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12 hours ago
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These 3 popular skywatching star clusters may be branches of the same family tree
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Three of the most popular targets for astronomers of all skill levels are the Seven Sisters (the Pleiades), the Hyades and the Orion Nebula Cluster (ONC), which is the central "star" in Orion's Sword. Now, scientists have discovered that these celestial bodies may have more in common than once thought. The star clusters may share a common origin mechanism, they say, despite the fact that the three clusters are all different ages and are located at different distances from Earth. This new research suggests looking at the three star clusters is like looking at three snapshots taken of the same person at three different stages of their life, from infancy to old age. The youngest of these open clusters is the ONC at 2.5 million years old. Located around 1,350 light-years away and packed with thousands of young stars embedded in the stellar cloud that created them, it is one of the most active star-forming regions in the Milky Way. Located 444 light-years from Earth, the Pleiades is less densely packed than the ONC, but it is much more ancient at 100 million years old. However, the Hyades, located 151 light-years away, has fewer stars that are even more thinly spread out and is around 700 million years old. Yet, as diverse as these star clusters seem, the team's new research suggests they share a particular kind of ancestor. "Our highly precise stellar dynamics calculations have now shown that all three star clusters originated from the same predecessor," team member and University of Bonn researcher Pavel Kroupa said in a statement. Star clusters on the same cosmic family tree The team compares the varied ages and conditions in these three star clusters to looking at the same human being through photos that document the stages of their life. The densely packed ONC is the baby, the more dispersed Pleiades is the adolescent, and the Hyades is the elderly person. Though the three clusters didn't form from the same molecular cloud of dense gas and dust, they can be compared to the same person being born three times in different parts of the globe. "From this, we can learn that open star clusters seem to have a preferred mode of star formation," Kroupa explained. "It appears that there is a preferred physical environment in which stars form when they evolve within these clouds." The question is: How does a cluster like the ONC develop into one like Pleiades and then age into a cluster like the Hyades? Kroupa and colleagues, including team leader Ghasem Safaei from the Institute for Advanced Studies in Basic Sciences, set about answering this question with computer simulations. Star clusters grow old gracefully The team's simulations revealed the forces acting between stars in a cluster. This allowed the scientists to model the life cycle of such a collection of stars from a gas-rich, dense infancy through gradual expansion and gradual gas and star loss over the course of 800 million years. The results obtained by the team closely reflected the changes in structure and composition between the phases we see exemplified by the ONC, the Pleiades and the Hyades. "This research shows that it is entirely plausible that star clusters such as the ONC follow a development path that transforms them into systems like Pleiades and later on Hyades," Hosein Haghi, study team member and a researcher at the University of Bonn, said in the statement. The team's results indicated that clusters like the ONC can lose up to 85% of their stellar population and yet hang on to coherent structures when they reach ages similar to that of the Hyades while passing through a stage that resembles the Pleiades. The team's research also suggests that the fact these three clusters appear close together in the night sky over Earth, despite being widely separated in the cosmos, may be more than a mere coincidence. This positioning could, in fact, be related to the way star clusters form and evolve in relation to our galaxy. "This research gives us a deeper understanding of how star clusters form and develop and illustrates the delicate balance between internal dynamics and external forces such as the gravitational pull of the Milky Way," team member Akram Hasani Zonoozi of the University of Bonn said in the statement. Related Stories: — Hubble Space Telescope reveals richest view of Andromeda galaxy to date (image) — Hubble Telescope spies newborn stars in famous Orion Nebula (photo) — NASA wants a 'Super-Hubble' space telescope to search for life on alien worlds Beyond the research's importance for our understanding of star clusters and their evolution, the team's work demonstrates the power of combining simulations with astronomical observations. This research was published on Friday (July 18) in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Solve the daily Crossword
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Science
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See the moon cross the Pleiades for the last time this year on July 20
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. If you live anywhere in the contiguous U.S. or Canada, and clear skies are forecast for early Sunday morning, July 20, then be sure to step outside after midnight and before the first light of dawn. Look low in the east-northeast sky for a slender crescent moon just four days before new phase and 23% illuminated, gracefully approaching the Pleiades star cluster. This will mark the third and final lunar occultation of the Pleiades in 2025, promising a very beautiful scene in steadily held binoculars or a small telescope. Earlier this year, there were two other moon-Pleiades encounters. On the evening of January 9th, an 82%waxing gibbous moon temporarily hid the Pleiades for parts of the U.S., Canada and Central America and then during the overnight hours of February 5-6, a 61% waxing gibbous moon passed in front of the cluster. If you caught one, or both of the first two events (or if you didn't), make a note on your calendar to watch this final moon-Pleiades rendezvous of the year. In this upcoming case, you will either have to stay up through the night (to await moonrise, which will occur around 1:00 a.m. local daylight time) or set your alarm for the predawn morning hours. In addition, since the moon will be a lovely waning crescent, as opposed to a waxing gibbous in January and February, stars will disappear first along the bright lunar crescent. You'll need at least a small telescope, for binoculars probably won't be enough for following stars in the final minutes or seconds as the moon's glare, sunlit edge creeps up to them. But practically any telescope will magnify enough to do the trick. Use 50x magnification, perhaps more if your scope has a solid mount that allows easy tracking. Stars will reappear about an hour later from behind the moon's dark limb in dramatic fashion: appearing to suddenly "pop-on" as if someone threw a switch. Here, binoculars should do fine, especially if you mount them on a tripod, provided you're watching at exactly the right moment. In Canada's Maritime Provinces and the northeastern U.S., advancing morning twilight will be an issue, since the eastern sky will be brightening as the moon approaches the Pleiades. As a result, the disappearance of some stars will not be visible because the sky will be too bright. Nonetheless, the view in binoculars of the crescent moon sitting to the upper right of the star cluster will still make for a very pretty sight. Farther west, the sky will be darker, but the moon and the Pleiades will be lower. This will be especially true for the far-western states and the Canadian province of British Columbia; therefore, a clear and unobstructed view toward the east-northeast is recommended. Below are two timetables giving local circumstances for the disappearance and reappearance of the four brightest members of the Pleiades that will be occulted. The information is based in part on data generated by the International Occultation Timers Association (IOTA) and is valid for fourteen U.S., two Canadian and one Mexican city. Keep in mind, however, that many other stars not listed here will also be occulted. If the disappearance or reappearance of a star takes place during dawn twilight, the time is provided in italic font. Also, take note that if the disappearance or reappearance of a star occurs near or soon after the start of civil twilight (roughly 40 minutes before sunrise), it is assumed that the sky would probably be too bright to easily see it. In addition, the moon might miss the star entirely. In both such cases, the time is omitted. All times are in local civil time. Location Electra Alcyone Atlas Maia Los Angeles —— 2:21 a.m. —— —— Seattle 2:03 am. 2:39 a.m. 3:16 a.m. —— Tucson —— 2:18 a.m. —— 2:07 a.m. Denver 2:35 a.m. 3:27 a.m. —— —— Helena 2:52 a.m. 3:36 a.m. 4:19 a.m. —— Monterrey 2:13 a.m. 3:28 a.m. —— 2:44 a.m. Austin 3:17 a.m. 4:26 a.m. —— 3:51 a.m. Kansas City 3:30 a.m. 4:31 a.m. —— 4:10 a.m. Winnipeg 3:50 a.m. 4:43 a.m. —— —- N. Orleans 3:16 a.m. —— —— 3:48 a.m. Chicago 3:33 a.m. 4:41 a.m. —— 4:12 a.m. Atlanta 4:21 a.m. —— —— 4:54 a.m. Miami 4:15 a.m. —— —— 4:42 a.m. Washington 4:30 a.m. —— —— 5:05 a.m. New York 4:35 a.m. —— —— —— Boston 4:39 a.m. —— —— —— Montreal 4:42 a.m. —— —— —— Location Electra Alcyone Atlas Maia Los Angeles 2:15 a.m. 3:10 a.m. —— —— Seattle 2:22 a.m. 3:31 a.m. 4:01 a.m. —— Tucson 2:13 a.m. 3:04 a.m. —— 2:27 a.m. Denver 3:21 a.m. 4:19 a.m. —— —— Helena 3:26 a.m. 4:31 a.m. 4:56 a.m. —— Monterrey 3:05 a.m. 3:35 a.m. —— 3:33 a.m. Austin 4:11 a.m. 4:51 a.m. —— 4:38 a.m. Kansas City 4:24 a.m. 5:16 a.m. —— 4:46 a.m. Winnipeg 4:37 a.m. —— —— —— N. Orleans 4:11 a.m. —— —— 4:43 a.m. Chicago 4:31 a.m. —— —— 4:57 a.m. Atlanta 5:18 a.m. —— —— 5:52 a.m. Miami 5:03 a.m. —— —— 5:44 a.m. Washington —- —— —— —— New York —— —— —— —— Boston —— —— —— —— Montreal —— —— —— —— Specific times and zones of visibility Courtesy of IOTA, detailed prediction pages are available for each of the four brightest stars — Alcyone, Atlas, Electra, and Maia. These include Universal Time (UT) disappearance and reappearance data, as well as Mercator maps showing where each occultation will be visible. For example, from St. Louis, Missouri (in Central Daylight Time, UTC–5), Maia will disappear at 4:06 a.m. CDT and reappear at 4:51 a.m. CDT. At the moment of reappearance, the sun will be about 11 degrees below the horizon, meaning Maia should reappear in a twilight sky. TOP TELESCOPE PICK Want to see the moon and Pleiades together? The Celestron NexStar 8SE is ideal for beginners wanting quality, reliable and quick views of celestial objects. For a more in-depth look at our Celestron NexStar 8SE review. In addition to the timetable, a world map (Mercator projection) is provided, showing the region where the occultation will be visible. The boundaries are in different colors. The Cyan boundaries show the curves of the occultation disappearance or reappearance at moonrise or moonset. A continuous white line marks the nighttime northern and southern limits of the occultation. A continuous blue line denotes the occultation limits occurring during twilight, while a dotted red line depicts the occultation limits occurring in daylight. For Alcyone, the occultation takes place over much of the western U.S. For Atlas, visibility occurs over the northwest U.S., western Canada and Alaska. For Electra, visibility will be over much of the U.S. and Canada, while the occultation of Maia will be visible primarily over the central and southern U.S. and Mexico. Joe Rao serves as an instructor and guest lecturer at New York's Hayden Planetarium. He writes about astronomy for Natural History magazine, Sky and Telescope and other publications.
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Science
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Mount Thor: The mountain with Earth's longest vertical drop
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. QUICK FACTS Name: Mount Thor Location: Baffin Island, Nunavut, Canada Coordinates: 66.53333154734997, -65.31666661096878 Why it's incredible: Mount Thor is home to Earth's largest vertical drop. Mount Thor is a remote mountain in Canada with the largest vertical drop in the world. The mountain is just under 5,500 feet (1,675 meters) tall — but its most striking feature is its west face, which is so steep that it actually curves back on itself. An object falling from the top of Mount Thor's western cliff would plummet 4,100 feet (1,250 m) before hitting anything. If a human were to jump off the summit and not deploy a parachute, they would remain in the air for a terrifying 26 seconds. Mount Thor's west face has an average angle of 105 degrees, which means that the mountain has an overhang of 15 degrees. The western face is, as a Facebook post put it, "steeper than vertical" — making the mountain look like it was cleaved unevenly in half. Mount Thor is named after the Norse god of thunder. It is located on Baffin Island, the largest island in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Related: Savonoski Crater: The mysterious, perfectly round hole in Alaska that scientists can't explain MORE INCREDIBLE PLACES —Mount Washington: Home to 'the world's worst weather' with record wind speeds of 231 mph —North America's 'broken heart': The billion-year-old scar from when the continent nearly ripped apart —Mount Roraima: The 'lost world' isolated for millions of years that Indigenous people call the 'house of the gods' The mountain sits on the eastern edge of the Canadian Shield, a massive geological formation with rocks that are at least 1 billion years old. But the peak belongs to the Arctic Cordillera mountain range, which stretches from Ellesmere Island to Labrador. Mount Thor is made of solid granite that formed between 3.5 billion and 570 million years ago. The mountain was carved over millennia by glaciers, whose repeated advance and retreat between 18,000 and 1,500 years ago eroded the west face into the C-shape we see today. Despite its remote location, Mount Thor is a popular destination for rock climbers. American astrophysicist Lyman Spitzer and his mountaineering partner Donald Morton made the first recorded ascent of Mount Thor in 1965, but the first ascent of the mountain's west face wasn't until 1985 — and that took 33 days. Discover more incredible places, where we highlight the fantastic history and science behind some of the most dramatic landscapes on Earth. Solve the daily Crossword
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4 days ago
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New Windows 11 update fails to install for some, and I'm hardly surprised at that – but some other reported bugs sound more worrying
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. A new update for Windows 11 24H2 is failing to install for some While this has happened before, reports seem more prevalent with the July update There are also other concerns such as overheating issues and buggy mouse behavior Windows 11's latest update (for version 24H2) is refusing to install for some folks – which isn't a new problem – and there are scattered reports of other concerning issues with the July update. Windows Latest reports that it suffered an installation failure itself, whereby the update appeared to work, but upon rebooting to finish, Windows 11 ending up rolling back the upgrade (with an error). Numerous readers of the tech site have echoed that experience, with the July update either failing completely for them (not even reaching the reboot phase) or getting stuck before hitting 100%. There are other reports of the update actually freezing the PC, requiring a hard reset, too. On top of that, there are multiple complaints on Reddit about installation failures, all of which are happening with the usual weird and unhelpful error codes (such as '0x8007371b' to pick an example, which means precisely nothing – and Googling won't help either). In that Reddit thread, there are also various reports of all kinds of issues, some of which may only be affecting individual users – and which may be outliers with their system – but there are a few notable bugs that pop up repeatedly. They include a user's mouse stuttering after applying the update – or the "mouse blinking the loading icon every two seconds" – as well as general performance issues, and crackling audio in a couple of cases. Some folks are also encountering heat-related issues, with one complaint that the update made a Snapdragon X Plus laptop run hotter. Another person said their notebook is also struggling with heat and high GPU usage, with others observed high CPU temperatures. There are also a fair few problems reported with USB peripherals and docks. Finally, Microsoft said an issue with the Windows 11 firewall whereby it's logging errors that are actually false, has been resolved with the July update, but a lot of users are stating that it hasn't. So, if you see firewall-related errors at all, just ignore them. The good thing is this is a completely harmless bug, and nothing is actually amiss with the system firewall. The error messages themselves are the errors, ironically. Analysis: keep a watchful eye on these bugs While complaints about updates failing aren't uncommon, there appear to be more than normal with this most recent update for Windows 11. Okay, so the odds are very much that you won't run into this bug, and these are likely still relatively isolated incidents in the bigger picture. However, the fact that these issues seem more prevalent than usual is still a red flag. If you encounter such an installation failure, you can try to manually install the July update instead (from the Microsoft Update Catalog). I wouldn't recommend that for anybody but more tech-savvy Windows 11 users, mind – for most folks, I would just suggest you wait until the installation problems are ironed out by Microsoft. Yes, you will be without the latest security patches for a while, which isn't ideal – so bear that in mind and be extra safe in terms of your browsing (or other computing) habits. (There's no guarantee a manual install will work, either, it's worth remembering – some on Reddit have observed that only a full reinstallation of Windows 11 did the trick for them, which is obviously a very drastic step to take. An in-place upgrade is another option explained in that post, though again this is only for the more technically confident). The promised firewall solution – which doesn't work – is an odd one, though a fix failing to actually resolve a bug as intended is hardly a first for Microsoft. Still, it isn't an actual problem, as noted. Some of the overheating issues are far more worrying, but as reports are still relatively thin on the ground, we can't jump to conclusions just yet. These are definitely worth monitoring, though, to see if more complaints along these lines pop up. Ditto with the erratic mouse behavior and glitches with USB peripherals. You might also like... No, Windows 11 PCs aren't 'up to 2.3x faster' than Windows 10 devices, as Microsoft suggests – here's why that's an outlandish claim Windows 11 desktop PCs could soon get Copilot+ AI powers, as Intel might radically switch tactics with next-gen CPUs macOS Tahoe 26: here's everything you need to know about all the new features
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4 days ago
- Science
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Scientists achieve 'magic state' quantum computing breakthrough 20 years in the making — quantum computers can never be truly useful without it
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. In a world first, scientists have demonstrated an enigmatic phenomenon in quantum computing that could pave the way for fault-tolerant machines that are far more powerful than any supercomputer. The process, called "magic state distillation," was first proposed 20 years ago, but its use in logical qubits has eluded scientists ever since. It has long been considered crucial for producing the high-quality resources, known as "magic states," needed to fulfill the full potential of quantum computers. Magic states are quantum states prepared in advance, which are then consumed as resources by the most complex quantum algorithms. Without these resources, quantum computers cannot tap into the strange laws of quantum mechanics to process information in parallel. Magic state distillation, meanwhile, is a filtering process by which the highest quality magic states are "purified" so they can be utilized by the most complex quantum algorithms. This process has so far been possible on plain, error-prone physical qubits but not on logical qubits — groups of physical qubits that share the same data and are configured to detect and correct the errors that frequently disrupt quantum computing operations. Because magic state distillation in logical qubits has not so far been possible, quantum computers that use logical qubits have not been theoretically able to outpace classical machines. Related: What is quantum superposition and what does it mean for quantum computing? Now, however, scientists with QuEra say they have demonstrated magic state distillation in practice for the first time on logical qubits. They outlined their findings in a new study published July 14 in the journal Nature. "Quantum computers would not be able to fulfill their promise without this process of magic state distillation. It's a required milestone." Yuval Boger, chief commercial officer at QuEra, told Live Science in an interview. Boger was not personally involved in the research. The path to fault-tolerant quantum computing Quantum computers use qubits as their building blocks, and they use quantum logic — the set of rules and operations that govern how quantum information is processed — to run algorithms and process data. But the challenge is running incredibly complex algorithms while maintaining incredibly low error rates. The trouble is that physical qubits are inherently "noisy," which means calculations are often disrupted by factors like temperature changes and electromagnetic radiation. That's why so much research has centered on quantum error correction (QEC). Reducing errors — which occur at a rate of 1 in 1,000 in qubits versus 1 in 1 million, million in conventional bits — prevents disruptions and enables calculations to happen at pace. That's where logical qubits come in. "For quantum computers to be useful, they need to run fairly long and sophisticated calculations. If the error rate is too high, then this calculation quickly turns into mush or to useless data," study lead author of the study Sergio Cantu, vice president of quantum systems at QuEra, told Live Science in an interview. "The entire goal of error correction is to lower this error rate so you could do a million calculations safely." Logical qubits are collections of entangled physical qubits that share the same information and are based on the principle of redundancy. If one or more physical qubits in a logical qubit fail, the calculation isn't disrupted because the information exists elsewhere. But logical qubits are extremely limited, the scientists said, because the error-correction codes applied to them can only run "Clifford gates" — basic operations in quantum circuits. These operations are foundational to quantum circuits, but they're so basic that they can be simulated on any supercomputer. Only by tapping into high-quality magic states can scientists run "non-Clifford gates" and engage in true parallel processing. But generating these is extremely resource-intensive and expensive, and has thus far been unachievable in logical qubits. In essence, relying on magic state distillation in physical qubits alone would never lead to quantum advantage. For that, we need to distill magic states in logical qubits directly. Magic states pave the way for capabilities beyond supercomputing "Magic states allow us to expand the number and the type of operations that we can do. So practically, any quantum algorithm that's of value would require magic states," Cantu said. Generating magic states in physical qubits, as we have been doing, is a mixed bag — there are low-quality and high-quality magic states — and they need to be refined. Only then, can they fuel the most powerful programs and quantum algorithms. In the study, using the Gemini neutral-atom quantum computer, the scientists distilled five imperfect magic states into a single, cleaner magic state. They performed this separately on a Distance-3 and a Distance-5 logical qubit, demonstrating that it scales with the quality of the logical qubit. "A greater distance means better logical qubits. A Distance-2, for instance, means that you can detect an error but not correct it. Distance-3 means that you can detect and correct a single error. Distance-5 would mean that you can detect and correct up to two errors, and so on, and so on," Boger explained. "So the greater the distance, the higher fidelity of the qubit is — and we liken it to distilling crude oil into a jet fuel." RELATED STORIES —Small, room-temperature quantum computers that use light on the horizon after breakthrough, scientists say —'Quantum AI' algorithms already outpace the fastest supercomputers, study says —Scientists forge path to the first million-qubit processor for quantum computers after 'decade in the making' breakthrough As a result of the distillation process, the fidelity of the final magic state exceeded that of any input. This proved that fault-tolerant magic state distillation worked in practice, the scientists said. This means that a quantum computer that uses both logical qubits and high-quality magic states to run non-Clifford gates is now possible. "We're seeing sort of a shift from a few years ago," Boger said. "The challenge was: can quantum computers be built at all? Then it wasL can errors be detected and corrected? Us and Google and others have shown that, yes, that can be done. Now it's about: can we make these computers truly useful? And to make one computer truly useful, other than making them larger, you want them to be able to run programs that cannot be simulated on classical computers."
