This week in science news: Comets light up the sky and hurtle toward the sun, our galaxy’s mysterious glow is explained, and scientists say why time moves faster as we get older

This week’s science news continues with reports of three dusty cosmic snowballs hurtling through our cosmic backyard, with comets gaining momentum.

The first are Comets Lemmon and Comet Swan, which peaked in brightness in Earth’s skies this week, allowing skywatchers to easily catch a glimpse of them. This led to some surprising observations, as Lemon was seen flying over Scotland in a technicolor glow of aurora borealis, with its tail momentarily torn off by solar winds over the Czech Republic (also known as the Czech Republic).

Meanwhile, comet 3I/ATLAS was photographed shooting its jet toward the Sun as it approached perihelion, the closest point to our star. Growing at about the same rate as the comet’s tail is a rumor online about the nature of the comet, so just to be clear, no, it’s almost certainly not an alien spacecraft.

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If asteroids are more your thing, there are some great stories about asteroids. This week’s news includes the discovery of an asteroid the size of a skyscraper hidden in the glare of the sun, and a last-minute decision saving NASA’s plan to visit the asteroid Apophis, the “God of Chaos”, from budget cuts.

Is the mysterious glow of the Milky Way due to dark matter?

At the center of our Milky Way galaxy lies a mysterious, diffuse glow, a flat disk of unusually energetic gamma rays that has puzzled astronomers for more than a decade. Now, new research is weighing in on a possible explanation: collisions of pockets of dark matter.

The results, created using high-resolution supercomputer simulations, suggest that our galaxy’s dark matter may have been crushed into an elliptical shape by collisions or gravitational mergers.

This discovery leads to the first-ever detection of a mysterious component thought to make up 85% of matter in the universe, and could solve major cosmic mysteries.

More space news

— Astronomers discover giant ‘bridge’ and record-breaking tail hidden between two dwarf galaxies

—James Webb Telescopes discover that galaxies in the early universe were much more chaotic than we thought

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—Astronomers detect the first ‘heartbeat’ of a newborn star hidden inside a powerful cosmic explosion

life’s little mysteries

Mosquitoes are almost ubiquitous animals and humans’ most feared predators. Up to 110 trillion mosquitoes on Earth sicken 700 million people a year and kill nearly 1 million people over the same period.

So, are there any places on earth where buzzing pests don’t exist? We thought we knew the answer, but a surprising update changed everything this week.

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Why does time pass faster as we get older?

This is a common saying. “The more you slow down, the faster time passes.” There have been many psychological explanations for this experience, but now scientists have finally discovered a hint of its neurological origins.

This process is called neural dedifferentiation, and as we age, the activity of different brain regions becomes less specific and there are fewer distinct states that the brain transitions into to mark the passage of time. And if your older brain is recording fewer “events” within a given time frame, perhaps that’s why time feels like it flies by.

See more health news

—You don’t need to be too happy to avoid premature death from chronic disease, study finds

—Diagnostic Dilemma: Toddler Accidentally Eats Neisseria gonorrhoea from a Laboratory Dish

— New eye implant combined with augmented reality glasses allows blind people to read again in small trial

Also featured in this week’s science news

— Google’s breakthrough ‘Quantum Echoes’ algorithm brings us closer to useful quantum computing — runs 13,000 times faster than supercomputers

– 1,300-year-old poop reveals pathogens that plagued prehistoric people in Mexico’s Cave of Dead Children

— “Illegal” metal detector uncovers vast Roman treasure trove in Germany — kept hidden for eight years

science reading material

Since the Neanderthal genome was first sequenced in 2010, some scientists have tentatively proposed the resurrection of one of modern humans’ closest extinct relatives (the other being the Denisovans). But how exactly is it done? Is it possible? Even if it can be done, should it be done? Live Science sought out the answer.

something for the weekend

If you’re looking for something a little longer to read over the weekend, here are some of the best interviews, crosswords, and science history digs published this week.

“This is a truly amazing story,” says historian Stephen Tuck, who follows the Roman survivors of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD. [Interview]

Live Science Crossword Puzzle #15: Explosive Death of a Star — 11 Down [Crossword]

History of Science: Scientists use ‘click chemistry’ to observe molecules in living organisms — October 23, 2007 [Science history]

Science in pictures

This week, Live Science published an interesting article about this aerial photo taken by astronauts of Deku and Daga islands in Ethiopia’s Lake Tana.

The algae-infested lake in the northwest of the country has many islands (some of which only appear during the rainy season), and many monasteries and churches have been built on these islands. Religious buildings on these islands were also built to protect the country’s most precious relics and the mummified remains of at least five emperors during times of war and turmoil.

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