![]() He has theorised that the LLVPs are remnants of Theia that did not dissolve the Earth's mantle, allowing the planetary fragments to cool into distinct structures below the surface of the world. But the origins of the blobs - each of which are larger than the moon - remain a mystery to scientists.īut for Dr Qian Yuan, a geophysicist and postdoctoral fellow at the California Institute of Technology and the new study's lead author, his understanding of LLVPs forever changed when he attended a 2019 seminar at Arizona State University, his alma mater, that outlined the giant-impact hypothesis. These blobs are thousands of kilometres wide and likely more dense with iron compared with the surrounding mantle, making them stand out when measured by seismic waves. One lies beneath Africa and another below the Pacific Ocean. The masses - called large low-velocity provinces, or LLVPs - were first detected in the 1980s. They were already aware that there are two massive, distinct blobs that are embedded deep within the Earth. ![]() If the theory is correct, it would not only provide additional details to fill out the giant-impact hypothesis but also answer a lingering question for geophysicists. Molten slabs of Theia could have embedded themselves within Earth's mantle after impact before solidifying, leaving portions of the ancient planet's material resting above Earth's core some 2900km below the surface, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature. ![]() Yan is lead author of one study describing the findings that has been accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal. We can see transients everywhere," said Haojing Yan, associate professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Missouri. "We're calling MACS0416 the Christmas Tree Galaxy Cluster, both because it's so colorful and because of these flickering lights we find within it. The stellar system, magnified by a factor of 4000 due to gravitational lensing, was traced to a galaxy that existed three billion years after the big bang created the universe. One transient in particular captured the attention of astronomers, a star system they have nicknamed "Mothra" (inset), the titular giant monster of a 1961 Japanese film. The red galaxies are more distant, best detected by Webb in infrared light. Blue-hued galaxies are the closest, bursting with star formation and easily seen in visible light by Hubble. The colors in the new image, released today, are used to indicate distance. New details of the celestial feature have emerged in the colorful image, which unites the observational powers of Hubble Space Telescope in visible light and the James Webb Space Telescope in infrared light, which is invisible to the human eye. Eventually, the merging pair of giant clusters will combine to form an even more massive collection of glittering galaxies. The cosmic phenomenon, called MACS0416, is 4.3 billion light-years from Earth. "Massive stars are factories that produce heavy elements in their nuclear cores, so understanding them better is like learning the origin story of much of the universe."Ī panorama of colliding galaxy clusters glimmers in a new image, captured by the combined forces of the two most powerful space observatories ever created. "The image from Webb is stunning, and the science we will get from it is even better," Principle Investigator of the University of Virginia's galactic observation team and student Samuel Crowe said. The photo also shows ionized hydrogen in the Milky way, surrounded by a yellow dotted line.Īstrologists plan to study the needle-like structures inside the hydrogen. "The cloud the protostars are emerging from is so dense that the light from stars behind it cannot reach Webb, making it appear less crowded when in fact it is one of the most densely packed areas of the image," NASA explains in a statement. Protostars produce an outflow of infra-red, which surrounds the cluster as a cloud, visible inside the green dotted lines. The stars inside the orange circle are the protostars, which are still gaining mass and forming. ![]()
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