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Images captured by NASA’s Curiosity rover have shown rare iridescent clouds drifting across the Martian sky. These formations, observed in the planet’s twilight, were seen at high altitudes where sunlight still reaches them despite nightfall on the surface. The images were taken on January 17, using one of the rover’s onboard cameras, with individual frames stitched together to create a time-lapse video. Scientists are analysing these cloud patterns to gain insights into Mars’ atmospheric processes and climate conditions.

Details of the Findings

A report from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) detailed that these high-altitude clouds, composed of carbon dioxide ice, were seen floating between 60 and 80 kilometres above the surface. The cold temperatures at these heights cause the condensation of carbon dioxide, forming distinctive cloud structures. Some of the ice crystals were observed descending before evaporating at approximately 50 kilometres, where temperatures begin to rise.

As reported by space.com,that this is the fourth Martian year in which Curiosity has recorded these cloud formations. The phenomenon was first observed by NASA’s Pathfinder mission in 1997, which captured images from a location just north of the Martian equator.

Expert Analysis on Martian Clouds

In a statement to NASA’s JPL, Mark Lemmon, Atmospheric Scientist at the Space Science Institute in Colorado, remarked that the first sighting of these iridescent clouds was initially thought to be a colour anomaly. He highlighted that their seasonal recurrence has allowed researchers to predict their appearance and plan observations in advance.

Last year, scientists produced the most comprehensive cloud map of Mars, compiled from two decades of data gathered by the European Space Agency’s Mars Express orbiter. This study classified a range of cloud formations, including patterns not seen on Earth. Daniela Tirsch, Planetary Geologist at the German Aerospace Center, commented at the time that Martian clouds exhibit significant diversity.

Unanswered Questions About Cloud Formation

Observations have so far been limited to specific regions, with no twilight clouds detected by the Perseverance rover, which landed in Jezero Crater in 2021. This has led scientists to question what makes certain areas more conducive to their formation.

Lemmon explained that carbon dioxide was not expected to condense into ice at these altitudes, suggesting an unknown cooling mechanism at work. He pointed to atmospheric gravity waves as a possible factor, though their role in Martian weather patterns remains uncertain. Further studies are planned to better understand these cloud formations and their implications for the planet’s climate.

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This Strange Liquid Retains Its Shape, Appears to Defy Thermodynamics

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April 19, 2025

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This Strange Liquid Retains Its Shape, Appears to Defy Thermodynamics

An unexpected shape formed when a graduate student accidentally blended oil, water and nickel. Scientists discovered that the shape-recovering liquid defied the laws of thermodynamics. Instead of minimising the interfacial area and turning into a sphere, the mixture of liquid took the shape of a Grecian urn. This research was conducted by a team led by a graduate student, Anthony Raykh, at the University of Massachusetts Amherst; the findings were published on April 4 in the Journal Nature Physics.

The Accidental Discovery

As per the study, Raykh, a student of polymer science and engineering, was experimenting with a jumble of water, oil and nickel particles in a container. To create an emulsion, he shook the vial. The mixture didn’t get separated as it should have, instead, it formed the shape of a Grecian urn. Even after shaking the mixture multiple times, the liquid kept returning to this shape. Thomas Russell, a professor of polymer science and engineering, told Live Science that this is an odd behaviour of the particles. It is quite strange because such a mixture doesn’t blend, and it returns to the state of equilibrium.

A Challenge to Thermodynamics

The blend tends to reduce the line of separation or interfacial area between the two liquids before emulsion. The law of thermodynamics governs this tendency, showing how temperature, work, heat and energy relate to each other. The liquid generally forms spherical droplets, having a minimum surface area. In contrast to this, the Grecian urn has a higher surface area, contradicting the law of nature, baffling the scientists.

Magnetic Interactions Take Over

After the investigation of this strange behaviour of the particles, they found that the interactions between the particles of nickel “sort of took over” and defied the law of thermodynamics, Russell says. The magnetic poles of the particles attracted each other, making a chain on the surface of the liquid. This interaction intersects with the phenomenon of emulsion of the liquid. Russell told the researchers have examined the separation of the particles in an oil-water blend. But in contrast to this, Raykh had added nickel to the mixture, which nobody else did. Thus, none had observed the shape of the Grecian urn with higher interficial energy.

A Strange Case, Not a Violation

Initially, this seemed to challenge the law of thermodynamics, but Russell clarified that this is a strange behaviour of the particles due to the magnetic field. This magnetic field influenced a high interfacial energy, which resulted in the formation of a higher surface area shape.
Russell says the law of thermodynamics applies to the system as a whole and not just based on interactions between the individual particles.

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NASA James Webb Space Telescope Discovers Farthest Spiral Galaxy, Reveals Clues About Galactic Evolution

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James Webb Space Telescope Finds Oldest Spiral Galaxy in the Universe

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April 19, 2025

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James Webb Space Telescope Finds Oldest Spiral Galaxy in the Universe

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has helped astronomers find a galaxy that seems to be the old twin sister of the Milky Way. With a central bulge of old stars, a vivid disc of stellar babies, and two separate spiral arms, the recently discovered galaxy Zhúlóng is the most distant Milky Way “twin” yet seen. The discovery questions our best models of cosmology, which hold that big galaxies such as this should develop over a difficult succession of smaller galaxy mergers several billion years ago.

Comprising around 100 billion solar masses, larger than the Milky Way, the star-forming disc of the galaxy stretches over 60,000 light-years. Found in 2023, Zhúlóng is by far the largest Milky Way lookalike found in an early epoch of the universe, forming more than a billion years earlier than the similarly organised spiral galaxy Ceers-2112.

JWST Discovers Ancient Milky Way Twin Galaxy Zhúlóng from the Early Universe

As per a study published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics, swirling limbs heading back to us show the Milky Way’s former twin. About one-fourth of the present universe’s age, the newly found galaxy called Zhúlóng formed one billion years after the Big Bang. The find tests our top cosmology models, which say that the lengthy process of smaller galaxy mergers over many billions of years makes massive galaxies like this.

Zhúlóng is the largest early look-alike of the Milky Way by far, having grown more than a billion years before Cers-2112, and a spiral galaxy of similar mass and structure.JWST spotted it in 2023 at around 11.7 billion light-years from Earth. No family tree studies were necessary; this long-lost relative was revealed by PANORAMIC, a wide-field look at billions of distant objects, entirely by accident.

The new finding adds fuel to an active cosmic fire started by JWST a few years ago that regularly reveals objects in the early universe looking too enormous and too quickly to fit in with our current best theories. The finding shows how JWST is essentially changing the way we see the early universe, and the researchers are urging follow-up work with JWST and the ground-based Atacama Large Millimetre/submillimetre Array in Chile’s desert to better understand our galaxy’s long-lost twin.

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NASA Hubble Space Telescope Helps Confirm the First Solitary Black Hole

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April 18, 2025

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NASA Hubble Space Telescope Helps Confirm the First Solitary Black Hole

For the first time, the existence of a lone black hole has been confirmed by scientists. This black hole has no star orbiting it. According to the statement by Kailash Sahu, astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, “it’s the only one so far”. The discovery made headlines in the year 2022, when Sahu and his Team claimed a dark object was moving through the constellation Sagittarius. However, another team of researchers disputed the claims by identifying the object as a neutron star.

About the Discovery

This discovery came into the light three years ago. All the stellar-mass black holes are accompanied by stars that betray their presence and race around an invisible star, along with three times the sun’s mass. Such a procedure indicates the presence of black holes rather than a neutron star.

On the contrary, the solitary black holes are expected to be common, but are very hard to find. Likewise, the one in Sagittarius was identified while passing through the dim background star and additionally shifting its position due to the black hole’s gravity. Recently, Sahu’s efforts were reported in the Astrophysical Journal, about the new observations from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, confirming the presence of a lone black hole in Sagittarious.

Black Hole Key Findings

Although the passage occurred first in the year 2011, the original discovery relied on the Hubble measurements from the year 2011 to 2017. However, the new data has been gained from the Hubble observations from the year 2021 to 2022, accompanied by the data received from the Gaia Spacecraft.

How Big is a Black Hole?

The ideal size of this lone black home is seven times as huge as the sun. In recent observations, a different team of scientists revisited the project and identified the size as massive as six times that of the sun. The theories of the scientists match with that of Sahu’s observation.

The research continues for detecting the black holes in Sagittarius. Located at a distance of 5,000 light years away from Earth, this solitary black hole is yet to be observed from different aspects. The astronomer, Sahu, hopes to find more lone black holes with the effective use of the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, which is set to launch in the year 2027.

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