1️⃣ A black hole in a magnetic field: theory tested on eight real sources
Black holes rarely sit in empty space — they're almost always surrounded by magnetic fields. Scientists checked how such a field actually changes the behavior of matter falling into a black hole, then compared their theory against real observations of eight X-ray sources in space, including the black hole at the center of our galaxy. The field does make a difference: it slightly shifts particle orbits and tweaks the disk's temperature — not dramatically, but measurably.
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2️⃣ Where "dark matter" switches on — and why not everywhere
Dark matter is one of astrophysics' biggest puzzles. But here's what's strange: it doesn't show up in all objects — globular star clusters seem to have none, while galaxies are full of it. A new study explains this: the mass discrepancy only appears where stars move very slowly and almost never collide. In compact clusters the conditions are different, and "dark matter" simply never gets a chance to show itself.
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3️⃣ One object, two "voices"
FRB 20240114A is one of the most active sources of fast radio bursts ever observed. An analysis of over 200 of its bursts unexpectedly found that they split into two distinct groups: one type "whistles" 2.5 times faster than the other, is shorter, and peaks at a slightly lower frequency. It looks like there are two separate emitters inside the object, each speaking in its own way. If confirmed, this would be a fundamentally new way of understanding what drives these bursts.
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4️⃣ Venus: 88% chance it once had a magnetic field
A new computer model traced Venus's evolution from formation to the present day — atmosphere, crust, mantle, and core all at once. The result: in 88% of scenarios consistent with Venus's current state, the planet had a magnetic field in the past. In all plausible histories, Venus still holds at least one Earth-ocean's worth of water locked in its mantle — and remains volcanically active today.
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5️⃣ COSMOS2025: the largest JWST galaxy catalog is now public
Astronomers have released COSMOS2025 — a catalog of more than 700,000 galaxies built from 255 hours of James Webb Space Telescope observations. Each entry includes distance, morphology, stellar mass, and star formation history; redshift accuracy is twice as good as the previous version. Coverage spans from nearby galaxies all the way back to those that existed within the first 500 million years after the Big Bang.
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