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I was lucky enough to get a great view of the northern lights from my own home this month when the biggest solar storm to hit Earth in decades left auroras visible at latitudes far beyond nicer than usual.
Despite living on brightly lit streets in central London, my smartphone camera captured a green haze and a pulsing sheet of purple and pink light. Capturing the moment was an unforgettable experience and something I thought would involve expensive travel to the northernmost reaches of our planet.
The storms that create spectacular auroras like the ones I saw arise from the sun’s dynamic magnetic field, an astrophysical enigma that scientists came closer to solving this week.
Solar update
Figuring out how the sun’s magnetic field works will help scientists improve space weather forecasting, which dazzles night sky watchers but disrupts GPS and communications satellites.
Direct study of the sun’s meandering magnetic field lines, which form a tangled web of structures more complex than those on Earth, is difficult. To understand what is going on, scientists create mathematical models.
A new model, which took more than a decade to develop and required a NASA supercomputer to carry out the detailed calculations, found that the sun’s magnetic field is generated much closer to the surface than previously thought.
The team believes their model is more accurate because it accounts for a unique solar feature.
Long long ago
A single gold earring found in the ruins of a 2,000-year-old building in the Pyrenees is a clue to how a catastrophic fire started. The Inferno consumed the wooden structure, located in an Iron Age settlement called Tossal de Baltarga, and killed an animal that was in a stable.
Archaeologists believe that the fire was intentional. If it was an accident, the owners of the building would probably release the livestock and return after the fire died down to find their hidden gold, which was hidden in a jar.
The arsonists may have been an invasion weapon under Hannibal, the Carthaginian general who led troops against the Roman Republic, according to the new study.
It is not known what happened to the people who used the building, but the excavation revealed details about the life of the Iberian people known as the Cerretani.
Sky watch
The builders of Stonehenge aligned the massive stones of the prehistoric monument with the rising and setting of the sun on the longest and shortest days of the year, showing a personal understanding of the sun that is still visible today.
But does the 4,500-year-old site in south-west England – and other possible megalithic monuments around the world – also align with the moon?
The idea that Stonehenge has a lunar connection emerged in the 1960s. However, the concept has not been systematically explored — until now.
This summer, archaeologists are using the lunar eclipse, a small known phenomenon that occurs every 18.6 years, to investigate.
Around the globe
Space scientists have observed the edge of a black hole – an area known as the “immersion region” – for the first time.
Andrew Mummery, lead author of a new study on black holes and a research fellow at the University of Oxford, compared it to a “waterfall edge” at the end of a river, where orbital material from nearby stars is falling into the abyss.
In the plunge region, matter can no longer remain in orbit and instead sinks into the black hole. But unlike the black hole’s horizon or exit surface, light can still escape at this point.
The results of the study, Albert Einstein predicted, could help astronomers better understand the formation and evolution of black holes.
Wild kingdom
Cormorants — the group of birds that includes crows, ravens and jays — are famously intelligent. One corona species may be capable of something researchers refer to as “mental time travel”.
This type of memory enables the mind to recall an unimportant piece of information that you did not consciously remember – for example, remembering what you had for lunch yesterday.
Researchers working with Eurasian jays trained to find food hidden under cups said these birds may be capable of the feat of memory.
In the experiment, which involved decorated cups, the jays were able to remember what a particular cup looked like, even after the cups were rearranged and a time delay occurred.
And in other corvid news, crows can count up to four, the latest research has found.
Explorations
Dive into these mind-blowing stories.
— Thomas Midgley Jr. was a talented American inventor. that left a lasting mark on history. However, his intellectual solutions created even more problems.
— Microplastics have been found in human testicles, which shows the urgent need for more research to understand the role that plastics may play in driving infertility.
– An Austrian winemaker has found hundreds of giant bones in his cellar, a discovery one expert called an “archaeological sensation”.
Don’t go just yet: NASA has announced the latest on the long-delayed Boeing Starliner crewed mission.
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