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In this week's science news, we reported on the best evidence for life on Mars, confirmation of a Stephen Hawking black hole theory, LA's toxic barrel graveyard, and mysterious lights dancing across a camera in Patagonia.
The rocks all contain flecks of leopard-like spots that, on Earth at least, are telltale signs of chemical reactions that microbes use for energy. This, alongside the presence of organic compounds and evidence of water once flowing through the rocks, has gotten scientists seriously excited.
But keep the Champagne corked, because it's still possible that the marks may have been left by inorganic processes, meaning we'll have to wait for the politically endangered Mars Sample Return mission before we know for sure.
This week also thankfully brought us more conclusive news from the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO). By detecting faint ripples in space-time released by the merger of two distant black holes, the detector finally confirmed a decades-old theory by Stephen Hawking that the cosmic monsters link general relativity to quantum mechanics.
A vast barrel graveyard was discovered off the cost of LA in 2020. Scientists are finally getting answers for what could be inside them.
(Image credit: Schmidt Ocean Institute.)
They appeared under the lights of deep-sea survey robots working off the coast of Los Angeles in 2020 — a graveyard of 27,000 barrels encircled by haloes of whitish, toxic sediment many at the time believed to be the banned pesticide DDT. Yet the exact quantity of the barrels, who put them there, and what they may contain remain unknown to this day.
However, a new study has shed some light into the murky situation. Analyzing samples collected from five of the barrels, researchers found that they didn't contain DDT after all, but caustic alkaline waste capable of killing most of the marine life in the vicinity. They also discovered the chemical reactions that form the haloes themselves, which they will use to identify the overall extent of the toxic spill.
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Humans and chimps do share a lot of DNA, but this fact alone is not what counts.
(Image credit: Picture by Tambako the Jaguar via Getty Images)
Humans and chimpanzees share nearly 99% of their genetic material: It's a frequently repeated truism about us and one of our closest-living relatives, but is it even true? It turns out not really, and even the comparison itself obscures a deeper truth about how DNA makes humans and chimps in the first place.
Scientists have created so many time crystals, but this is the first time they've made one visible to human eyes.
(Image credit: Getty Images)
Only theorized in 2012, time crystals have been captivating us since they were first created in 2016. Since those early years, scientists have replicated the fascinating phenomenon in a variety of systems, but none of them can be seen directly.
That's now changed, with the announcement that scientists have made visible time crystals out of the liquid crystals typically found inside LCD screens. These aren't just an intriguing demonstration of the bizarre quantum workings of time crystals, they could have practical applications too — possibly appearing on future high-denomination bills as anti-counterfeiting designs.
Bizarre lights spotted in Chile have prompted a scientific investigation.
(Image credit: Courtesy of Rodrigo Bravo Garrido)
Just past midnight, in the silence and dark of Chile's far South Patagonia region, a camera trap picked up something inexplicable: Across three photos, intense lights danced downward in front of the lens.
This is the first, and so far only, photo of 3I/ATLAS glowing green. Scientists are debating why.
(Image credit: Michael Jäger/Gerald Rhemann)
New photos of the comet 3I/ATLAS captured during the recent "blood moon" total eclipse appeared to show a surprising development — the comet, an interloper from beyond our solar system, may be turning green.
The most common explanation for this strange change (and no, it's not little green men) is the presence of diatomic carbon in the comet's coma, its fuzzy, temporary atmosphere. Yet with no diatomic carbon yet to be detected by spectroscopic observations, the jury is still out. Astronomers will need to take follow-up photos to confirm the effect and investigate its cause.
Ben Turner is a U.K. based writer and editor at Live Science. He covers physics and astronomy, tech and climate change. He graduated from University College London with a degree in particle physics before training as a journalist. When he's not writing, Ben enjoys reading literature, playing the guitar and embarrassing himself with chess.
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