
A radio signal from the beginning of the universe could reveal how everything 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.
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The Independent
12 minutes ago
- The Independent
Is a solar eclipse happening in August? Yes, but not next month
Reports of a solar eclipse on 2 August have been spreading across social media, supported by stories in several news outlets. But while excitement has centred on the celestial spectacle taking place next month, hopeful sky gazers will actually have to wait another two years to witness it. The total solar eclipse will see the Moon pass directly in front of the Sun in 2027, casting a shadow across large parts of Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. Another total solar eclipse will happen before that, on 12 August 2026, passing over Western Europe. The path of totality for the 2027 eclipse, where the Sun will be completely blocked from view, begins in the North Atlantic before arcing over the Mediterranean and finishing in the Indian Ocean. Luxor in Egypt sits in the middle of the path, which will see the longest totality of six minutes and 23 seconds. The last time a totality lasted this long on land was in 1991 – and the next time will not be until the year 2114. Nasa advises anyone hoping to see the solar eclipse to choose a viewing location based on the weather, rather than how close it is to the path of totality. 'It's much more important to watch the weather forecasts a day or two before the eclipse and choose a location with the best chance of a cloud-free sky during the eclipse,' the US space agency wrote in a blog post. 'Good weather is the key to successful eclipse viewing - better to see a shorter eclipse from clear sky that a longer eclipse under clouds.' Anyone not directly under the path of totality will still be able to see a partial eclipse on 2 August 2027, which will be visible from as far north as Iceland and as far south as Madagascar.


The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
Metal bottle caps ‘surprising' source of microplastic contamination, study finds
Metal bottle caps can be a significant source of microplastic contamination in beverages, a new peer-reviewed study by France's food safety agency finds. Researchers compared microplastic levels in beer, water, wine and soft drinks, and found the substance in all samples, but liquid in glass jars showed the highest levels. The surprising source of the contamination – a polyester-based paint on the glass bottles' metal caps. The findings were 'very surprising', said Alexandre Dehaut, a study co-author with the French agency for food, environmental and occupational health and safety. 'Caps were suspected to be the main source of contamination, as the majority of particles isolated in beverages were identical to the color of caps and shared the composition of the outer paint,' the authors wrote in the study. Microplastics are tiny bits of plastic either intentionally added to consumer goods, or that are products of larger plastics breaking down. The particles contain any number of 16,000 plastic chemicals, of which thousands, such as BPA, phthalates and Pfas, present serious health risks. The substance has been found throughout the human body, and is a neurotoxicant that can cross the placental and brain barriers. It is linked to an increased risk of heart attack and cancer. Diet is thought to be a main exposure route – testing in recent years has consistently identified microplastics in a range of foods and beverages, and packaging is one source of contamination. Researchers in the new study checked beverages in water, glass, metal, and brick bottles, and found microplastics in all. The levels in the glass bottles were highest – about 50 times higher than the plastic. The glass bottles used metal caps, while the plastic bottles came with plastic caps. The plastic caps did not use the same kind of paint as the metal caps, researchers noted. Dehaut said they were led to the paint because the microplastic fragments they found in the beverages seemed to match the paint. Closer scrutiny revealed the microplastics matched material, color and polymeric composition of the paint lining the outside of the caps. It appears the bottle caps are stored post production with thousands of other caps in bags or boxes, and those scrape each other as they are jostled, Dehaut noted. Once the caps are sealed to the bottles, the bits of plastic from the scratches end up in the beverage. The authors were able to see the tiny scrapes and scratches when they placed the caps under a microscope. Sign up to Detox Your Kitchen A seven-week expert course to help you avoid chemicals in your food and groceries. after newsletter promotion Researchers also found that the problem may be easy to solve – the microplastic can be removed from the caps by rinsing and blowing them dry at the end of the manufacturing process. However, Dehaut said the strategy worked in the lab, but it may be more difficult to do on an industrial scale. They also found microplastics that did not come from the paint, meaning the contamination occurred somewhere in the production process, or was in the product's water. Though the dangers of microplastics are coming into sharper focus, the health impacts of those that researchers found in the bottles are unclear because there's so much variation in the type of plastic, and they did not run risk assessments, Dehaut said. Consumers could avoid metal bottle caps. Dehaut said there is little people can do at home about the contamination because the microplastics are already in the beverages. He said the findings point to the need to investigate and avoid contamination further upstream during the production process. 'We should investigate such things, but don't be paranoid,' Dehaut said.


Daily Mail
3 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Watch the birth of a new PLANET: Incredible images show a distant world sculpting spirals of dust around it
Astronomers have captured incredible images of the birth of a distant planet. The planet orbits the star HD 135344B, which is located around 440 light–years from Earth. The stunning snaps show the planet beginning to sculpt spirals of dust and gas around its home star. The scientists who made the discovery say that the planet is likely twice the size of Jupiter and is as far from its star as Neptune is from the Sun. Planets are formed from spinning halos of hot material known as protoplanetary discs, which form around very young stars. As planets start to form, they 'sweep' their orbits to produce intricate patterns of rings, gaps, and spirals in the dust. Although astronomers have spotted these patterns in the past, this is the first time anyone has caught one of these planetary sculptures in the act. Lead author Francesco Maio, a doctoral researcher at the University of Florence, says: 'We will never witness the formation of Earth, but here, around a young star 440 light–years away, we may be watching a planet come into existence in real time.' The star HD 135344B has a distinctive spiral pattern, which astronomers believe is caused by a young planet starting to disturb the cloud of gas and dust which spins around young stars The European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (VLT) first spotted the spiral patterns around HD 135344B back in 2016. However, the equipment used in those early studies wasn't sensitive enough to confirm whether there was a protoplanet – the first stage of planetary formation – within the rings. In a new study, published today in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics, researchers have used the VLT's new Enhanced Resolution Imager and Spectrograph (ERIS) to pinpoint the planet's likely location. Mr Maio and his co–authors spotted a 'planet candidate' – something strongly believed to be a planet – right at the base of one of the disc's spiral arms. If these spirals were caused by a planet disturbing the ring of dust, that is exactly where astronomers would expect the planet to be. What makes these observations so special is that the astronomers were actually able to capture light coming directly from the planet itself. This is a significant piece of evidence in favour of the theory that gaps and rings in protoplanetary disks around other stars are hiding protoplanets of their own. Mr Maio says: 'What makes this detection potentially a turning point is that, unlike many previous observations, we are able to directly detect the signal of the protoplanet, which is still highly embedded in the disc. These observations could also help shed light on how the planets in our own solar system formed over four billion years ago. At the same time, a second group of researchers have used ERIS to spot another potential planet forming around another young, distant star. V960 Mon sits roughly 5,000 light years from Earth and is believed to be extremely young. When astronomers first found captured images of it in 2023, they found that the star was spitting out arms of gas and dust wider than our entire Milky Way. In this new study, astronomers found that the spiral arms are 'fragmenting' in a way that suggests a process known as 'gravitational instability' is at play. Planets normally form like snowballs rolling down a hill, as matter collides and clumps together into ever bigger lumps – this is known as core accretion. But sometimes, when the gas and dust are cooler and further from the host star, matter will slowly pull itself together under gravity and form clumps that collapse into the core of a planet. Scientists believe this is how gas giants like Jupiter and Saturn typically form. Researchers have also spotted an object around the star V960 Mons. They believe this may be a planet or brown dwarf forming through a process called gravitational instability. This would be the first time that anyone has seen this process in action If this is what has caused the fragmentation around V960 Mons, it would be the first time that anyone has ever seen a planet forming via gravitational instability. However, astronomers now say that something even stranger could be lurking around V960 Mons. The researchers believe that the object could be a 'brown dwarf', an object bigger than a planet that didn't gain enough mass to shine as a star. These giant planets can be between 13 and 80 times the size of Jupiter and typically orbit far out from their companion stars. Likewise, no one has yet captured the exact moment that one of these mysterious objects comes into existence. Planets are formed from a cloud of dust and gas within a nebula According to our current understanding, a star and its planets form out of a collapsing cloud of dust and gas within a larger cloud called a nebula. As gravity pulls material in the collapsing cloud closer together, the centre of the cloud gets more and more compressed and, in turn, gets hotter. This dense, hot core becomes the kernel of a new star. Meanwhile, inherent motions within the collapsing cloud cause it to churn. As the cloud gets exceedingly compressed, much of the cloud begins rotating in the same direction. The rotating cloud eventually flattens into a disk that gets thinner as it spins, kind of like a spinning clump of dough flattening into the shape of a pizza.