ASTRONOMY - Globular Cluster M15 Deep Field

 2025 November 26

Globular Cluster M15 Deep Field
Image Credit & Copyright: Alvaro Ibanez Perez

Explanation: Stars, like bees, swarm around the center of bright globular cluster M15. The central ball of over 100,000 stars is a relic from the early years of our Galaxy, and continues to orbit the Milky Way's center. M15, one of about 150 globular clusters remaining, is noted for being easily visible with only binoculars, having at its center one of the densest concentrations of stars known, and containing a high abundance of variable stars and pulsars. The featured image of M15 was taken by combining very long exposures -- 122 hours in all -- and so brings up faint wisps of gas and dust in front of the giant ball of stars. M15 lies about 35,000 light years away toward the constellation of the Winged Horse (Pegasus).

SANTé/MEDECINE - CANCER - 12 AVANCEES REVOLUTIONNAIRES - 9. Un traitement du cancer du col de l’utérus qui réduit drastiquement la mortalité

Une étude internationale appelée INTERLACE, menée dans 5 pays, a démontré qu’un cycle de chimiothérapie avant le traitement classique du cancer du col de l’utérus réduit de 40 % le risque de décès et de 35 % le risque de récidive. Cette percée, annoncée en octobre 2024, est la plus importante de ces 20 dernières années pour ce type de cancer. Les médicaments utilisés sont déjà disponibles et peu coûteux, rendant ce traitement accessible au plus grand nombre.

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ASTRONOMY - Comet Lemmon and the Milky Way

 2025 November 25

Comet Lemmon and the Milky Way
Image Credit & Copyright: Lin Zixuan (Tsinghua U.)

Explanation: What did Comet Lemmon look like when it was at its best? One example is pictured here, featuring three celestial spectacles all at different distances. The closest spectacle is the snowcapped Meili Mountains, part of the Himalayas in China. The middle marvel is Comet Lemmon near its picturesque best early this month, showing not only a white dust tail trailing off to the right but its blue solar wind-distorted ion tail trailing off to the left. Far in the distance on the left is the magnificent central plane of our Milky Way Galaxy, featuring dark dust, red nebula, and including billions of Sun-like stars. Comet C/2025 A6 (Lemmon) is already fading as it heads back into the outer Solar System, while the Himalayan mountains will gradually erode over the next billion years. The Milky Way Galaxy, though, will live on -- forming new mountains and comets -- for many billions of years into the future.

ASTRONOMY - Apep: Unusual Dust Shells from Webb

 2025 November 24

Apep: Unusual Dust Shells from Webb
Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, JWST; Science: Y. Han (Caltech), R. White (Macquarie U.); Image Processing: A. Pagan (STScI)

Explanation: What created this unusual space sculpture? Stars. This unusual system of swirls and shells, known as Apep, was observed in unprecedented detail by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope in infrared light in 2024. Observations indicate that the unusual shape originates from two massive Wolf-Rayet stars orbiting each other every 190 years with each close passes causing a new shell of dust and gas to be expelled. Holes in these shells are thought to be caused by a third orbiting star. This stellar dust dance will likely continue for hundreds of thousands of years, possibly ending only when one of the massive stars runs out of internal nuclear fuel and explodes in a supernova punctuated by a burst of gamma-rays.

SANTé/MEDECINE - CANCER - 12 AVANCEES REVOLUTIONNAIRES - 8. Le décryptage de l’ADN tumoral pour comprendre l’origine du cancer

Au Cambridge University Hospitals, des scientifiques étudient l’ADN de 12 000 patients atteints de cancer pour en retracer l’origine. Ils identifient des mutations génétiques liées à des facteurs comme le tabac, les rayons UV ou les dommages cellulaires internes. Ces mutations sont appelées « empreintes digitales du crime ». L’étude a révélé 58 nouveaux marqueurs génétiques, qui permettront d’améliorer la prévention et les traitements ciblés.

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ASTRONOMY - The Observable Universe

 2025 November 23

The Observable Universe
Illustration Credit & Licence: Wikipedia, Pablo Carlos Budassi

Explanation: How far can you see? Everything you can see, and everything you could possibly see, right now, assuming your eyes could detect all types of radiations around you -- is the observable universe. In light, the farthest we can see comes from the cosmic microwave background, a time 13.8 billion years ago when the universe was opaque like thick fog. Some neutrinos and gravitational waves that surround us come from even farther out, but humanity does not yet have the technology to detect them. The featured image illustrates the observable universe on an increasingly compact scale, with the Earth and Sun at the center surrounded by our Solar System, nearby stars, nearby galaxies, distant galaxies, filaments of early matter, and the cosmic microwave background. Cosmologists typically assume that our observable universe is just the nearby part of a greater entity known as "the universe" where the same physics applies. However, there are several lines of popular but speculative reasoning that assert that even our universe is part of a greater multiverse where either different physical constants occur, different physical laws apply, higher dimensions operate, or slightly different-by-chance versions of our standard universe exist.

SANTé/MEDECINE - CANCER - 12 AVANCEES REVOLUTIONNAIRES - 7. Des biopsies liquides et synthétiques moins invasives et plus rapides

Les biopsies classiques nécessitent le prélèvement de tissu, souvent par chirurgie. Aujourd’hui, la biopsie liquide offre une alternative plus douce, en détectant le cancer à partir d’une simple prise de sang. Encore plus prometteuses, les biopsies synthétiques utilisent des techniques pour inciter les cellules cancéreuses à se révéler plus tôt, facilitant une détection précise et rapide dès les premières phases de la maladie.

LaNatureCa

OCEANOGRAPHIE - Vagues scélérates - Du mythe à la réalité (6/29)

La vague Draupner a confirmé ce que les marins rapportaient depuis des siècles : des vagues massives et soudaines existent bel et bien. Pendant des années, ces phénomènes ont été considérés comme des mythes, mais les mesures effectuées en 1995 ont fourni la première preuve scientifique de leur existence.

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ASTRONOMY - Lynds Dark Nebula 43

 2025 October 30

Lynds Dark Nebula 43
Image Credit & Copyright: Team Ciel Austral

Explanation: Sure, Halloween is an astronomy holiday. But astronomers always enjoy scanning the heavens for spook-tacular galaxies, stars, and nebulae. This favorite is item number 43 from the Beverly Lynds 1962 Catalog of Dark Nebulae, fondly known as the Cosmic Bat nebula. While its visage looks alarmingly like a scary flying mammal, Lynds Dark Nebula 43 is over 12 light-years across. Glowing with eerie light, stars are forming within the dusty interstellar molecular cloud that is dense enough to appear in silhouette against a luminous background of Milky Way stars. Watch out. This Cosmic Bat nebula is a mere 400 light-years distant toward the serpent-bearing constellation Ophiucus.

ASTRONOMY - Chamaeleon Dark Nebulas

 2025 November 19

Chamaeleon Dark Nebulas
Image Credit & Copyright: Xinran Li & Houbo Zhao

Explanation: Sometimes the dark dust of interstellar space has an angular elegance. Such is the case toward the far-south constellation of Chamaeleon. Normally too faint to see, dark dust is best known for blocking visible light from stars and galaxies behind it. In this 11.4-hour exposure, however, the dust is seen mostly in light of its own, with its strong red and near-infrared colors creating a brown hue. Contrastingly blue, a bright star Beta Chamaeleontis is visible on the upper right of the V, with the dust that surrounds it preferentially reflecting blue light from its primarily blue-white color. All of the pictured stars and dust occur in our own Milky Way Galaxy with one notable exception: a white spot just below Beta Chamaeleontis is the galaxy IC 3104, which lies far in the distance. Interstellar dust is mostly created in the cool atmospheres of giant stars and dispersed into space by stellar light, stellar winds, and stellar explosions such as supernovas.