InformerNow

Pulsars may be revealing that extremely low-frequency gravitational waves are moving through the universe. Observations reported in 2023 by international pulsar timing array collaborations could be caused by either a background of overlapping gravitational waves from countless distant sources or a single pair of nearby supermassive black holes orbiting each other. To determine which explanation…

What do you do when you encounter a strange astronomical event, a collection of data from planets thousands of light-years away, and models that can’t quite explain what you’re seeing? For one astronomer at Northern Arizona University’s Department of Astronomy and Planetary Science, the answer is simple: start building better models. With funding from the…

It rains on the Sun, and scientists at the University of Hawaiʻi Institute for Astronomy (IfA) have finally uncovered the reason why. Unlike the water that falls from clouds on Earth, solar rain takes place in the Sun’s corona, the outermost layer made of intensely hot plasma. This phenomenon involves cooler, heavier blobs of plasma…

Nature follows countless rhythms: the changing of the seasons comes from Earth’s orbit around the Sun, and the steady tick of a clock arises from the back-and-forth swing of its pendulum. These patterns can be described with simple mathematical laws. Yet, order can also appear in a far more surprising way — on its own,…

A new randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trial suggests that a single round of low-dose radiation therapy could offer a safe and effective alternative for people suffering from painful knee osteoarthritis. Participants with mild to moderate knee osteoarthritis experienced notable pain reduction and improved mobility within four months of receiving the treatment. The radiation exposure was only…