implied that the interactions between the star and its planet were directly responsible for the flares. But there was a problem with this possibility: astronomers long believed stars only behave independently of their host planets. So how could that be possible? 'We find that the 15 flares in HIP 67522 cluster… [indicate] persistent magnetic star–planet interaction in the system,' the authors wrote in their study. The physics also supports the theory. Knowing HIP 67522 b's extremely close orbit, this interplay could be possible if its star possesses a strong magnetic field. And given HIP 67522's age, that's almost a certainty. The current theory is that as the planet amasses energy during its orbit, some of that is redirected in waves along the star's magnetic field lines like someone cracking a whip. Once that wave reaches the end of the magnetic field line, it initiates a major energy flare. However, a large portion of those powerful cosmic rays aren't simply flung into deep space, Instead, they're redirected back to HIP 67522 b itself with six times the radiation than if it had orbited at a safer distance. 'The planet seems to be triggering particularly energetic flares,' added Ilin. 'The waves it sends along the star's magnetic field lines kick off flares at specific moments. But the energy of the flares is much higher than the energy of the waves. We think that the waves are setting off explosions that are waiting to happen.' This means that over the next 100 million years, all of that destructive energy will erode an already wispy atmosphere and shrink the planet's overall mass. Eventually, that atmospheric erosion will be the doom of HIP 76522 b. Luckily, there's plenty of time for astronomers like Ilin to continue studying the unprecedented new find. Researchers hope to follow up their observations by determining the exact types of energy released by each flare. Meanwhile, they intend to scour and find similar star-planet systems to see if any other cosmic death wishes are out there.
Yahoo
22-06-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
A radio signal from the beginning of the universe could reveal how everything began
A radio signal from the early universe could allow us to understand how everything that surrounds us began. The signal – known as the 21-centimetre signal – could finally let us understand how the first stars and galaxies switched on, and brought the universe from darkness to light. 'This is a unique opportunity to learn how the universe's first light emerged from the darkness,' said co-author Anastasia Fialkov from Cambridge University, in a statement. 'The transition from a cold, dark universe to one filled with stars is a story we're only beginning to understand.' The signal comes to us from more than 13 billion years ago, just a hundred million years after the Big Bang. The faint glow is created by hydrogen atoms that fill up the space between regions of space where stars are being formed. Scientists now believe they will be able to use the nature of that signal to better understand the early universe. They will do that with a radio antenna called REACH – the Radio Experiment for the Analysis of Cosmic Hydrogen – which will try and capture radio signals to reveal data about the beginnings of the universe. To better understand how that project might work, researchers created a model that predicted how REACH as well as another project called the Square Kilometre Array will be able to provide information about the masses and other details of the first stars. 'We are the first group to consistently model the dependence of the 21-centimetre signal of the masses of the first stars, including the impact of ultraviolet starlight and X-ray emissions from X-ray binaries produced when the first stars die,' said Professor Fialkov. 'These insights are derived from simulations that integrate the primordial conditions of the universe, such as the hydrogen-helium composition produced by the Big Bang.' 'The predictions we are reporting have huge implications for our understanding of the nature of the very first stars in the Universe,' said co-author Eloy de Lera Acedo, Principal Investigator of the REACH telescope. 'We show evidence that our radio telescopes can tell us details about the mass of those first stars and how these early lights may have been very different from today's stars. 'Radio telescopes like REACH are promising to unlock the mysteries of the infant Universe, and these predictions are essential to guide the radio observations we are doing from the Karoo, in South Africa.' The work is described in a new paper, 'Determination of the mass distribution of the first stars from the 21-cm signal', published in the journal Nature Astronomy.
CBC
23-05-2025
- Science
- CBC
Sudbury's SNOLAB delves into quantum computing research
The underground Sudbury Neutrino Observatory Laboratory is most well-known for its Nobel Prize-winning research on subatomic particles called neutrinos. But the lab, commonly called SNOLAB, located two kilometres underground at mining company Vale's Creighton Mine, is also home to several other experiments that benefit from its unique location. One of those experiments is at a facility called the cryogenic underground test facility, or CUTE, which is testing what effect cosmic radiation has on quantum computing. Because SNOLAB is under two kilometres of northern Ontario rock it has natural protection from cosmic radiation that constantly bombards everything on the Earth's surface. Vijay Iyer, a post-doctoral researcher from the University of Toronto stationed at SNOLAB, explains that quantum computing is so complex that cutting out something like cosmic radiation could have an impact. What is quantum computing, anyway? A classical computer works with transistors that switch between zeros and ones, much like a light switch might complete or cut off a current. "A quantum computer makes use of qubits [quantum bits] instead of regular bits which are zeros and ones," Iyer said. He used the analogy of a coin flip to explain the difference. When that coin is in the air it is both heads and tails, until it lands. Thanks to a principle called superposition, a qubit is like that mid-air coin. It can represent a zero, a one, or a combination of both simultaneously. Quantum computers also rely on a phenomenon called entanglement, which links qubits together in such a way that their fates are intertwined, regardless of the distance separating them. A change to one affects another. Because of those two phenomena, a problem that could take a classical computer years or even decades to solve in a linear fashion can be solved by a quantum computer in a matter of hours. Iyer explained that qubits are "extremely fragile" since a transistor with qubits would be controlled one atom at a time. "So being able to control something at that level is very difficult, which means any small amount of noise that exists in the environment, it can break down the entire system," Iyer said. Iyer is part of a team examining the link between cosmic rays and quantum bits. The ability to shield a quantum computer from cosmic rays should shed more light on that link. International collaboration The University of Waterloo and Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden are the primary institutions behind the research. And they've been awarded a grant from the U.S. Army Research Office to explore that link. Jeter Hall is SNOLAB's outgoing director of research. He said that while U.S. President Donald Trump's administration has cut research grants in several areas, including at the National Institute of Health, SNOLAB's research on quantum computing should be safe from any cuts. "The American government has stated this is a priority," he said. "So we believe right now that that work will continue and we'll be able to bring those benefits both to Canada and the U.S. in a collaborative manner." But Hall said SNOLAB is looking to more international collaborations to fund its research projects, especially if funding from the U.S. could dry up. A project to explore neutrino properties, which Hall said has the potential to win a second Nobel Prize for research done at SNOLAB, could cost up to $400 million.
