Here are today’s most important updates from the realm of Science and Space.
For 120 hours, Webb’s powerful eyes were fixed on the colossal galaxy cluster Abell S1063, a cosmic behemoth located 4.5 billion light-years away in the constellation Grus. This deep-field observation reveals not only the cluster’s own grandeur but also a stunning array of distant, faint galaxies from the Universe’s earliest epochs. This is the telescope’s deepest look at a single target to date. Meanwhile, Abell S1063 is renowned for its immense mass and its role as a gravitational lens. The cluster’s gravity is so intense that it bends and magnifies the light from galaxies far behind it, creating the glowing, warped arcs seen in the new JWST image. The project aims to probe the “Cosmic Dawn”, the era when the first galaxies began to form, just a few million years after the Big Bang.
Scientists have stumbled upon a hidden civilisation at the bottom of the ocean after they discovered the skull of Homo erectus, an ancient human ancestor. The skull was preserved beneath layers of silt and sand in the Madura Strait, between the islands of Java and Madura, in Indonesia, with researchers claiming that it was buried 140,000 years ago. The site could be the first physical evidence of the lost landmass known as Sundaland, which once connected Southeast Asia in a vast tropical plain. Apart from the skull, researchers also found 6,000 animal fossils of 36 species, including those of Komodo dragons, buffalo, deer, and elephant. Notably, it was 14,000 and 7,000 years ago that melting glaciers caused sea levels to rise more than 120 meters, submerging the low-lying plains of Sundaland.
Astronomers have made major progress tracking down the rocky space debris, but a new study suggests there’s a population of asteroids lurking around Venus that could pose a problem. Potentially hazardous asteroids (or PHAs) are those larger than 460 feet (140 meters) across that come within 0.05 astronomical units (4.6 million miles, 7.5 million kilometers) of Earth’s orbit. The study revealed that there is a sizable population of potential co-orbitals at lower eccentricity capable of numerous close encounters—and perhaps collisions—with Earth. With even small asteroids capable of releasing city-flattening energy on impact, finding these elusive Venus co-orbitals isn’t just academic—it could be vital to planetary defense.
Disruption of our circadian rhythms due to professional or personal commitments has been shown to have a negative impact on our ability to fight infections. Scientifically, it is known as social jet lag which is the misalignment between our internal body clock (circadian rhythm) and our social schedule. Circadian rhythms are a fundamental feature of all life on Earth. Believed to have evolved some 2.5 billion years ago, they enable organisms to adapt to challenges associated with the 24-hour solar day. The research showed that the most abundant immune cell in our bodies, neutrophils killed bacteria more efficiently during the daytime than at night. Meanwhile, these immune cells possess an internal light-regulated circadian clock that alerts the cells to daytime (similar to an alarm clock). This boosts their ability to kill bacteria. The discovery has very broad implications for many inflammatory conditions.
