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We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.

  1. Astronomy

    A fast radio burst’s rapid, steady beat offers a clue to its cosmic origin

    Amped-up neutron stars, pairs of magnetically entangled neutron stars or magnetar quakes could explain a three-second-long train of radio blips.

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  2. Astronomy

    The most distant rotating galaxy hails from 13.3 billion years ago

    Astronomers have spotted a rotating galaxy whose light comes from just 500 million years after the Big Bang.

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  3. Astronomy

    Here are the James Webb Space Telescope’s stunning first pictures

    President Biden revealed the NASA telescope's image of ancient galaxies whose light has been traveling 13 billion years to reach us.

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  4. Astronomy

    Sand clouds are common in atmospheres of brown dwarfs

    Dozens of newly examined brown dwarfs have clouds of silicates, confirming an old theory and revealing how these failed stars live.

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  5. Quantum Physics

    Aliens could send quantum messages to Earth, calculations suggest

    Scientists are developing quantum communications networks on Earth. Aliens, if they exist, could be going further.

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  6. Planetary Science

    A new look at the ‘mineral kingdom’ may transform how we search for life

    A new census of Earth’s crystal past hints that life may have begun earlier than expected, and could be a tool to look for water and life elsewhere.

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  7. Earth

    50 years ago, a new theory of Earth’s core began solidifying

    In 1972, scientists proposed that Earth’s core formed as the planet came together. Fifty years later, that theory is generally accepted, though many mysteries about the core remain.

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  8. Space

    Six months in space leads to a decade’s worth of long-term bone loss

    Even after a year of recovery in Earth’s gravity, astronauts who’d been in space six months or more still had bone loss equal to a decade of aging.

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  9. Astronomy

    An otherwise quiet galaxy in the early universe is spewing star stuff

    Seen as it was 700 million years after the Big Bang, the galaxy churns out a relatively paltry number of stars. And yet it’s heaving gas into space.

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  10. Astronomy

    Gravitational wave ‘radar’ could help map the invisible universe

    Gravity ripples scattering off warped spacetime near massive objects might help astronomers peer inside stars and find globs of dark matter.

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  11. Astronomy

    Seven newfound dwarf galaxies sit on just one side of a larger galaxy

    Seven newly found dwarf galaxy candidates are stick to just one side of the large galaxy M81. Astronomers don’t know why.

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  12. Astronomy

    Neutrinos hint the sun has more carbon and nitrogen than previously thought

    Scientists still don’t know the sun’s exact chemical composition, which is crucial for understanding the entire universe. Neutrinos will help.

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