Dwarf

Dwarf Fortress creator Tarn Adams said at this year’s Game Developers Conference that executives responsible for mass industry layoffs “can all eat shit, I think they’re horrible, and I think they’re bad people.” Speaking to PC Gamer, Adams was wondering what the future of Dwarf Fortress could look like. When considering the kind of decisions that need to be made to keep a studio afloat, he asked himself if he’d have “more empathy for the people that lay people off.” The answer was, decidedly, “No, I don’t fucking…

When James Conlon arrived as Los Angeles Opera’s music director in 2006, he immediately discovered that the city might prove the ideal backdrop for what has been one of his key missions, what he called “recovering” the voices of composers silenced by the Second World War and then mostly forgotten. L.A., after all, had been a refuge for artists fleeing the Nazis, just as the city had been earlier for those persecuted in Russia and Eastern Europe. We’ve now heard a number of obscure operas and concert works by the likes…

“Pressure makes diamonds, but ram pressure can make stars!" the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) wrote in a social media post as it shared an image of a dwarf galaxy in the Coma Berenices constellation. It is 54 million…

The Solar System doesn't get much colder than the Kuiper Belt.Out past the orbit of Pluto, far from the warmth of the Sun, drifts a vast expanse of icy rocks and dwarf planets thought too cold to be little more than snowballs in outer space.As the New Horizons data on Pluto showed, however, appearances may be deceptive. And now scientists have discovered that two other dwarf planets may be keeping secrets.Eris and Makemake are dwarf planets that, like Pluto, hang out in the Kuiper Belt. And, also like Pluto, they have…

Evidence of internal geochemical activity on the icy dwarf planets Eris and Makemake suggests they may host subsurface oceans, challenging previous notions of these distant worlds as cold and inert. This discovery, made possible by the James Webb Space Telescope, opens new avenues for research on planetary habitability and the dynamic nature of Kuiper Belt objects.The Webb telescope has observed what appear to be young methane deposits on the surfaces of Eris and Makemake.A team co-led by Southwest Research Institute has…

Earlier this month, at the latest annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS)—the largest organization of professional astronomers in the country—many cosmic objects got their moment to shine.In the case of brown dwarfs, though, that shine is pretty feeble.Brown dwarfs exist in a kind of netherworld category between planets and stars. They’re massive enough that the pressure in their core is sufficient to fuse deuterium—an isotope of hydrogen—but not massive enough to fuse normal hydrogen, the…

This artist’s concept portrays the brown dwarf W1935, which is located 47 light-years from Earth. Astronomers using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope found infrared emission from methane coming from W1935. This is an unexpected discovery because the brown dwarf is cold and lacks a host star; therefore, there is no obvious source of energy to heat its upper atmosphere and make the methane glow. The team speculates that the methane emission may be due to processes generating aurorae, shown here in red. Credit: NASA, ESA,…

A new study based on Gaia satellite data reveals that dwarf galaxies around the Milky Way are likely transient and not as dark matter-rich as previously thought. Their recent entry into the Galactic halo and rapid loss of gas challenges existing beliefs about their stability and composition.Recent Gaia satellite findings suggest that dwarf galaxies are transient and less influenced by dark matter than previously believed, challenging long-held assumptions about their nature and composition.Commonly thought to be…

University of Michigan astronomer Sally Oey studied a star-forming region in host galaxy, NGC 2366, which is a typical dwarf irregular galaxy. Credit: Observatorio de Calar Alto, J. van Eymeren (AIRUB, ATNF) & Á.R. López-SánchezIf you gaze at the vast galaxies filled with countless stars, it’s easy to assume they are star factories, churning out brilliant balls of gas. However, it’s the less evolved dwarf galaxies dwarf galaxies have bigger regions of star factories, with higher rates of star formation.Recent findings…

A new mesmerizing image captured by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope showcases the dwarf irregular galaxy UGC 8091, which looks like a part of a Christmas tree adorned with red-coloured decorations. This dwarf…