This is an artist’s impression of two neutron stars colliding. The smashup between two dense stellar remnants unleashes the energy of 1,000 standard stellar nova explosions. In the aftermath of the collision, a blowtorch jet of radiation is ejected at nearly the speed of light. The jet is directed along a narrow beam confined by powerful magnetic fields. The roaring jet plowed into and swept up material in the surrounding interstellar medium. Credit: Elizabeth Wheatley (STScI)
Over 299,000,000 meters a second — an ultra-fast jet blasting from a star crash.
Neutron stars are the surviving “trash-compacted” cores of massive stars that exploded. Despite weighing more than our Sun, they would fit inside New York City. At this unimaginable density, a single teaspoon of surface material would weigh at least 4 billion tons on Earth.
If that doesn’t make your mind spin, just imagine what happens when two of these condensed cannon balls collide head-on. They ripple the very fabric of time and space in a phenomenon called
The explosive event, named GW170817, was observed in August 2017. The blast released energy comparable to that of a supernova explosion. It was the first combined detection of gravitational waves and gamma radiation from a
Two neutron stars, the surviving cores of massive stars that exploded, collided sending a ripple through the fabric of time and space in a phenomenon called gravitational waves. In the aftermath, a blowtorch jet of radiation was ejected at nearly the speed of light, slamming into the material surrounding the obliterated pair. Astronomers used Hubble to measure the motion of a blob of material the jet slammed into. Credit:
Just two days later, scientists quickly aimed Hubble toward the explosion’s location. The neutron stars collapsed into a
The authors used Hubble data together with data from ESA’s (the European Space Agency) Gaia satellite, in addition to VLBI, to achieve extreme precision. “It took months of careful analysis of the data to make this measurement,” said Jay Anderson of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland.
By combining the different observations, they were able to pinpoint the explosion site. The Hubble measurement showed the jet was moving at an apparent velocity of seven times the speed of light. The radio observations show the jet later decelerated to an apparent speed of four times faster than the speed of light.
In reality, nothing can exceed the speed of light, so this “superluminal” motion is an illusion. Because the jet is approaching Earth at nearly the speed of light, the light it emits at a later time has a shorter distance to go. In essence, the jet is chasing its own light. In actuality, more time has passed between the jet’s emission of the light than the observer thinks. This causes the object’s velocity to be overestimated – in this case seemingly exceeding the speed of light.
“Our result indicates that the jet was moving at least at 99.97% the speed of light when it was launched,” said Wenbin Lu of the University of California, Berkeley.
The Hubble measurements, combined with the VLBI measurements, announced in 2018, greatly strengthen the long-presumed connection between neutron star mergers and short-duration gamma-ray bursts. That connection requires a fast-moving jet to emerge, which has now been measured in GW170817.
This work paves the way for more precision studies of neutron star mergers, detected by the
A magnitude 5.6 earthquake hit western Nepal on Wednesday morning local time, killing at least sixpeople, according to local officials.
The epicenter of the quake was in Seti Zone, at a depth of 15.7 kilometers (9.7 miles), according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS). It was 21 kilometers east of Dipayal, a municipality of Nepal’s far western Doti district, the USGS said.
At least sixpeople have died and five are injured in the Purbichauki rural municipality of Doti district, police deputy superintendent Bhola Bhatta told CNN.
Three houses were completely destroyed in the earthquake, he said, adding that a search and rescue operation was underway.
Nepal’s Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba expressed condolences Wednesday on Twitter to the families of those killed.
“I have instructed the relevant agencies to arrange immediate and proper treatment of the injured and the victims in the relief and rescue (efforts) in the affected areas,” he wrote.
Tremors were felt as far as the Indian capital New Delhi, and lasted for about 10 seconds.
Authorities are not expecting large numbers of casualties as the earthquake’s epicenter appeared to be in the sparsely populated area around Khaptad National Park, Bhatta said.
In 2015, a 7.8-magnitude earthquake rocked Nepal, killing nearly 9,000 people and flattening homes and buildings.
The landlocked country is where the tectonic plates of India and Eurasia collide, creating the Himalayas and the Tibetan plateau, and making Nepal vulnerable to earthquakes.
Micron Technology’s solid-state drive for data center customers is presented at a product launch event in San Francisco, U.S., October 24, 2019. REUTERS/Stephen Nellis/File Photo
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Aug 9 (Reuters) – Micron Technology (MU.O) cut its current-quarter revenue forecast on Tuesday and warned of a negative free cash flow in the coming three months as customer inventories pile up amid waning demand for chips used in PCs and smartphones.
The dismal forecast comes a day after Nvidia (NVDA.O) warned of weakness in its gaming business, accentuating fears of the first chip industry downturn since 2019.
That sent Micron’s shares and the Philadelphia SE Semiconductor index (.SOX) down 5.7% and 4.3%, as investors looked past U.S. President Joe Biden signing a landmark bill for $52.7 billion in subsidies for semiconductor production and research. Micron Chief Executive Sanjay Mehrotra was among the attendees at the signing. read more
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Micron also announced a $40 billion investment in memory chip manufacturing in the United States, but said capital expenditure was expected to decrease in fiscal 2023 from 2022.
Fourth-quarter revenue is likely to come in at or below the low end of the company’s prior forecast. Its earlier range of $6.8 billion to $7.6 billion had fallen short of Wall Street targets in June. read more
Micron, which last reported negative free cash flow in 2020 during the early days of the pandemic, warned it could see significant sequential declines in revenue and margins in its first quarter due to a fall in shipments.
Surging prices have forced consumers to curb their spending on electronic gadgets, prompting production revaluations at companies sitting on excess inventory of chips and other components in anticipation of strong post-pandemic demand.
Shipments of PCs are expected to drop 9.5% this year, according to IT research firm Gartner.
That, and cooling demand for smartphones, has drawn demand-related warnings from Micron and others including Intel (INTC.O), Advanced Micro Devices (AMD.O), Qualcomm (QCOM.O) and Nvidia Corp (NVDA.O).
Micron is seeing cloud, industrial and automotive customers also make “inventory adjustments” due to macro uncertainty, finance chief Mark Murphy said at the Keybanc Technology Leadership forum on Tuesday.
“It’s a challenging setup for this quarter.”
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Reporting by Chavi Mehta in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D’Silva and Devika Syamnath
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
U.S. President Joe Biden delivers remarks at Yellowjacket Union during his visit to the University of Wisconsin-Superior, in Superior, Wisconsin, U.S. March 2, 2022. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
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WASHINGTON, March 4 (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden meets his Finnish counterpart Sauli Niinistö at the White House on Friday as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has roused fresh concern by Vladimir Putin’s other European neighbors.
The talks come as the Russian president’s more than week-long invasion of Ukraine has primed discussions in Finland over a closer alliance with NATO, with which it already cooperates but is not a member. Biden and Niinistö have spoken to each other twice in the past few months.
Finns have traditionally been wary of Russia, given the Nordic country’s shared 833-mile (1340-km) border and a history of two wars between 1939 and 1944 that cost Finland territory.
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But Finland, a European Union member which was part of the Swedish kingdom until 1809 and then was under Russia’s control until gaining independence in 1917, has also sought to preserve friendly relations with Moscow.
Russia does not want Finland to join NATO, but Niinistö has said the country retains the right to apply for membership. Ukraine’s government maintained its right to do so as well prior to Russia’s invasion.
Biden and Niinistö “will discuss the U.S.-Finnish defense relationship, which is very strong and in fact complements Finland’s close partnership with NATO,” White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters in previewing the visit.
The Finnish public is growing fonder of the idea of joining NATO. A poll by public broadcaster Yle last Monday said 53% of Finns support joining, compared to 28% when the Helsingin Sanomat newspaper asked the question in late January. read more
Finland’s government has sought to calm campaigns to join the U.S.-led defense bloc. Niinistö said in a statement that people should “keep a cool head and assess carefully the impact of the changes that have already taken place and of those that might still happen.”
Finland joined other countries on Thursday in boycotting Arctic Council meetings that Russia planned to host in May. read more
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Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt; Editing by Leslie Adler
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
The early afternoon tremor was centered about 4.3 miles northwest of Medford, Oklahoma. The USGS gave the quake a “V” rating on its shake map, indicating “moderate” shaking and “very light” damage.
A dispatcher at the Medford Police Department told CNN they “certainly felt the earthquake,” but had not received any reports of damage nor injuries.
Larger cities such as Oklahoma City, Tulsa, and Wichita, Kansas, felt “weak” shaking, according to USGS.
The Tulsa Fire Department told CNN they had received no calls of damage nor injuries so far. A spokesperson for the Wichita Police Department also said they had received no reports of damages or injuries and felt “nothing significant.”
CNN has reached out to the USGS and multiple public safety departments for further information on potential impacts.
A storage facility of oil giant ADNOC near the airport in the capital of the United Arab Emirates, Abu Dhabi, on Jan. 17, 2022.
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DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — The United Arab Emirates has vowed to retaliate against Houthi militants for a deadly attack on its capital Abu Dhabi on Monday that killed three people, as fresh tensions in the region helped push oil prices to their highest level in seven years.
“We condemn the Houthi militia’s targeting of civilian areas and facilities on UAE soil today,” the UAE’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement following the attacks. “We reiterate that those responsible for this unlawful targeting of our country will be held accountable.”
The ministry added that the UAE “reserves the right to respond to these terrorist attacks and criminal escalation.”
International benchmark Brent crude futures rose 1.6% to $87.89 a barrel on Tuesday morning, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate futures jumped more than 2% to hit $85.56 during early morning deals. Both oil contracts notched their highest level since Oct. 2014 after a subdued trading day on Monday as U.S. markets were closed for a public holiday.
Energy analysts have attributed oil’s bullish run over recent weeks to signs of tightness in the market and persistent worries of a Russian incursion into Ukraine. The rising threat of a further deterioration in the Middle East’s security climate has provided further support to oil prices, prompting some to forecast a return to triple digits.
Most significant attack on UAE
Yemen’s Houthi rebels claimed responsibility for the attack, which took place Monday morning and caused fires that resulted in three petroleum tanker explosions near state oil firm ADNOC’s storage facilities. The fires began in the industrial area of Musaffah and at a construction site near Abu Dhabi International Airport in the UAE capital, Abu Dhabi police said in a statement, adding that they believe the attack was carried out by drones.
One Pakistani and two Indian nationals died as a result of the attacks. Six other people were injured and are being treated for mild and medium injuries, authorities said Monday.
Attacks by Houthi rebels — with whom the UAE has been at war in Yemen since a Saudi-led coalition began bombing the country in 2015 — have been common in Saudi Arabia, but this is the most significant strike by Houthis in the UAE, and is the first in the country since 2018.
The UAE largely withdrew from the Yemen conflict in 2019, but continues to support forces in the country fighting the Houthis, who receive financial and military backing from Iran.
The UAE is the third-largest oil producing member of OPEC, and ADNOC — the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company — controls oil operations in Abu Dhabi, home to the vast majority of the state’s crude. The UAE is the world’s seventh-biggest oil producer, pumping just over 4 million barrels per day.
So much for the Rams proving in prime time that they belong atop the list of Super Bowl contenders. Los Angeles played host to “Sunday Night Football” in Week 9, but Sunday’s prime-time affair belonged almost exclusively to the visiting Titans. While Ryan Tannehill and an offense featuring Adrian Peterson among fill-ins for the injured Derrick Henry did not always explode, Tennessee’s defense definitely did, with Jeffery Simmons and Co. disrupting Matthew Stafford early and often to headline a 28-16 rout at SoFi Stadium.
Tennessee has now won five straight to improve to 7-2, perhaps solidifying itself as the new favorite in the AFC. The Rams, meanwhile, are now 7-2 and officially behind the red-hot Cardinals in the NFC West.
Here are some immediate takeaways from Sunday night’s big Titans win:
Why the Titans won
On a night that started feisty and physical on both sides, they were opportunistic amid the early punches: after a deep-ball pick prematurely ended their first drive, they held the Rams to a field goal and then, a few series later, forced Stafford into back-to-back interceptions deep in his own territory. Simmons wrecked things up front, rattling Stafford out of the gate, while Denico Autry and Harold Landry also stepped up to collapse the pocket. The front-seven heat took pressure off a secondary that had surprisingly little trouble containing Cooper Kupp and Co. for much of the night. And offensively, while Tannehill and their post-Henry running game lacked pizzazz, they successfully grinded it out when they needed to, outmuscling L.A. throughout the evening.
Why the Rams lost
Stafford has been an MVP candidate all year, headlining the Rams’ high-flying attack, but against the Titans, he looked an awful lot like the guy who spent so many years ducking and covering and forcing things in Detroit. His protection was poor, no doubt, with Austin Corbett and the Rams’ interior frequently folding at the will of Simmons and the rest of Mike Vrabel’s front. But the QB wasn’t great himself, either, missing open downfield shots and throwing a pair of really ill-advised passes that ended up giving Tennessee the turnover advantage. Kupp and Robert Woods showed up too late (as did Sean McVay’s fourth-down play-calling), and the run game didn’t really make a difference. Defensively, Aaron Donald and Jalen Ramsey did their usual thing, but penalties and perhaps a shade of indifference left them vulnerable in the final stages of the game, too.
Turning point
As soon as Stafford threw a pick-six, the Titans actually appeared poised to win this. The Rams led 3-0 when Stafford was first picked off, with David Long Jr. nabbing his throw and setting up a quick Geoff Swaim score. Trailing 7-3, though, on the first play of the ensuing drive, he inexplicably fired a short one toward Woods with multiple cover men in the area, and Kevin Byard had no problem returning the pick 24 yards for the score. The 14-3 hole proved too deep to overcome.
Play of the game
It has to be the play in which Stafford got whipped around and pulled a Carson Wentz, gifting a pick to the opponent near his own end zone — a play that defined a night full of Titans-led disruptions:
What’s next
The Titans (7-2) will return home in Week 10 after their big prime-time win, this time to face the Saints (5-3), who just lost a narrow one to the Falcons. The Rams (7-2), meanwhile, will hit the road for an important NFC West showdown with the 49ers (3-5), who just fell to the Cardinals, on “Monday Night Football.”
The quake was widely felt in the Los Angeles area and surrounding cities including Carson, Lomita, and Torrance.
There have been no early reports of injuries or significant damage as of 8 p.m. local time (11 p.m. ET), according to the Los Angeles County Fire Department.
The USGS said the depth of the quake was 8.6 miles (14 kilometers).
LAFD said it was following protocol and was in Earthquake Emergency Mode with fire department vehicles and helicopters patrolling an approximate 470 square-mile jurisdiction to identify any damage or emergency needs.
This is a developing story and will be updated as more information becomes available.
After the American withdrawal from Afghanistan led to a swift takeover by the Taliban this week, Oman’s top religious cleric congratulated the Afghan people on their “victory over the invaders.” But Grand Mufti Ahmed Al-Khalili stopped short of recognizing the Islamist militant group controlling Afghanistan. In fact, he avoided mentioning them at all. The mufti’s ideological contortions — accepting the Taliban presence in Kabul without explicitly acknowledging its authority — are likely to be repeated across the Arab Gulf. Countries including Saudi Arabia, the world’s leading oil exporter, and the United Arab Emirates must now balance the need to develop pragmatic relations with the fundamentalist movement even as they wage their own battles against Islamic extremism.
“The Gulf states are rattled, no doubt about it,” said Fawaz Gerges, Middle Eastern politics professor at the London School of Economics. “This represents a major setback for governments that have turned Islamists into archenemy, such as the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, because it inspires and motivates religious activists worldwide and it shows that they can’t rely on the United States to come to their aid.” Gulf states’ relations with the Taliban will have significant implications for the US, which maintains large military bases in the region and will rely on those nations as an outpost for Afghanistan once its pullout from that country is complete.
The region has changed dramatically since the Taliban held power in Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, when Saudi Arabia and the UAE were among just three countries to recognize the group. Today, the hereditary monarchies of the Middle East largely view any popular Islamic movement as a threat to national security and their own primacy. That applies to militant groups like the Islamic State and al-Qaeda as well as ideological movements calling for a religious democracy, like the Muslim Brotherhood.
The most notable exception is Qatar, which hosted Taliban leaders in exile and helped transform the group into a political actor with a seat at the table. This allowed the US a more consistent path of communication with a once-unreachable adversary. And Doha embraced the role, hoping to raise its profile and make it a more valuable asset to global powers that could protect it. Since the Taliban takeover, Qatar has fielded calls from top diplomats around the world, and its defense minister visited the US defense secretary at the Pentagon on Thursday. The Taliban’s main public face, Abdul Ghani Baradar, met with Qatar’s ruler on Tuesday, shortly before returning to Afghanistan from Doha, where he had been living since 2018. Follow live updates “Qatar has emerged as a key stakeholder in this global discussion with the Taliban and the Americans have been relying on Qatar to deliver the Taliban,” Gerges said. Right now, with the Taliban entrenched in the presidential palace in Kabul, there’s fear in the region — and beyond — that Afghanistan could turn into a magnet for religious extremists again. In the 1980s, waves of Saudi citizens traveled there to fight alongside local militants in a US-funded effort to repel the Soviet Union. The Taliban took control of Kabul in 1996 and under its tutelage Afghanistan became a plotting ground for jihadist attacks in other states, including the kingdom. Afghanistan also still harbors al-Qaeda. A reprise of the group’s bombings in Saudi Arabia in the early 2000s, which struck both Western and Saudi targets, could derail Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s economic transformation plan. “Saudi Arabia hopes that the Taliban and all Afghan parties work to protect security, stability, lives and property,” the kingdom’s Foreign Ministry said in a cautious statement on Monday. The smaller and more vulnerable UAE, which is increasingly casting itself as a regional broker, struck a friendlier tone — even as it took in Afghanistan’s President Ashraf Ghani, who fled the country on Sunday. Anwar Gargash, diplomatic adviser to the UAE president, called newly moderate statements from a Taliban spokesman “encouraging.” “Afghanistan needs good relations with the international community to ensure a prosperous future,” Gargash wrote on Twitter. Amid warming ties, the UAE’s national security adviser met on Wednesday with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose plans to secure Afghanistan’s main international airport after the US pullout unraveled with the Taliban takeover. Erdogan’s Islamist-inspired government has similarly deemed messaging from the Taliban to be positive, while saying it won’t rush to recognize the group’s regime and taking in fleeing Afghan officials. The rapid collapse of the US-supported government is another cause of anxiety in the region. “The resounding message” sent to American partners in the region is that the US “can never be trusted,” Prince Talal Al Faisal, a Saudi businessman and junior royal, wrote on Twitter. A drawing by Saudi political cartoonist Abdullah Jaber depicted the American withdrawal from Afghanistan as a departing airplane pulling the pin out of a grenade — leaving the country behind to explode.
Rattlesnakes increase their rattling rate as potential threats approach, and this abrupt switch to a high-frequency mode makes listeners, including humans, think they’re closer than they actually are, researchers report August 19th in the journal Current Biology.
“Our data show that the acoustic display of rattlesnakes, which has been interpreted for decades as a simple acoustic warning signal about the presence of the snake, is in fact a far more intricate interspecies communication signal,” says senior author Boris Chagnaud at Karl-Franzens-University Graz. “The sudden switch to the high-frequency mode acts as a smart signal fooling the listener about its actual distance to the sound source. The misinterpretation of distance by the listener thereby creates a distance safety margin.”
Rattlesnakes vigorously shake their tails to warn other animals of their presence. Past studies have shown that rattling varies in frequency, but little is known about the behavioral relevance of this phenomenon or what message it sends to listeners. A clue to this mystery came during a visit to an animal facility, where Chagnaud noticed that rattling increased in frequency when he approached rattlesnakes but decreased when he walked away.
This photo shows a Western diamondback rattlesnake ready to rattle. Credit: Tobias Kohl
Based on this simple observation, Chagnaud and his team conducted experiments in which objects appeared to move toward rattlesnakes. One object they used was a human-like torso, and another was a looming black disk that seemed to move closer by increasing in size. As the potential threats approached, the rattling rate increased to approximately 40 Hz and then abruptly switched to an even higher frequency range, between 60 and 100 Hz.
Additional results showed that rattlesnakes adapt their rattling rate in response to the approach velocity of an object rather than its size. “In real life, rattlesnakes make use of additional vibrational and infrared signals to detect approaching mammals, so we would expect the rattling responses to be even more robust,” Chagnaud says.
To test how this change in rattling rate is perceived by others, the researchers designed a virtual reality environment in which 11 participants were moved through a grassland toward a hidden snake. Its rattling rate increased as the humans approached and suddenly jumped to 70 Hz at a virtual distance of 4 meters. The listeners were asked to indicate when the sound source appeared to be 1 meter away. The sudden increase in rattling frequency caused the participants to underestimate their distance to the virtual snake.
“Snakes do not just rattle to advertise their presence, but they evolved an innovative solution: a sonic distance warning device similar to the one included in cars while driving backwards,” Chagnaud says. “Evolution is a random process, and what we might interpret from today’s perspective as elegant design is in fact the outcome of thousands of trials of snakes encountering large mammals. The snake rattling co-evolved with mammalian auditory perception by trial and error, leaving those snakes that were best able to avoid being stepped on.”
Reference: “Frequency modulation of rattlesnake acoustic display affects acoustic distance perception in humans” by Michael Forsthofer, Michael Schutte, Harald Luksch, Tobias Kohl, Lutz Wiegrebe and Boris P. Chagnaud, 19 August 2021, Current Biology. DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2021.07.018
Funding was provided from the Munich Center for Neurosciences.
