sun

If you’ve ever wondered how much a massive black hole weighs, the answer is that the Sun next to it looks like a marble.

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“What am I going to have for breakfast today?” when will this heat pass” and “how much does a black hole“are those three questions that you will surely ask yourself every day when you wake up. For the first two the answer is uncertain, but for the third a group of researchers from Carnegie Science in California has the answer. Because they have just measured, for the first time, the mass of an inactive black hole that dates back to the early universe and they do not give the answer in tons because it is a figure that escapes human understanding. But they do give the mass compared to the Sun and… well, it’s still not something we can assume. The weight of a black hole. The results HE they published this past Thursday in Science magazine and they are clear: a black hole located in the center of the galaxy MRG-M0138 has about 6,000 million times the mass of the Sun. The mass of our star is 2 × 10^30 kg, equivalent to 332,946 times the mass of the Earth. Does this leave you calmer? Surely not because it is like when they tell us that one company buys another for 75 billion dollars: These are such absurd quantities that it is very difficult to get the idea of ​​what it entails, but this thing about weighing bodies around the universe makes sense. Fascinatingly, MRG-M0138 is a massive galaxy whose light has traveled to our sensors from a time when the universe was only about 3 billion years old. This galaxy is no longer forming stars and the central black hole is “quiet.” The scale spacel. To achieve the measurement, the team at the Californian center used the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to track the movement of stars around the cosmic giant. It is not the first time that the mass of a black hole has been calculated, but it is the first time that it has been done with one that is so far away (10,000 million light years from Earth, 15 times further than the previous measurement record) and, in addition, it is the first time that an inactive black hole in a galaxy of the early universe. This speaks very well of the benefits of the JWST, which with its sensors allows a very defined image of extremely distant bodies, opening up a huge range when it comes to studying what surrounds us. The problem with sleeping black holes is that they are invisible. It does not emit light, so it cannot be observed directly. So, to “weigh it,” the researchers used a technique that had already been used before: stellar dynamics. Basically, they look at the speed at which stars move near the galactic center and compare that speed to that of more distant stars. In this way, they infer the mass of the black hole. So that. To continue knowing what surrounds us, basically. Because it is not just about measuring the mass of something so distant, but about understanding the formation around it. Thus, this discovery offers new clues to researchers about black holes and galaxies that were born in the early universe. A look at the future by looking at the past. Because, until not long ago, it had been difficult to prove whether there was a close relationship between the central black holes of these very old galaxies. Recent findings suggest that those denser galaxies were sites of rapid black hole growth early in the history of the cosmos. Furthermore, this research will be the basis for future work that will delve into this relationship and, above all, it will also be the basis for analyzing the data collected by the JWST in other similar galaxies. In fact, although the JWST is a good cosmic “magnifying glass”, in Chile the observatory is being expandedThe Bells‘ which is supported by Carnegie Science and will allow studying stellar movements in distant galaxies in much more detail than what JWST offers. In the end, it is about continuing to understand the universe and studies like this allow us to test theoretical methods to understand how massive black holes formed, grew, shaped the evolution of galaxies and, ultimately, became silent giants. Image | Navid Marvi/Carnegie Science In Xataka | We had always believed that galaxies preceded black holes. James Webb has discovered something else

It is charged by the sun and costs less than 100,000 pesos

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Mexico has just joined in this affordable electric mobility. And the company TT Automotive presented the TT01 a few days agoalso named “Totally Tlaxcalteca”, a small electric and solar vehicle manufactured almost entirely in the state of Tlaxcala. The meeting was at Hacienda Soltepec, in the municipality of Huamantla, where businessmen, state and federal authorities, and representatives of the automobile sector attended. It is the pride of the region, since the project boasts that around 80% of its components are of national origin. We tell you everything in detail. Why is it important. The TT01 is proposed as one of the cheapest electric cars that can be found today in Mexico. According to the brand, its price part of the 99,000 pesos (about 5,000 euros to change) and goes up to 160,000 pesos in its most equipped versions. That entry figure places it even below Oliniathe electric car project promoted by the federal government of Claudia Sheinbaum, which has not yet reached the market. So basically the company has preempted the state initiative. Simple and without airbags. The TT01 stands out from the rest of the urban electric cars in that it uses a charging system using solar panels integrated into the roof. According to their creator, Edgar Guzmán Carreto, founder of TT Automotive, these panels generate up to 50 kilometers of autonomy after eight hours of exposure to the sun. The car can also be plugged into any conventional household outlet. The company talks about a total autonomy of up to 250 kilometers per charge, a maximum speed of 50 km/h (little, but designed especially for the city and short trips), capacity for five passengers and a body with a high-strength steel structure. The Herald of Mexico itself says that this first model incorporates very very basic security measures. And because it doesn’t have, it doesn’t even have airbags. Between the lines. In the presentation, Guzmán Carreto counted that TT Automotive was born “not only as a company, but as a declaration of principles”, with the idea of ​​putting technology at the service of people. The approach is to have a cheap car ready, manufactured locally and aimed at families, delivery people and neighborhood transportation. The assembly is carried out in the Xiloxoxtla Industrial Park, which, according to those responsible, should generate employment and strengthen the supplier chain in the area. Pay attention to the nuances. The TT01 that was shown in Huamantla is still a prototype, and there are details that deserve our attention. On the one hand, the vehicle can also be recharged with gasoline in the event of possible unforeseen events. On the other hand, the company itself recognizes that it is still looking for investors to be able to manufacture on a large scale. Guzmán Carreto estimates that in about six months they would be able to produce in series, with an initial goal of 20 units per week and first sales through its website. It is worth remembering the history of delays of the project, since it was first announced in September 2025 with the promise of going on sale in December of the same year, and in the end it was postponed until it was officially presented a few days ago. And now what. The company also works in other variants with greater speed and pricewith versions for personal, family and distribution use, according to pv magazine. Now we need to know if TT Automotive meets the deadlines, since if so it would be ahead of Olinia’s proposal. It remains to be seen whether this type of vehicle, so special and with very basic security systems, will arouse interest in the region. Cover image | Automotive Mexico News In Xataka | Mexico has a brutal potential for solar energy: at the moment it has begun to exploit it with agrovoltaics

A medieval poet and some buried trees have just revealed something very strange to us about the 13th century Sun

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At the beginning of the 13th century, the Sun was passing through a solar cycle much shorter than those that exist today, but extremely intense. Having such specific details is complicated for such a distant time, when scientists did not have instruments to measure this type of activity. However, there is something that today’s scientists do have and that has helped them detect this event: a book of poetry and many trees. Art and science. A team of scientists from Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology has described this event using two types of data. On the one hand, a poem written in 1204 by the Japanese writer Fujiwara no Teika. On the other hand, the observation of the rings of buried tree trunks in northern Japan. The conclusion is clear. While today solar cycles are usually around 11 years, back then there were some 6 or 7 years, but the activity was high enough to lead to the formation of auroras in Japan. A proton explosion. When solar activity is very intense, phenomena such as solar flares or the coronal mass ejections. The first is a sudden release of electromagnetic radiation from the solar surface, while the second consists of the expulsion of matter, normally charged plasma particles, from the Sun’s corona. Associated with these phenomena, proton explosions occur, in which these charged particles move at high speed. rare isotopes. Normally, a good part of these charged particles and cosmic rays fail to pass through the Earth’s magnetic field. However, when they are very intense they can reach our atmosphere in greater quantities and interact with the gases in it. In this reaction, isotopes such as beryllium-10 or carbon-14 can be formed. These are beryllium or carbon atoms with a different number of neutrons in their nuclei than the beryllium and carbon that are most abundant on Earth. Knowing this process is useful, because it can give us clues on two levels. On the one hand, beryllium-10 is deposited in ice sheets, while carbon-14 It oxidizes, transforming into carbon dioxide and becoming part of the carbon cycle. In this cycle, living beings incorporate it into their cells in different ways. For example, plants do this through photosynthesis. And this is where what has been so useful to these scientists begins. Solar dating and meteorology. Carbon-14 is often used to date fossils, since they come from living beings that once incorporated that isotope into their tissues. The moment a living being dies it stops incorporating carbon-14. From that moment on, it begins to disintegrate at a known rate, so it can be estimated approximately when it died. The point is that, beyond that, if carbon-14 levels are unusually high, it can also be determined if there was an extreme solar event. The poem describes a dawn The poem. in his diary Meigetsukithe poet Fujiwara no Teika described the observation of “red lights in the sky over northern Kyoto.” This city is at a latitude too far south for auroras to form, but that is clearly what it describes. The auroras They are the result of a type of interaction between the gases in the atmosphere and the charged particles of the Sun that causes the emission of visible light. They are normally formed at the poles, as they are the points on the Earth where the magnetic field is most vertical, so that it acts as a funnel, so that these particles can pass through it. When they occur far from the poles it is because solar activity has been very intense and the resistance normally opposed by the magnetic field has been exceeded. What the trees tell. The rings of tree trunks are a kind of natural calendar. They are formed from the inside out, so we can count them and calculate how the years have passed. For this reason, the authors of the study that has just been published They wanted to analyze the equivalent buried tree rings at the beginning of the 13th century. In the rings from the period from winter 1200 to spring 1201 they found an increase in carbon-14 levels. This also agrees with the levels of beryllium-10 found in ice deposits from that same period. Everything agrees. Also in China. There are historical records from the time when Chinese astronomers also described red lights in the sky. Therefore, it seems clear that there were auroras at unusual latitudes. A very rare case. The most curious thing about all this is that this phenomenon did not occur at the peak of the solar cycle. It possibly took place around its periodic minimum. If there was less activity, why so much aurora and carbon-14? This is something that, at the moment, scientists have not been able to explain. Perhaps there were also many auroras at the peak, but no poet stopped to write about them. Tree rings would have to be analyzed to see what carbon-14 tells us. What is clear is that the Sun was burning in those medieval times. Image | Masaaki Komori (Unsplash)/Wikimedia Commons | Kush Dwivedi (Unsplash) In Xataka | A sunspot 17 times larger than Earth caused red auroras across half the world. It is a very rare event

Tenerife was known for the sun and its beaches. It will soon house one of the five most powerful supercomputers in Spain

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Tenerife will have a new supercomputer. I already had two with the names of Teide and of Anagaand they will now be joined by a new and promising project called the Atlantic Supercomputing Center. With it, it is hoped to turn the Canary Islands into a new nerve center for retaining and attracting talent in the technological field. Up to 10 million euros of investment. This new project It is a collaboration of the Cabildo of Tenerife and the Institute of Technology and Renewable Energies (ITER) with the German technology giant Bechtle. It will have an initial investment of 5.5 million euros, which could rise to 10 million as its four phases are deployed (two for storage, two for computing) oriented by the demand for the center and its resources. The expansion is flexible and Bechtle will supply the latest technology available at the time of project execution to avoid the use of obsolete components. The fifth supercomputer by power in Spain. By integrating with the existing nodes, the Atlantic Supercomputing Center will achieve a combined power that will place it as the fifth most powerful supercomputer in the entire national territory. It is also expected to enter the prestigious TOP500 list which brings together the most powerful supercomputers from around the world. Hybrid architecture. The rise of AI has meant that the project has an architecture that will allow working with both more conventional workloads and those intended for projects in the field of artificial intelligence. Thus, its architecture will be hybrid: CPU: although it has not been specified which processors it will use, it has been indicated that the supercomputer will have 13 nodes with 288 cores each, which will allow for more than 3,000 process cores to execute scientific tasks, for example. GPU: there will also be four specialized nodes with a total of 32 Nvidia H200 NVL cards, which will allow training of large language models and the development of AI projects. Performance: this expansion is expected to provide between 1.3 and 1.4 PFLOPS of global computing power (close to 300 TFLOPS in CPU and almost one PFLOP in GPU), indicated those responsible for the Cabildo de Tenerife and ITER. Hours instead of months. The president of the Cabildo, Rosa Dávila, stood out that local laboratories, the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and the University of La Laguna among others will be able to access these resources to be able to compute in hours what previously could take months. Juan José Martínez, from ITER, recalled how during the pandemic the Teide-HPC supercomputer It was one of the five centers in all of Spain who sequenced and monitored the biological variants of COVID-19. From the audiovisual sector to the aerospace sector. Among the sectors that will benefit from this computing capacity will be those associated with the audiovisual industry. The Teide-HPC infrastructure was for example used to render scenes from the film ‘Tadeo Jones 2: The Secret of King Midas‘. It will also be the core of the project management of canary satellite constellation. Attracting talent. This facility also wants to become an element that reinforces the role of the Canary Islands as a technological hub. Having a supercomputing infrastructure like this wants to help attract technology companies that promote highly qualified young employment and therefore retain and attract new talent in this sector. Efficiency. Although the power of Teide HPC will greatly benefit from these new resources, advances in photolithography will mean that the new supercomputer will occupy only a quarter of the previous physical space. Its environmental impact will also be zero: the infrastructure will be located in ITER’s own facilities, and will be powered entirely with clean energy from its wind farms and photovoltaic plants. Image | POT | ITER In Xataka | The muscle of many supercomputers depended on GPUs: China is trying another way to surpass the best in the US

Greece wants to prevent its beaches from being suffocated by mass tourism. So you’ve declared war on sun loungers

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Greece faces a dilemma. One well known in other countries that, like Italy, France, Holland, Japan either Spainhave become dream destinations for travelers from all over the world: their tourist attraction threatens to make them die of successsuffocated by overcrowding. To avoid this, the Greek Government has decided to shield around 250 beaches to maintain them as “virgin” sandbanks. In practice, this means that things as basic as renting umbrellas or sun loungers cannot be done there. “Virgin beaches”. If Greece is one of the most visited countries in the world and becomes the summer resort of millions of tourists It is basically because of four things: its Mediterranean climate, its historical heritage, its gastronomy and (above all) its landscapes and beaches. The Government knows this and that is why some time ago it prepared a list of “Virgin Beaches” either “unauthorized”coastal areas in which the authorities apply more restrictive control. Goodbye umbrellas, sun loungers and motorcycles. Among other thingsin these protected spaces it is not permitted to rent umbrellas and sun loungers, set up new bars or install music equipment and speakers. Nor organize events in which they participate more than ten people or use jet skis. In short: they are beaches open to the public and where you can lie down and sunbathe, but unlike the busiest areas you will hardly find commercial services or of course large tourist infrastructures. The idea is to preserve them in their natural state. The key figure: 251. Nothing new so far. What is striking is that the Greek Ministries of Economy and Environment have decided to expand the list of beaches to which this level of protection applies. Specifically, they have added 13 new sandy beaches, according to the local presswith which the ‘armored’ coves and beaches go from 238 to 251. The data is interesting in itself, but above all because the trend that draws: In recent years Athens has been expanding its protected coastal strip. From the 198 beaches in 2024 it went to 238 in 2025 and to 251 that will be monitored this summer. What is the objective? Don’t kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. Greece is full of idyllic beaches, but the mix of overtourism and uncontrolled commercial exploitation, with sandy areas covered by beach bars, umbrellas, sun loungers and rental jet skis, can make it less attractive. The Government also appeals to the need to protect the formations and ecosystems of the Greek coast. “The amendment seeks to effectively protect beaches that have a particular aesthetic, geomorphological or ecological value, as well as preserve the types of habitats and species of flora and fauna found there,” they argue. Earrings from the Natura Network. “Specifically, the coastal zones and beaches located in areas included in the National Catalog of Areas of the European Ecological Network Natura 2000 are expanded, in which use concessions are already prohibited, as well as any other action that could endanger their morphology and integrate with regard to their ecological functions,” duck the Government. To clear up doubts, the Greek authorities have published a list in which you can consult the beaches where businesses dedicated to renting umbrellas, sun loungers or motorcycles have been banished. These include sandy areas of Koufonisia, Chania or Lefkada. Some of the beaches added to the list have been in the center of controversy in recent years precisely because of tourism development plans that included new structures. The other data: 38 million. It is no coincidence that Greece decides to reinforce the care of its beaches right now. With the international tourism boom As a backdrop, in 2025 the country received about 37.98 million of foreign visitors (not including cruises), 5.6% more than the previous year. That rebound came accompanied by something else: an intense flow of billions of euros. Specifically, it is estimated that last year the income generated by the sector skyrocketed by 9.4% to reach 22.6 billion of euros, a figure that increases noticeably if you add the cruise passengers. These are important data due to their weight… and to understand the zeal with which Greece wants to take care of its sandy beaches, preventing part of its coastline from becoming overcrowded. If the tourism sector has learned anything in recent years, it is how easy it is to die of success. Without going any further, there are already travel guides that advise against visiting Mallorca, Barcelona or the Canary Islands because they consider them points hyper-crowded. Images | Nikos Zacharoulis (Unsplash) and Jorn Idzerda (Unsplash) In Xataka | The Balearic Islands are so desperate with tourism that they are already considering a measure that until now was taboo: a limit on flights

Having a beer in the sun was the problem. The residual hops from manufacturing it are the solution

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When you slather on sunscreen, most conventional sun-blocking ingredients are synthetic. He problem is where the chemical UV filters that make sunscreens effective They are endocrine disruptors.can penetrate the skin and are toxic to coral reefs. So the industry has been looking for years for sustainable alternatives that provide that protection while minimizing the environmental impact. A research team from the University of São Paulo has found a natural alternative that also usually ends up in the trash: the remains of hops discarded after brewing beer. The discovery. It turns out that the hops used in beer production, a waste generated on a large scale, can serve to significantly improve sun protection. Through a process of maceration and percolation in ethanol, the bioactive compounds are extracted from discarded hops and incorporated into sunscreen formulations. When they mixed 10% of this extract with the usual UV filters, the resulting sunscreen multiplied its protection factor by more than three: it went from 53 to 178 in laboratory tests. Interestingly, those used hops performed better than unused hops, although the authors admit that the exact mechanism by which this occurs is still unclear. Why is it important. Approximately 85% of the bioactive compounds in hops remain intact in the material discarded after dry hopping (dry hopping), which turns this waste into a functional raw material that today is mostly thrown away or used as feed. Revaluing it as a cosmetic ingredient reduces the environmental impact of the brewing industry, opens a path towards more sustainable and potentially cheaper sunscreens, and fits directly with the principles of the circular economy. Context. Hops contain a family of compounds with proven properties on the skin: reduce inflammation, neutralize free radicals and even stop enzymes that degrade collagen. Especially relevant is xanthohumol, a polyphenol with antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and metalloproteinase inhibitor properties in dermal fibroblasts. The key is how the hops are processed: when added cold after fermentation, without boiling, the xanthohumol is not thermally degraded and remains intact in the residue, which partly explains why reused material is more active than fresh hops. How they do it. The team left From the remains of hops from a craft brewery, he immersed them in ethyl alcohol to extract their compounds, dried the result and incorporated it at 10% into a standard sunscreen that already contained two conventional UV filters. They then measured how much ultraviolet radiation that cream blocked using international reference equipment, the same ones used by health authorities to certify sunscreens. Yes, but. As the research team itself recognizes, all the results are exclusively in vitro, since they used plates and not human skin. Likewise, there are no clinical trials that study whether the cream is stable over time or whether it can cause irritation. Furthermore, it is not clear why it works so well. As says the coordinator André Rolim Baby himself In the note from the FAPESP Agency, stability studies, standardization of assets and clinical evaluation of safety and efficacy will be necessary before any commercial application. On the other hand, the variability in the composition of reused hops (depending on the variety, the dry-hopping process or its origin) complicates standardization: for a filter to be approved by authorities such as the European Commission (EC Regulation 1223/2009) or the FDA in the United States, it is necessary that there be chemical consistency from batch to batch. In Xataka | We humans like beer. The big question is whether we like it enough to have invented agriculture In Xataka | Spain can tell itself as many times as it wants that it hates Cruzcampo. The figures say a very different thing Cover | Onela Ymeri and Urban Gyllström

As children we were taught that Jupiter revolved around the Sun. Technically we were deceived

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If you are over 30 years old, you probably learned in school that there are nine planets that revolve around the Sun. Then you found out that there were eight, because suddenly Pluto lost its planet category and became a dwarf planet. As if all that were not enough, now I am here to tell you that Jupiter does not revolve around the Sun. Sometimes not even the Earth does. We have been deceived or, rather, we have been told everything quite simplified. It is not the center, but the barycenter. There is a lot of talk about the gravitational attraction that large objects exert on smaller ones. The Sun on the Earth, the Earth on the Moon, the Earth on the people who walk on it… However, smaller objects also exert a certain gravitational pull on larger ones. It is tiny, sometimes imperceptible, but it is there. Therefore, although it is the Sun that dominates the planets of the Solar Systemeach one of them also pulls a little bit of it. This means that the center around which they all rotate is not in the center of the Sun, but at a point slightly separated from it, known as the barycenter. To understand it better. All objects have a center of mass. Broadly speaking, it is the point where we assume that all its mass is concentrated. It does not mean that all the mass is there, but for practical purposes, when doing calculations, it is considered that that is where it is concentrated. Because of how external forces interact with the object, it is right at the center of mass where it is best kept in balance. For example, with an elongated object of homogeneous mass, such as a ruler, the center of mass will be its actual center. If we try to hold the ruler on a finger, the easiest thing to do is to place the finger right under its center. There it stays better in balance. On the other hand, in a hammer, where the heaviest thing is its end, its center of mass is there. In the case of the Solar System, the barycenter is the point where the mass of the system is concentrated. Logically, it is very close to the Sun, since 99.86% of the mass of the system corresponds only to the king star. However, there is influence from other masses, so it is a little far from the solar center. The case of Jupiter. If the Sun is 99.86% of the masses of the Solar System, Jupiter accounts for 70% of the remaining mass. Therefore, individually it is the one that deviates the center of gravity the most. This means that the barycenter around which both Jupiter and the Sun itself move is outside the solar surface. Jupiter does not revolve around the Sun, but around a point that does not even cross the sun. The case of the Earth and the Moon. In the case of the Earth and the Moon there is also a barycenter. The Earth is much larger than the Moon, but the Moon also has mass and exerts some power over it. For this reason, the barycenter is not right at the center of the Earth, but 5,000 kilometers from it. It is still within our planet, but not as centered as we usually think. Jupiter and the Sun are a more extreme case, which is why the center of gravity is completely outside the Sun. The Earth does revolve around the Sun…sometimes. The Earth is much smaller than the Sun. If they were alone in the Solar System, the center of gravity would be practically in the center of the Sun. But of course, they are not alone. All planets act on the point where that center of mass is located. And the thing is, it’s a center of mass that moves as these planets move. Something similar happens to what happens when all the sailors on a ship move around the deck. The ship’s center of mass can change. In the case of the Solar Systemthe most influential sailors are the gas giants. That is, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. When these align, they pull the center of gravity outward and the Earth does not rotate around the Sun. In short, no, the planets do not rotate exactly around the Sun. But we are not going to get fancy explaining it at school either. Don’t feel like you’ve been fooled, they’ve just simplified it for you. Image | NASA | Martin Jediny (Wikimedia Commons) In Xataka | A planet has just disappeared: NASA’s Hubble telescope has captured a violent cosmic event that changes everything

For 45 years we thought we understood how stars like our Sun rotate. A Japanese supercomputer has just cast doubt on it

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Understanding how stars rotate may seem like a technical detail, but it is actually a central piece to understanding their evolution. For 45 years, theoretical models held that Sun-like stars would eventually change the way they rotate as they aged. The idea was that, as it lost speed over billions of years, the spin pattern would reverse and the poles would rotate faster than the equator. Now, new research from Nagoya University suggests that that prediction might not come true. The findings. The work, published in Nature Astronomysuggests that solar-type stars could maintain the same rotation pattern that we observe in the current Sun throughout their lives. That is, the equator would continue to rotate faster than the polar regions even as the star slows down with age. The simulations carried out by the team indicate that magnetic fields play a decisive role and could prevent this regime change that was taken for granted in theoretical models for decades. How a star like the Sun actually rotates. Unlike the Earth, which rotates as a solid body, the Sun is made of extremely hot plasma. That causes different regions to spin at different speeds. In the case of the Sun, the equator completes one revolution approximately every 25 days, while the regions near the poles take about 35 days. This phenomenon is known as solar-type differential rotation. For decades, theoretical simulations predicted that this pattern would not be permanent. As stars age and their global rotation slows over billions of years, the plasma flows within them should reorganize. Predictions indicate that there would come a time when the behavior would be reversed: the equator would rotate more slowly and the poles would rotate faster, a regime that the researchers called differential anti-solar rotation. The unexpected role of magnetism. The new simulations suggest that the scenario predicted by theoretical models for decades may not come to pass. According to the results of the study, stars similar to the Sun would maintain the same type of differential rotation throughout their lives. Even if the star slows down with age, the equator would continue to rotate faster than the poles, rather than reversing the pattern as proposed in previous simulations. A supercomputer on stage. To reach that conclusion, the team turned to FugakuJapan’s most powerful supercomputer, installed at the RIKEN research center in Kobe and operational for shared use since March 2021. With its help, researchers carried out an extremely detailed simulation of the interior of solar-type stars. Each simulated star was divided into about 5.4 billion calculation points, a much higher resolution than that used in previous work. This level of detail is important because previous simulations worked at much lower resolutions. Under these conditions, the magnetic fields tended to disappear artificially within the model, which led to underestimating their influence on the internal dynamics of the star. In the new simulation, however, the magnetic fields remained stable and showed a clear effect: they help prevent the reversal of the rotation pattern. The implications. Understanding more precisely how Sun-like stars rotate is key to interpreting their magnetic activity over time. This aspect is related to well-known phenomena on our own star, such as the approximately 11-year solar cycle that regulates the appearance of sunspots and episodes of magnetic activity. A better understanding of these processes could also help improve stellar evolution models used by astronomers to study distant stars. Images | POT In Xataka | PLD Space has raised 180 million euros with Mitsubishi at the helm: the Spanish space startup grows with Japanese money

The molecule that stores the sun for years and releases heat just when you need it

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In winter, raising the blinds to take advantage of the light and heat of the sun in the central hours of the day is a good idea to heat the house while saving on heating. Of course, as the afternoon passes and night falls, goodbye to the sun and its heat. From an energy point of view, it would be fantastic to be able to store the sun in a bottle to release its heat when needed. Something like this has occurred to a research team from the University of California in Santa Barbara, which has published its research in Science: a molecule that captures sunlight, stores it for years without loss, and releases it on demand. No plugs or batteries. Professor Grace Han’s group has synthesized a modified organic molecule inspired by DNA. It is called pyrimidone and is capable of capturing solar energy, storing it in chemical bonds and releasing it as heat in a controlled and reversible manner. In short, as if it were a battery. Context. The analogy of the bottled sun is for practical purposes one of the great problems of solar energy: the issue is not so much capturing it, but rather storing it because obviously there is not always enough sun to satisfy demand. And conventional batteries degrade, are heavy, carry inherent management risks, and are expensive (although now they are below minimums). What Han’s team is proposing is not new: molecular thermal storage, known as “MOST” for short, has been researched for years. However, until now no system had managed to combine competitive energy densities with release temperatures sufficient for real practical application. Why is it important. Because this research breaks two essential barriers that make MOST increasingly closer to being a reality: It has an energy density of more than 1.6 megajoules per kilogram, almost double the energy density of a standard lithium-ion battery. It releases enough heat to be able to boil water under ambient conditions. It is also soluble in water, which makes it potentially compatible with circulation systems in solar collectors. These properties open the door to uses such as domestic heating and domestic hot water (DHW), areas without an electrical grid or systems integrated into roofs. How it works. It is important to highlight that despite the analogies with solar energy, its mechanism is completely different from that of photovoltaic cells. Come on, it does not convert light into electricity, but rather it transforms it into chemical energy that it stores in its chemical bonds. The molecule, which was designed with computational modeling thinking about reducing it as much as possible, works as if it were a spring: upon absorbing ultraviolet light it undergoes a reversible change in its shape, passing into a high-energy state. The molecule can remain stable in that state for years until an external stimulus causes it to relax, releasing the accumulated heat. As Han Nguyen detailslead author of the article, “the concept is reusable and recyclable.” From Barcelona to California. The fact that the MOST have been in the laboratory for a long time is so true that in 2024 a team from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia published a paper in Joule on a hybrid device that integrated a MOST system directly into a silicon photovoltaic cell. The idea is that organic molecules (composed of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, fluorine and nitrogen) act on the one hand by storing energy and on the other, as an optical filter and cooling agent for the solar cell. The molecules absorb the UV photons that silicon does not use well, cool the cell and store that surplus as chemical energy. Thus, the solar cell generates more electricity and nothing is wasted: the system achieved a solar utilization efficiency of 14.9% and a record of 2.3% in MOST storage. Yes, but. That two independent studies separated in time work on the MOST shows that this technology is more than a mere laboratory concept: it is getting closer to having real applications. Of course, like any other innovation, it faces the challenge of scalability and costs, essential for eventual industrial deployment. In Xataka | Plastic solar panels have always been more of a dream than reality: China has just changed that In Xataka | Spain has just plugged in more batteries in one month than in three years: this is the plan to save our cheaper energy Cover | POT

In 1832 Britain realized that it didn’t have much sun. Since then, a law requires that houses have good light

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If there is something that the United Kingdom could blame for its geography and climate, it is the gray days. Rare is the moment when the sun is not covered by clouds in Mary Poppins’ country, where natural light has become a scarce commodity to fight for. So much so, that there is a “right to light” by which homeowners can legally prevent new construction that obstructs natural light rays into their homes. This law is actually an easement established in 1832 by which the owner of a building with windows that have received natural light for more than 20 years has the right to prohibit adjacent constructions that limit it. That is, historically, a person was entitled to this if natural light and air had passed freely through their windows during that time and been enjoyed without disturbance. And these homes protected by the ordinance were marked with the “Ancient Lights” sign. Therefore, if a neighbor tried to violate this by building a structure or planting trees, the owner had the power to sue him for the “nuisance”. Of course, it is important to note that these do not only affect direct sunlight. But it gives the right to a minimum level of natural lighting, not direct rays of the sun. Although this urban planning law has undergone quite a few changes since its inception, the power of property owners to demand natural light continues to be debated in British cities. Nowadays, These “Ancient Lights” signs are still found on buildings around London and other counties such as Dorset and Kent. And the law, more than 100 years later, continues to be the protagonist of all types of litigation, becoming a headache for judges, lawyers and construction companies. The idea of ​​”having the right to light” Let’s go into more detail. A question that arises from this concept is: how much natural light does a person have the right to? And that is precisely where this law has several legal loopholes. Because a building owner’s windows don’t even have to be completely blocked by a neighboring obstruction for that right to be invoked. You simply have to maintain the same level of lighting that the owner has experienced for twenty years, something that is quite diffuse. In the 1920s, Percy Waldram, an expert in this law, proposed a system to standardize the sufficient amount of light that people could claim. He suggested that “common people” required at least one foot-candle (a measure of light intensity) for reading and other work. If the builder, including a homeowner planning an extension, identifies a risk affecting light rights, they must notify the affected homeowner and engage with them to reach an amicable agreement. This could be as compensation or a redesign to rectify or mitigate the problem. However, if there is a dispute, There are two ways to take legal action: damages and/or a court order. The first consists of granting a sum of money to compensate for the loss. The second may require demolition of part or all of the new building unless some other structural change can remedy the problem. The latter is usually too expensive. The idea for many years was that if a property owner did not take immediate steps to obtain a court order, the only remedy available to them was damages. However, a 2010 case left builders stunnedas the court held that it was possible to obtain an injunction even after the completion of the new building. In another more recent case from 2020the court granted an injunction to a property owner two years after the completion of the infringing work. The court found that the builder had proceeded with full knowledge of the risk he was taking. Is there a similar law in Spain? The easements They also exist in Spain. It is the right that the owner of a property has over the adjoining property that limits the proprietary powers of the owner thereof. In fact, it is not so uncommon to find cases in our country (especially in individual homes), in which Your neighbor has one or more windows that face directly onto your property. Is it legal? As regulated by the Civil Code in article 580no party wall can, without the consent of the other, open any window or opening in a party wall. Otherwise, the owner of a wall that is not a party wall and that is adjacent to the back of another owner may open windows or openings in the same wall. to receive lightsas long as it complies with the premises established in article 581 of the Civil Code. Furthermore, as stipulated in the article 582 of the Civil Code: “You cannot open windows with straight views, nor balconies or other similar overhangs, over the neighbor’s property, if there is not two meters of distance between the wall on which they are built and said property. Nor can you have side or oblique views over the same property, if there is not 60 cm of distance.” In Xataka | If your renovation is a pain, think about the house that cost 120 times more than its original cost: a masterpiece In Xataka | If the question is whether they forgot the elevator shaft in the tallest residential skyscraper in Spain, the answer is simple: it was much worse Image | Chris Flexen

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