Millions Of Light Years Research Articles

Space Games: Ecologies of Scale and Technologies of Hope in Taiwan's OPUS Game Trilogy

Extending ecocritical game studies to the Sinophone (or Chinese-speaking) world, this article offers a close playing of three OPUS-themed science fiction videogames produced between 2016 and 2021 by Taiwanese indie developer SIGONO, exploring the games’ function as environmental texts and their relationship to Taiwanese literary and cultural studies. By asking the player to engage in shifts in scale and perspective from human to nonhuman, life to death, past to present, and enclosed to boundless space, the OPUS games serve as an effective way of understanding ecological intervention that promotes multiscalar awareness and asks what still can be done and what hope can be found when all has already been lost. In doing so, they demonstrate the ecocritical potential of science fiction videogames that feature an in-game environment many millions of light-years away from our current earth-bound realities.

The virial theorem for retarded gravity

Galaxy Clusters are huge physical systems having a generic size of tens of millions of light years. Thus any modification at the center of the cluster will affect the outskirts only tens of millions of years afterwards. Those retardation considerations seem to be neglected in present day analysis used to estimate the total mass of the galaxy cluster, including those estimates which are based on the virial theorem. The significant differences between the velocities predicted by Newtonian action at a distance theory and observations are usually dealt with by either assuming an unobservable type of matter or by modifying gravity. Here we demonstrate that considering general relativistic effects one can explain the apparent excess matter appearing in galaxy clusters virial estimates.

X-ray astronomy comes of age.

The Chandra X-ray Observatory(Chandra) and the X-ray Multi-Mirror Mission (XMM-Newton) continue to expand the frontiers of knowledge about high-energy processes in the Universe. These groundbreaking observatories lead an X-ray astronomy revolution: revealing the physical processes and extreme conditions involved in producing cosmic X-rays in objects ranging in size from a few kilometres (comets) to millions of light years (clusters of galaxies), and particle densities ranging over 20 orders of magnitude. In probing matter under conditions far outside those accessible from Earth, they have a central role in the quest to understand our place in the Universe and the fundamental laws that govern our existence. Chandra and XMM-Newton are also part of a larger picture wherein advances in subarcsecond imaging and high-resolution spectroscopy across a wide range of wavelengths combine to provide a more complete picture of the phenomena under investigation. As these missions mature, deeper observations and larger samples further expand our knowledge, and new phenomena and collaborations with new facilities forge exciting, often unexpected discoveries. This Review provides the highlights of a wide range of studies, including auroral activity on Jupiter, cosmic-ray acceleration in supernova remnants, colliding neutron stars, missing baryons in low-density hot plasma, and supermassive black holes formed less than a billion years after the Big Bang.

How a Star’s Death Can Reveal a Black Hole

Studying invisible objects in space that are hundreds of millions of light years away may sound impossible. But, in recent years, astronomers have developed a new way to investigate a type of invisible and distant objects—super-massive black holes. Black holes are the most densely packed objects in the Universe. When stars get close to super-massive black holes they can be torn apart, which produces a relatively brief but informative flash of light. These star-destroying events can help us to discover the locations of the most massive black holes in the Universe, but only if we know how to find and interpret them. In this article, we will discuss different ways we can “see” black holes, and particularly what we do and do not yet understand about stars getting “tidally disrupted” by them. Light YearThe distance light travels in a year, which is 5,878,625,370,000 miles.

Intergalactic filaments spin

ABSTRACT Matter in the Universe is arranged in a cosmic web, with a filament of matter typically connecting each neighbouring galaxy pair, separated by tens of millions of light-years. A quadrupolar pattern of the spin field around filaments is known to influence the spins of galaxies and haloes near them, but it remains unknown whether filaments themselves spin. Here, we measure dark matter velocities around filaments in cosmological simulations, finding that matter generally rotates around them, much faster than around a randomly located axis. It also exhibits some coherence along the filament. The net rotational component is comparable to, and often dominant over, the known quadrupolar flow. The evidence of net rotations revises previous emphasis on a quadrupolar spin field around filaments. The full picture of rotation in the cosmic web is more complicated and multiscale than a network of spinning filamentary rods, but we argue that filament rotation is substantial enough to be an essential part of the picture. It is likely that the longest coherently rotating objects in the Universe are filaments. Also, we speculate that this rotation could provide a mechanism to generate or amplify intergalactic magnetic fields in filaments.

Possible observational evidence for cosmic filament spin

Most cosmological structures in the universe spin. Although structures in the universe form on a wide variety of scales from small dwarf galaxies to large super clusters, the generation of angular momentum across these scales is poorly understood. We have investigated the possibility that filaments of galaxies - cylindrical tendrils of matter hundreds of millions of light-years across, are themselves spinning. By stacking thousands of filaments together and examining the velocity of galaxies perpendicular to the filament's axis (via their red and blue shift), we have found that these objects too display motion consistent with rotation making them the largest objects known to have angular momentum. The strength of the rotation signal is directly dependent on the viewing angle and the dynamical state of the filament. Just as it is easiest to measure rotation in a spinning disk galaxy viewed edge on, so too is filament rotation clearly detected under similar geometric alignment. Furthermore, the mass of the haloes that sit at either end of the filaments also increases the spin speed. The more massive the haloes, the more rotation is detected. These results signify that angular momentum can be generated on unprecedented scales.

Is Quantification of Parameters Essential for Scientific Substantiation?

The Guest Editorial about quantifying quality by Sathyamurthy1 is highly pertinent in research disciplines. Currently all experimental results need to be projected in quantified measures. Various research fields such as nano, micro, small, medium, large and mega need to be examined from various angles of standardization or quantification. No uniform stick of quantification can be universally applied. For nano and micro-scale measurements one may be required to account for the Heisenberg uncertainty theorem during quantification. For smalland medium-scale measurements, the tolerance of accuracy level could be from Angstrom to a few millimetres. For large measurements such as roads of a few kilometres length, heavy and massive concreting, or displacement of water by a large cargo or passenger ship, quantification could be large. For mega-scale measurements such as astronomical distances in millions of light years, the error or tolerance could be as high as up to 50%. Such measurements are made at an interval of six months of the elliptic orbit of the earth.

Principle of Constancy and Finiteness of the Speed of Gravitational Interaction and Dark Matter.

It can be shown that the anomalously high rates of rotation of the outer regions of galaxies follow from the constancy and finiteness of the rate of gravitational interaction, which is equal to the speed of light in accordance with general relativity of A. Einstein. Since the speed of propagation of the gravitational interaction is constant and equal to the speed of light, then for compensation of lag of the gravitational field, an increase in the mass velocity will always be used, since the metric tensor according to general relativity of A. Einstein is depends on to both geometry and kinematics of masses.

Dark matter mapped at cosmic scale

Survey charts clusters and voids of invisible matter over hundreds of millions of light years.

Gravitational wave science in the high school classroom

This article describes a set of curriculum modifications designed to integrate gravitational wave science into a high school physics or astronomy curriculum. Gravitational wave scientists are on the verge of being able to detect extreme cosmic events, like the merger of two black holes, happening hundreds of millions of light years away. Their work has the potential to propel astronomy into a new era by providing an entirely new means of observing astronomical phenomena. Gravitational wave science encompasses astrophysics, physics, engineering, and quantum optics. As a result, this curriculum exposes students to the interdisciplinary nature of science. It also provides an authentic context for students to learn about astrophysical sources, data analysis techniques, cutting-edge detector technology, and error analysis.

2011 International Science & Engineering Visualization Challenge

. . . ![Figure][1] The spectacular orange-colored blossoms on the cover of this week's issue of Science are not what they appear to be. Turn to page 530, and you will find that the image is, in fact, a depiction of the network of voids in the cosmic web; each void can be tens of millions of light-years across. The eye-catching rendering is one of the winning entries in the 2011 International Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge. Science and the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) have cosponsored this annual challenge for the past 9 years. The aim is to promote cutting-edge efforts to visualize scientific data, principles, and ideas—skills that are critical for communication among scientists and between scientists and the general public, especially students. Rapid technological change is opening new vistas in visualizing data: This year's winners include a cross-section of an eye in which different cell types are each colored a unique shade, an interactive game in which players try to mimic nature's amazing capacity for folding proteins, and a video that assembles a cell's jumble of components into an ordered assortment. We received 212 entries from 33 countries. (U.S. entries came from 24 states and territories.) A committee of staff members from Science and NSF screened the entries and, in a new departure this year, those selected as finalists were posted on NSF's Web site, and visitors were invited to vote for their top choice in each category. A total of 3200 votes came in; entries that received the most votes were named the “People's Choice.” Independently, an outside panel of experts in scientific visualization reviewed the finalists and selected the winners. The winning entries are featured on the following pages, in an online slideshow at , and at [www.nsf.gov/news/scivis][2]. Some entries were put together by large teams, not all of whose members could be listed in print; the online presentations provide more details. Tarri Joyner and Zachariah Miller of NSF organized this year's challenge. Daniel Strain of Science 's News staff wrote the text that accompanies the images in this special section. We encourage you to submit applications for next year's challenge, details of which will be available on NSF's Web site, and to join us in celebrating this year's winners. [1]: pending:yes [2]: http://www.nsf.gov/news/scivis

Spatial Reasoning and Pólya's Five Planes Problem

“I watched the sky as we drove toward the town center…. Our galaxy is a huge disk of stars millions of light-years across, and the solar system is somewhere near the outside edge of the disk…. I like this fact. It is something you can work out in your own mind just by looking at the sky above your head at night and thinking without having to ask anyone.”—The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time (Haddon 2003, pp. 9–10)

Radio giants come into focus

Like rare astrophysical leviathans, giant radio galaxies are the largest known single entities in the universe. Riding at the bottom end of the electromagnetic spectrum, the r tenuous radio “lobes” span hundreds of millions of light-years and cover distances greater than the whole of our nearest local group of galaxies. Normal radio galaxies, which make up about 1% of all the galaxies in the universe, are a mere 10th or 100th of this size.

WMAP data put cosmic inflation to the test

While gazing upwards at the night sky you could be forgiven for thinking that the universe is a rather complex place. From elaborate constellations of nearby stars to the faint glow of light from the spiral arms of our galaxy, structure is visible in every direction you look. And were you to peer through the world's largest telescopes you would find a hierarchy of galaxies grouped into clusters, superclusters and super-superclusters hundreds of millions of light-years across. But to cosmologists, this clumpy nature of matter is a mere distraction.

Jets, hotspots and lobes: what X-ray observations tell us about extragalactic radio sources

The brightest and most numerous discrete radio sources in the sky, radio galaxies and quasars, are powered by twin jets of plasma which emerge at relativistic speeds from very small regions at the centre of large elliptical galaxies, powered by mass infall on to supermassive black holes. The jets can carry material out to very large distances (millions of light years) where it forms balloon-like lobes. Until recently it has been impossible to make definite statements about the energy or the nature of the matter supplied by the jets, or the dynamics of the lobes as they expand into the external medium. This has meant that crucial questions about the generation of radio sources and their effect on their environment have gone unanswered. The situation has been revolutionized by the launch at the start of this decade of a new generation of X-ray observatories, Chandra and XMM-Newton. In this article, I explain why observations with these instruments have made such a difference, what we have learned as a result and why the community remains divided on some important features of the interpretation of the data.

Seeing in the dark: how backyard stargazers are probing deep space and guarding earth from interplanetary peril

Seeing in the Dark a poetic love letter to the skies and a stirring report on the revolution now sweeping amateur astronomy, in which backyard stargazers linked globally by the Internet are exploring deep space and making discoveries worthy of the professionals. Timothy Ferris invites us all to become stargazers, recounting his lifelong experiences as an enthralled stargazer, and capturing the exquisite experience when ancient starlight strikes the eye and incites the mind. Reporting from around the globe -- from England and Italy to the Florida Keys and the Chilean Andes -- on the revolution that's putting millions in touch with the night sky, Ferris also offers an authoritative and magical description of what out there to be seen, from the rings of Saturn to remote quasars whose light older than Earth. Astronomy the most accessible and democratic of all the sciences: Anyone can get started in it just by going outside with a star chart on a dark night and looking up. A pair of binoculars suffices to see galaxies millions of light-years away, and a small telescope can probe what Ferris calls the blue waters of deep space. An accessible, nontechnical invitation to get to know the sky, Seeing in the Dark encourages readers to make the glories of the stars a part of their lives. The universe, Ferris writes, is accessible to all, and can inform one's existence with a sense of beauty, reason, and awe as enriching as anything to be found in music, art, or poetry. An appendix includes star charts, observing guides, and tips on how you can get involved with the night sky.

Sweet Dreams Are Made of This

Dreams have always fascinated humans, and throughout history there have been numerous hypotheses and speculations concerning their meaning and function. However, only in the second half of the 20th century, after the introduction of electroencephalographic recordings and the discovery of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, have these phenomena been the subject of serious scientific investigation. It is amazing that we can make incredibly accurate predictions about the movement or the composition of stars in galaxies millions of light years away while, much much closer to home, many crucial processes in our own heads remain shrouded in mystery. Every human being experiences the phenomena of sleep and dreams, and most people take them for granted without ever questioning what their biological purpose might be. There have always been teleological arguments for why we need to sleep, but they can mostly be dismissed as descriptive without any real explanatory value. Indeed, why do homeothermic animals need to rest and sleep at all, which makes them particularly vulnerable to predators? Wouldn't it be better and more efficient if they were up and running 24 hours a day? So it seems even more mysterious that during sleep we also experience periods of dreaming, with their sometimes bizarre, incoherent, and highly unpredictable contents. A large body of literature about dreaming has been assembled over recent years. In this special issue of Science , we have tried to take stock and review the present state of our knowledge concerning sleep and dreams and their relation to memory, and we have also tried to indicate the blank spaces on our map. Maquet (p. [1048][1]) reviews the recent literature on the role of sleep for memory formation and puts forward a testable hypothesis concerning the task of experience-dependent reactivation of neuronal populations. Stickgold et al. (p. [1052][2]) deal with the function of sleep, particularly REM sleep, and dreaming for the consolidation of learning and memory tasks. They outline the requirements that should be expected for a comprehensive theory of dreaming. And finally, Siegel (p. [1058][3]) critically reviews the available literature and questions the REM sleep-memory consolidation hypothesis. There is still a lot of conflicting evidence, as well as methodological difficulties, unproven assumptions, and neglected alternative interpretations. By highlighting the holes in the existing theories, we hope this review will be a challenge for scientists working in this field and will stimulate them to improve their experiments and reassess some assumptions and hypotheses they may have taken for granted. To sleep: perchance to query. [1]: /lookup/doi/10.1126/science.1062856 [2]: /lookup/doi/10.1126/science.1063530 [3]: /lookup/doi/10.1126/science.1063049

Superclusters--the Largest Structures in the Universe?

Superclusters, conglomerates of thousands of galaxies with sizes of hundreds of millions of light-years, are the largest scale structures known in the universe. Existing surveys were too small to provide quantitative statistical measurements of their structure that can be compared directly with theoretical simulations. A new wave of galaxy surveys now promises to provide these data, which are expected to shed light on the initial matter distribution in the universe and the first steps of galaxy formation.

The Coolest Brown Dwarfs Proliferate

ASTRONOMYCHICAGO-- The Sloan Digital Sky Survey, an $80 million project to create a three-dimensional map of galaxies extending to hundreds of millions of light-years, is making discoveries in our cosmic neighborhood as well. At an American Astronomical Society meeting here on Monday, survey members announced that it has turned up two of the coolest, dimmest stars called brown dwarfs ever seen, lurking by themselves in the equatorial sky.

The Mystery of the Migrating Galaxy Clusters

ASTRONOMYA mass migration of galaxies may be taking place, but astronomers can't agree on which way they are going. First reported 4 years ago, the migration seemed to be taking place on a scale so huge--a swath of sky hundreds of millions of light-years across--that astronomers withheld judgment about whether it was real and what could be causing it until confirmation came in. Now three other groups have gone looking for the mass movement and have come back with results that only deepen the mystery. Two of the teams found motions of galaxy clusters with very similar speeds but at roughly 90 degrees to the earlier result, while a third team found no bulk motion at all.