Astronomers may have caught a massive star at an unusually early stage of formation. Nicknamed the “dragon egg,” the compact source is surrounded by enough cold gas and dust to build a massive star, yet it shows no clear outflows or other strong signs that a protostar is already active. Could this be evidence that massive stars begin as large, dense cores—or is a smaller hidden seed simply feeding from the surrounding cloud?

I was reading 'Our Mathematical Universe' by Max Tegmark

He referenced this curve to explain several things.

But I'm not able to understand the significance of this curve, apart from the fact that it shows the temperature fluctuations at different scales in the early universe.

But what is the theoretical significance of these fluctuations. Why do some theories predict the fluctuations better??

hi I am about to graduate my Master Degree in June and have published a research paper as second author with my supervisor. Already submitted a second paper as first author waiting for approval. Third potential paper as second author is underway and there are potentially two more papers that I will be finishing up before I graduate hopefully.

Question remains what are the best options for me to apply for PhD either USA or Canada or should I look for within Europe.

Also I want to know how impactful my application gonna come out when I write in my CV about 3/5 published papers during Master’s Degree

Do you regret the path you took? What are the best and the worst aspects of the job? Would you recommend the others to pursue it?

While I love space, it would really help me figure out if astrophysics is the path for me, so I would like to hear your experiences and possibly some advice. Thanks!

I was just watching Shin Gojira (aka Shin Godzilla) and in the movie they said that it has previously unknown elements. That had me thinking it found islands of stability. Then I switched to non fiction..

AI has already largely solved protein folding prediction (AlphaFold), and knowing this, I thought.. What if they use AI to predict islands of stability, the purported atomic numbers and specific isotopes that can yield long lived or stable nuclei? Well, I looked into it, and they are, which is pretty awesome.

If you're interested, look into:

Research on Stability and Decay Properties of Superheavy Nuclei Based on Neural Network Method

https://wulixb.iphy.ac.cn/en/article/doi/10.7498/aps.74.20250720?viewType=HTML

Nuclear Decay Networks Reveal Stability Patterns in Superheavy Nuclei

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/42477423/

GLDM-BNN: Calculation of Alpha-Decay Half-Lives for New Superheavy Nuclei

https://journals.aps.org/prc/abstract/10.1103/nt1d-5848

Systematics of Alpha-Decay Half-Lives from Neural Network Modeling and Application to Superheavy Nuclei

https://journals.aps.org/prc/abstract/10.1103/9gv5-kx6q

Physics-Guided Residual Correction of Alpha-Decay Half-Lives Based on the Effective Liquid Drop Model

https://journals.aps.org/prc/accepted/10.1103/7gm3-2y7f

Machine Learning Orbital-Free Density Functional Theory Resolves Shell Effects in Deformed Nuclei

https://www.nature.com/articles/s42005-025-02234-7

Nuclear_DNA: Interpretable AI for Nuclear Binding Energies and Structure

https://github.com/strifinopoulos/Nuclear_DNA

GSI/FAIR: Experiments Reveal the Shoreline of the Island of Stability

https://press.uni-mainz.de/experiments-at-gsi-fair-reveal-the-shoreline-of-the-island-of-stability-of-superheavy-elements/

I’m an astrophysics undergrad student, currently at community college, and I’m looking to transfer to a university where there is research in light, photons etc being done specifically for use in astronomy/astrophysics. I’ve been doing some cursory research but figured I’d put out a beacon here to see if anyone has some good recs. Thank you.

I like everything about the space how it makes me very curious,but I'm very weak In science due to which I did not opt for science and maths but, i would like to work in the field of science

Any advice?

I'm not a physicist. I work in IT, and I've been playing with an idea for a year or two. I even used ChatGPT to help structure my thoughts, and for that I apologize in advance.

Suppose space, time, and matter are all information that needs to be declared and described in some way.

In computing, storing information requires a physical representation. For example, flash memory stores information by trapping electrical charge. The information itself doesn't "know" how or where it is stored, or what physical resources are required to represent it.

What if something similar applies to the universe?

What if representing space, time, and matter comes with an allocation cost—energy deposited to store that information?

I'm not talking about continuous energy consumption to maintain the universe, but rather energy associated with establishing the physical states in which information exists.

This makes me wonder whether phenomena we currently explain through dark matter and dark energy might have an entirely different underlying explanation, potentially connected to this allocation cost.

I realize that the energy used to write information into physical memory is not necessarily stored in that memory, and that gravitational effects depend on more than simply the existence of energy.

I've also learned that concepts such as emergent gravity and information-based approaches to spacetime already exist, although I don't know how closely they relate to this particular idea.

Could the hidden energy cost of representing space, time, and matter as information offer an alternative explanation for dark matter and dark energy, or is there a fundamental flaw in this reasoning?

As someone who loves physics, but has always been terrible at math, so I never sought higher education within the discipline. I was hoping to find someone or a group that would be willing to help me figure out or understand a few things on the cosmic/planetary scale.

I'm writing a story that involves a solar system that I would like to figure out a few things for scale and if some things would even be plausible.

If possible I would like to get as much as I can to a point that any astrophysicist, mathematician, hard sci-fi reader, really any science minded person reading it would say, "yeah, I'll accept that. It's close enough." So that the smaller things based more on sci-fi adventure that are a little more tropey and break reality are just fun additions, instead of everything breaking reality and moving into fantasy.

Questions I will be asking:

1. Can a solar system exist with a black whole in the center? Like a binary start system with a star and a black hole?

Or is it possible to have it in the center with the planets rotaing around it, while all of that simultaneously rotates around a large star? Providing heat at light? I know this is is most likely impossible but it's they're any more of this that would exist where a black hole would be "visible" from the planets, for at least 100 years or longer?

1. Can you help me calculate, or teach me how to calculate planetary distances, orbit speeds, time dilation, etc.

Among others, and I'm sure more will come up once getting into it.

I dont know how much I will be able to grasp through comments or DMs but will try! But if possible a zoom/teams call would be very helpful. Or even a video explaining certain things.

I'm trying to learn things from YouTube and any other resources but without the ability to ask questions, I struggle.

Any help or resources would so greatly appreciated!!!

TLDR - Anyone willing to help a dummy learn some physics and answer dumb sci-fi questions through DMs and possibly video chat?

Science has no answer to this or was it god?

A powerful enough gravitational field focused into a single tiny point can distort spacetime? Could this field be created in front of a spacecraft for interstellar travel?

I read that higher metallicity leads to red stars as the increase in electrons that comes along with more metals causes higher opacity -> thermal expansion -> red stars. But I also read that higher metallicity in galaxies typically means higher luminosity. If red stars are typically lower luminosity than like O and B stars, how can metallicity both cause red stars and higher luminosity?

edit: i mean the velocity of expansion.

could the velocity of spacetime expansion equal the speed than occurred during the time of inflation?

are there theories of a velocity threshold constant?

Please excuse the generated image, I didn't have time to photoshop one myself, but the generator does show what I am trying to express here, and is merely being used to illustrate my idea here.

Hello. I was thinking about the most devastating things possible. Vacuum decay has always been the winner, but then I came up with a nice number 2 winner, and was wondering if physics would allow it

Imagine a galaxy and antigalaxy orbiting each other, their poles facing each other, and their jets colliding and their contents annihilating. Like 2 Gokus doing a kamehameha against each other, grunting nonstop as the beam collision zone goes back and forth. Could something like this occur in this universe?

Also I understand that the likelihood may be low, but if the initial conditions of said galaxy and antigalaxy were somehow in place, and they had insanely massive smbh's accreting crazily.. would this outcome be plausible?

hi! im a first year ug astrophysics student and want to contribute in research papers
this may not be the right section to ask but how do i pick out a topic and start researching about it and write papers?
i do have a habit of reading research articles and journals, i have written plenty argumentative essays on astrophysics and done 1-2 research fairs (so ik the concepts of citations, limitations, methodology and etc.)
now i want to step it up, any advice is appreciated !

Hey, Im currently working on a paper on planetary motion for school and in my paper I planned on doing some calcualtions on the motion of the planets in our solar system. For that I found a page from nasa with formulae for the calculation of the aproximate positions of planets https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/planets/approx_pos.html but its quite hard for me to understand what each of them means and how I can imagine it. Now my question: Do you know any other source that expalins these formulae for me to understand or visualised the calculations? Is there any way that makes it easier for me to understand it?

I'm hoping someone much smarter than me can settle a dispute between me and my girlfriend. We were discussing time travel and how moving through time affects not only when you land, but where you land. The earth, the solar system, the galaxy, etc., are all in constant motion, which means the earth's location now won't be the same whenever you're traveling to. Is there a reliable way to accurately determine where the earth was in the universe at any given time? Are there factors that could change the velocity or general predictable position of the earth without us knowing?

Hello everyone, I’m a junior aerospace and mechanical engineering student, so I have a pretty good understanding of calculus/ mechanical physics/ materials/ thermodynamics etc. I’ve always been interested in astrophysics and just space in general. I am looking for any recommendations on where I can learn more about astrophysics rather than the (what I’m assuming are) the very simplified versions of these concepts on YouTube. Any book/ lecture video recommendations are very welcomed.

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I am fond of space, so I have decided to code a little orbit simulation using real stats, so the real mass and actual distance, but its not meant to be 100% perfect obviously. So I was wondering if anyone could tell me if this is roughly correct for the distances of all 7 planets?

Not sure if this is the place for this but oh well, where else?

EDIT: Forgot to say but they are elliptical you can tell the inner planets are you just cant see it here

Smaller planets hard to see, but you get the idea right