Astronomers have spotted the moment a black hole "turned on". While looking for the collision of a neutron star with another object, which should result in a kilonova (an explosion which reddens then fades over time), they stumbled upon an event which remained extremely bright. They soon worked out this light was because of supermassive black hole called J221951-484240 which had been on for around 10 months. But then they had to work out what had caused it, and got stuck between two causes, “J221951 is consistent with being nuclear, so the scenarios we are being left are a tidal disruption event or an active galactic nucleus,” lead author Dr Samantha Oates said as she presented the research at the National Astronomy Meeting 2023. “Looking at the spectrum it's consistent with both categories.” Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter A tidal disruption event (TDE) takes place when a star or a gas cloud gets too close to a supermassive black hole. The material is ripped apart, and begins to shine as the black hole feeds Alternatively, it could be an active galactic nucleus (AGN), the phase of a supermassive black hole where it is consistently feeding in a frenzy. “We hope in future to distinguish between these two scenarios,” Dr Oates concluded. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

Here's everywhere you can play Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 come Friday, Nov. 10, including all platforms and gaming subscription services.

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SpaceX’s Starship should take off for the second ever time this week, Elon Musk has said. The world’s most powerful and tallest rocket is aiming to launch this week, he tweeted. The rocket will attempt to fly around the Earth and then drop into the ocean in a major test. Eventually, SpaceX hopes that Starship will help carry humans to the Moon and onto Mars. But first it must prove that it is safe for orbital flight in an uncrewed test. Friday’s flight would mark the second launch after a spectacular failure in April that saw the rocket blow up soon after launch. Since then, the private space company has been working to secure regulatory approval for another test. Now Elon Musk says that those approvals should be granted in time to launch on Friday, 14 November. Earlier, SpaceX had only said the rocket “could launch as early as Friday”. It may still be delayed, and previous tests have been pushed back mere seconds before launch. The first orbital test flight was attempted in April this year. Soon after it took off, Starship began to tumble, and the rocket exploded. Since then, SpaceX has been working to fix a number of issues with both the rocket and the launchpad. The FAA required that 63 fixes were needed before it would give permission for the rocket to launch again. Those changes have led to a series of improvements that SpaceX says should reduce the chance of another failure, as well as protecting the humans who will eventually fly in the spacecraft. “Starship’s first flight test provided numerous lessons learned that directly contributed to several upgrades to both the vehicle and ground infrastructure to improve the probability of success on future flights,” SpaceX says on its website. “The second flight test will debut a hot-stage separation system and a new electronic Thrust Vector Control (TVC) system for Super Heavy Raptor engines, in addition to reinforcements to the pad foundation and a water-cooled steel flame deflector, among many other enhancements. “This rapid iterative development approach has been the basis for all of SpaceX’s major innovative advancements, including Falcon, Dragon, and Starlink. Recursive improvement is essential as we work to build a fully reusable transportation system capable of carrying both crew and cargo to Earth orbit, help humanity return to the Moon, and ultimately travel to Mars and beyond.” Read More ChatGPT creator mocks Elon Musk in brutal tweet Elon Musk’s new AI bot will help you make cocaine which proves it’s ‘rebellious’ Elon Musk weighs in on the scooped bagel debate How Elon Musk’s ‘spicy’ Grok compares to ‘woke’ ChatGPT Elon Musk unveils new sarcasm-loving AI chatbot for premium X subscribers Elon Musk mocks politicians at AI summit

VIENNA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug 8, 2023--

WASHINGTON The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday requested a federal court put in place a temporary

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Meta has released a host of new features to increase parental supervision and elevate safety

Rarely a day goes by at the moment without another breakthrough in artificial intelligence that seemingly fascinates and horrifies us in equal measure. The newest trend around AI involves the expansion of pre-existing pictures to show what the wider surroundings of the image would have looked like. While that doesn't sound particularly controversial it did manage to spark a debate when creators started using the tool to imagine what the surroundings of famous paintings like the Mona Lisa would have looked like. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter That was already considered controversial enough, as tampering with famous masterworks is big no-no, how would the internet feel when AI starts messing with their beloved memes? AI educator and designer Linus Ekenstam decided to test this by checking what AI thought was going on behind-the-scenes of some of the most popular memes ever. Using Generative Fill, the new Photoshop AI he took a look at memes like 'distracted boyfriend' and 'Hide the pain Harold' and these are the results. Other memes that Ekenstam looked at included the 'Change my mind' memes and the 'Woman yelling at a cat' meme. The debate around AI continues to linger on with some individuals experimenting with it in new and complex ways. One developer claims that he managed to 'clone' his girlfriend using ChatGPT. Meanwhile, musician Grimes, who has previously championed the technology is now claiming that it poses an "extinction risk." Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

Andrew Tate recently appeared on political commentator Tucker Carlson's new podcast show 'Tucker on Twitter'

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The White House has announced new efforts to guide federally backed research on artificial intelligence