Astronomers confirm size of largest comet ever discovered, bigger than Rhode Island
Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Telescope have confirmed the existence the largest comet ever discovered, and it will pass by our sun in the next decade.
Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Telescope have confirmed the existence the largest comet ever discovered, and it will pass by our sun in the next decade.
Astronomy
Apr 17, 2022
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A new study by University of Maryland astronomers shows that comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein (BB), the largest comet ever discovered, was active long before previously thought, meaning the ice within it is vaporizing and forming ...
Astronomy
Nov 29, 2021
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The true nature of dark matter is one of the biggest mysteries in the universe. Scientists are trying to determine what exactly dark matter is made of so they can detect it directly, but our current understanding has so many ...
Astronomy
Oct 31, 2019
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Astronomers have employed the Microvariability and Oscillations of Stars (MOST) space telescope to conduct a new investigation of the enigmatic variable star 21 Comae whose nature is still widely debated. Results of the new ...
Barely visible to the naked eye, Comet 46P/Wirtanen keeps some secrets so close that only radar can uncover them.
Space Exploration
Dec 21, 2018
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In the northern constellation of Coma Berenices (Berenice's Hair) lies the impressive Coma Cluster— a structure of over a thousand galaxies bound together by gravity. Many of these galaxies are elliptical types, as is ...
Astronomy
Sep 24, 2018
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At first glance this frame is flooded with salt-and-pepper static. Rather than being tiny grains or pixels of TV noise, every single point of light in this image is actually a distant galaxy as observed by ESA's Herschel ...
Astronomy
Jul 16, 2018
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(Phys.org)—Astronomers have found six new extended ionized gas clouds (EIGs) in the galaxy cluster Abell 1367 (also known as the Leo Cluster). The discovery expands the current list of the cluster's known EIGs to 11 and ...
(Phys.org)—Astronomers have found a total of 76 new ultra-diffuse galaxies (UDGs) in the massive galaxy cluster designated Abell 2744 (also known as Pandora's Cluster). The discovery updates the current census of galaxies ...
A near-record supermassive black hole discovered in a sparse area of the local universe indicates that these monster objects - this one equal to 17 billion suns - may be more common than once thought, according to University ...
Astronomy
Apr 06, 2016
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In medicine, a coma (from the Greek κῶμα koma, meaning deep sleep) is a state of unconsciousness, lasting more than 6 hours in which a person cannot be awakened, fails to respond normally to painful stimuli, light or sound, lacks a normal sleep-wake cycle and does not initiate voluntary actions. A person in a state of coma is described as comatose. According to the Glasgow Coma Scale though, a person with confusion is considered to be in the mildest coma.
Coma may result from a variety of conditions, including intoxication (such as illicit drug abuse, overdose or misuse of over the counter medications, prescribed medication, or controlled substances), metabolic abnormalities, central nervous system diseases, acute neurologic injuries such as strokes or herniations, hypoxia, hypothermia, hypoglycemia or traumatic injuries such as head trauma caused by falls or vehicle collisions. It may also be deliberately induced by pharmaceutical agents in order to preserve higher brain functions following brain trauma, or to save the patient from extreme pain during healing of injuries or diseases.
In order for a patient to maintain consciousness, two important neurological components must function impeccably. The first is the cerebral cortex which is the gray matter covering the outer layer of the brain, and the other is a structure located in the brainstem, called reticular activating system (RAS or ARAS). Injury to either or both of these components is sufficient to cause a patient to experience a coma. The human cortex is a group of tight, dense, "gray matter" composed of the nucleus of the neurons whose axons then form the "white matter", and is responsible for the perception of the universe, relay of the sensory input (sensation) via the thalamic pathway, and most importantly directly or indirectly in charge of all the neurological functions, from simple reflexes to complex thinking. Reticular activating system (RAS) on the other hand is a more primitive structure in the brainstem that is tightly in connection with reticular formation (RF), a critical anatomical structure needed for maintenance of arousal and sleep-wake transitions. Reticular activating system (RAS) takes its name from the effect it has on the reticular formation, which is via its stimulation. It is therefore necessary to investigate in a comatose patient, the integrity of the bilateral cerebral cortices, as well as that of the reticular activating system (RAS).
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