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This is Defector, a new sports blog and media company. We made this place together, we own it together, we run it together. Without access, without favor, without discretion, and without interference.

Defector

Barry Petchesky

VALLES MARINERIS, MARS - Mars' own Grand Canyon, Valles Marineris, is shown on the surface of the planet in this composite image made aboard NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft. The image was taken from a video featuring high-resolution images from Arizona State University's Thermal Emission Imaging System multi-band camera on board the spacecraft. The mosaic was then colored to approximate how Mars would look to the human eye. Valles Marineris is 10 times longer, five times deeper and 20 times wider than Earth's Grand Canyon. (Photo by NASA/Arizona State University via Getty Images)

Science

There’s So Much Ice On Mars, You Guys

charismatic megafauna (they/them)

Sabrina Imbler

Low angle view of moon against clear sky at night

Is There A Better Way To Honor Your Dog Than Littering The Moon?

Neptune’s A Pale Blue Fraud!

The graceful winding arms of the grand-design spiral galaxy M51 stretch across this image from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope. Unlike the menagerie of weird and wonderful spiral galaxies with ragged or disrupted spiral arms, grand-design spiral galaxies boast prominent, well-developed spiral arms like the ones showcased in this image. This galactic portrait was captured by Webb’s Mid-InfraRed Instrument (MIRI). In this image the reprocessed stellar light by dust grains and molecules in the medium of the galaxy illuminate a dramatic filamentary medium. Empty cavities and bright filaments alternate and give the impression of ripples propagating from the spiral arms. The yellow compact regions indicate the newly formed star clusters in the galaxy. M51 — also known as NGC 5194 — lies about 27 million light-years away from Earth in the constellation Canes Venatici, and is trapped in a tumultuous relationship with its near neighbour, the dwarf galaxy NGC 5195. The interaction between these two galaxies has made these galactic neighbours one of the better-studied galaxy pairs in the night sky. The gravitational influence of M51’s smaller companion is thought to be partially responsible for the stately nature of the galaxy’s prominent and distinct spiral arms. If you would like to learn more about this squabbling pair of galactic neighbours, you can explore earlier observations of M51 by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope here.  This Webb observation of M51 is one of a series of observations collectively titled Feedback in Emerging extrAgalactic Star clusTers, or FEAST. The FEAST observations were designed to shed light on the interplay between stellar feedback and star formation in environments outside of our own galaxy, the Milky Way. Stellar feedback is the term used to describe the outpouring of energy from stars into the environments which form them, and is a crucial process in determining the rates at which stars form. Understanding stellar feedback is vital to building accurate universal models of star formation. The aim of the FEAST observations is to discover and study stellar nurseries in galaxies beyond our own Milky Way. Before Webb became operative, other observatories such as the Atacama Large Millimetre Array in the Chilean desert and Hubble have given us a glimpse of star formation either at the onset (tracing the dense gas and dust clouds where stars will form) or after the stars have destroyed with their energy their natal gas and dust clouds. Webb is opening a new window into the early stages of star formation and stellar light, as well as the energy reprocessing of gas and dust. Scientists are seeing star clusters emerging from their natal cloud in galaxies beyond our local group for the first time. They will also be able to measure how long it takes for these stars to pollute with newly formed metals and to clean out the gas (these time scales are different from galaxy to galaxy). By studying these processes, we will better understand how the star formation cycle and metal enrichment are regulated within galaxies as well as what are the time scales for planets and brown dwarfs to form. Once dust and gas is removed from the newly formed stars, there is no material left to form planets. [Image Description: A large spiral galaxy takes up the entirety of the image. The core is mostly bright white, but there are also swirling, detailed structures that resemble water circling a drain. There is white and pale blue light that emanates from stars and dust at the core’s centre, but it is tightly limited to the core. The detailed rings feature bands of deep orange and cloudy grey, which are interspersed by darker empty regions throughout.]

Fall Into The Whirlpool Galaxy

A flattened scroll of lead with words etched on it: “sathanas taleke belzebuk hinrik berith”

This Month In Curse Tablets

Patrick Redford

A crowd of Icelanders stands in awe of the volcanic cloud

The Icelandic Eruption Is Finally Here

Here’s A Cool Picture Of Uranus

at the Extinction: Not the End of the World exhibition at The Natural History Museum on February 5, 2013 in London, England. More than 99 percent of species that once roamed the planet are now extinct. Organisers of the exhibition hope to show that a diverse range of plants and animals survived. 80 Museum specimens are on display from February 8-8, September 2013.

What Kind Of Future Does De-Extinction Promise?

The Popular Science Logo on a black background

Journalismism

Popular Science Ends And Science Journalism Keeps Shrinking

REYKJAVIK, ICELAND - JULY 16: Mount Fagradalsfjall volcano spews lava after an eruption in Reykjavik, Iceland, on July 16, 2023. (Photo by Emin Yogurtcuoglu/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

Iceland, As Always, Is Being Ripped Apart

Illustration of the giant impact hypothesis, with the hypothetical planet Theia colliding with Earth 4.5 billion years ago, created on July 19, 2015. This impact is suggested to be the source of material that created the Moon. (Illustration by Tobias Roetsch/Future Publishing via Getty Images)

Curious Earth Lumps Might Be Leftovers From Another Planet It Ate

People carry injured and dead Palestinians from the rubbles of buildings as civil defense teams and civilians conduct search and rescue operations after Israeli attacks on Al-Shati refugee camp of Gaza City, Gaza on October 27, 2023 as Israeli attacks continue on the 21st day on Gaza

Who Is Allowed To Do Science?

Three photos depicting fossil human footprints at White Sands National Park, one showing a person photographing them, one shot of several footprints, one shot of a single footprint

Kick Back And Read About This Ancient Feet Controversy

A photo of a black UFO looking thing in the desert

This Is How You Get Zombies, NASA

Mexico Is Probably Alien-Free, But K2-18b Is Still TBD

IN SPACE - APRIL 10: In this handout photo provided by the National Science Foundation, the Event Horizon Telescope captures a black hole at the center of galaxy M87, outlined by emission from hot gas swirling around it under the influence of strong gravity near its event horizon, in an image released on April 10, 2019. A network of eight radio observatories on six mountains and four continents, the EHT observed a black hole in Messier 87, a supergiant elliptical galaxy in the constellation Virgo, on and off for 10 days in April of 2017 to make the image. (Photo by National Science Foundation via Getty Images)

Black Holes Are Doing Something Weird After They Eat

It’s OK That Ötzi The 5,000-Year-Old Ice Man Was Not Hot

A Quick Update On A Thing 28 Billion Light Years Away

Staff Writer
Find me on Signal @DefectorChris.19

Chris Thompson

A laser's view of the interior of a hohlraum, the capsule at the ignition point of the fusion reaction.

Researchers Have Once Again Kicked Fusion’s Ass With Bitchin’ Lasers

English: Bronze statue of Henrietta Lacks by sculptor Helen Wilson-Roe located at Royal Fort House, Bristol. The plaque at the foot of the statue reads: Henrietta Lacks 1920-1951. more than a cell. To all the unrecognized Black Women who have contributed to humanity, you will never be forgotten.

The Settlement For Henrietta Lacks’s Family Is Momentous, But It’s Just One Step

A project engineer makes measurements on the coil form for the Baseball II superconducting magnet while his secretary records the measurements, 1972. (Photo via Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images).

A Normal Person’s Guide To The Room-Temperature Superconductor Drama

A NASA image of one of the Voyager space probes. Voyager 1 and its identical sister craft Voyager 2 were launched in 1977 to study the outer Solar System and eventually interstellar space. (Photo by NASA/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Voyager 2 Has A Few Last Things To Say

Paleoanthropologist and National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence, Professor Lee Rogers Berger holds a replica of the skull of "NEO" a new skeleton fossil findings of the Homo Naledi Hominin species at the cradle of Human Kind in Maropeng near Johannesburg on May, 9 2017 in South Africa. Primitive hominids may have lived in Africa at the same time as humans, researchers said Tuesday, in new findings that could change the understanding of human evolution. Fossils found deep in South Africa's Rising Star cave complex in 2013 have been dated by several expert teams with their findings suggesting the hominids, called Homo naledi, may have lived alongside Homo sapiens. It had previously been thought that the hominids were millions of years old. A team of 20 scientists from laboratories and institutions around the world, including in South Africa and Australia, established the age of the fossils which suggests that Homo naledi may well have lived at the same time as humans. (Photo by GULSHAN KHAN / AFP) (Photo by GULSHAN KHAN/AFP via Getty Images)

Here’s A Recap Of Lots Of Science Drama About Ancient Human Death

IN SPACE - MAY 29: In this handout provided by National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), back dropped by planet Earth the International Space Station (ISS) is seen from NASA space shuttle Endeavour after the station and shuttle began their post-undocking relative separation May 29, 2011 in space. After 20 years, 25 missions and more than 115 million miles in space, NASA space shuttle Endeavour is on the last leg of its final flight to the International Space Station before being retired and donated to the California Science Center in Los Angeles. Capt. Mark E. Kelly, U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' (D-AZ) husband, has lead mission STS-134 as it delivered the Express Logistics Carrier-3 (ELC-3) and the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS-2) to the International Space Station. (Photo by NASA via Getty Images)

We’re Getting Really Good At Reusing Space Pee

Stockton Rush, OceanGates chief executive, spoke at a press conference said during a press conference next to the Cyclops 1, a five-person sub that is different from the one used in the Titanic expedition