#electromagnetic simulation

[simutechgroup]

SimuTech Group specializes in electromagnetic simulation services, offering precise analysis for applications in automotive, aerospace, electronics, and more. Utilizing cutting-edge tools like ANSYS Maxwell, our experts optimize designs for performance, efficiency, and safety. From antenna design to motor optimization, we provide tailored solutions that accelerate development and enhance product reliability. Partner with SimuTech Group for advanced electromagnetic simulations.

[bitstitchbitch]

why are turbulence such a pain in the ass to model?

[johniac]

SciTech Chronicles. . . . . . . . .April 3rd, 2025

[spacenutspod]

SpaceTime Series 27 Episode 115 *How Black Holes Eat Stars Astronomers have developed a groundbreaking computer simulation detailing how supermassive black holes at the centres of galaxies can rip apart and consume entire stars. The study, published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, provides new insights into the mysterious optical and ultraviolet emissions observed during these catastrophic events. Lead author Daniel Price from Monash University explains that the simulation captures the full evolution of the debris from a star being tidally disrupted by a black hole. *New Revelations About Earth’s Mantle A new study reveals that the chemical composition of the Earth's mantle is uniform globally and only changes as it passes through different layers of crust closer to the planet's surface. Reported in the journal Nature Geoscience, the findings suggest that lavas from volcanic hotspots around the world likely originate from a worldwide uniform reservoir in the Earth's mantle. *Water More Widespread on the Moon Than Previously Thought New maps from both the near and far sides of the Moon show that the lunar surface contains vast amounts of water, mostly locked in the lunar regolith. The findings, published in the Planetary Science Journal, suggest multiple sources of water and hydroxyl in sunlit rocks and soils, including water-rich rocks excavated by meteor impacts at all lunar latitudes. www.spacetimewithstuartgary.com www.bitesz.com This week’s guests include: Professor Daniel Price from Monash University 🌏 Get Our Exclusive NordVPN deal here ➼ www.bitesz.com/nordvpn. The discount and bonuses are incredible! And it’s risk-free with Nord’s 30-day money-back guarantee! ✌ Check out our newest sponsor - Old Glory - Iconic Music and Sports Merch. Well worth a look....

[mindblowingscience]

Virtual reality can, in its own imperfect ways, transport a user into distant experiences. With a headset on, an everyday person can get a brief glimpse of what it’s like to perform a surgery, tour the Louvre, or even make an arrest. One thing VR can’t yet do, however, is simulate the experience of eating lunch. But that could change thanks to a new “bio-integrated gustatory interface” device called “e-Taste.”  Researchers from Ohio State University detailed how their new device works this week in the journal Science Advances. They created a small electromagnetic pump connected to a liquid channel of chemicals that, when mixed in the right ratios, can approximate the taste of coffee, lemonade, cake, and other food and drinks. That newly crafted chemical liquid is then pushed through via a gel. Users ultimately experience the taste as a liquid that sits in their mouth. Researchers can then remotely control the gel’s perceived intensity. And while an initial group of human test subjects struggled to accurately differentiate between different taste profiles, the study suggests a future VR steakhouse experience might not be as far-fetched as it sounds. 

Continue Reading.

[mysticstronomy]

WHAT IS A DARK MATTER STAR??

Blog#490

Welcome back,

Saturday, March 22nd, 2025.

In a first, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) might have glimpsed a rare type of star that astronomers aren’t even sure exists. These stellar objects, called dark stars, might have been fueled not by nuclear fusion but by the self-annihilation of dark matter—the invisible stuff that is thought to make up about 85 percent of the matter in the universe.

Scientists will need more evidence to be able to confirm the candidates seen by JWST, but if these dark stars are real, the finding could change our story of how the first stars formed.

Contrary to their name, dark stars could have glowed a billion times more luminously than the sun and grown to a million times its mass. Dark stars have never been definitively observed, but cosmological simulations suggest that they should have formed soon after the big bang from clouds of pure hydrogen and helium that collapsed at the centers of protogalaxies rich in dark matter.

In July 2023 researchers reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA that at least three far-off objects observed by JWST and previously identified as galaxies could, in fact, each be a single, supermassive dark star. “If you find a new kind of star, that’s huge,” says study co-author Katherine Freese, an astrophysicist at the University of Texas at Austin.

The researchers can’t yet prove that the objects are dark stars—only that their characteristics are consistent with their being either dark stars or galaxies populated by regular fusion-powered stars. JWST’s technology is sufficient to do that job, however, says study co-author Cosmin Ilie, an astrophysicist at Colgate University.

All researchers need is more observation time. “We hope we are going to find one of these dark stars with the Webb within its lifetime,” Ilie says.

There are two possibilities for how the first stars in the universe formed. The conventional wisdom is that these early stars were “Population III” stars. Such stars would have been powered by nuclear fusion, like stars today, but they would have had very little to no metal in them—in astronomy, that means elements heavier than helium—because those elements had not yet formed in the early universe.

There is another possibility, though. In 2008 Freese and some of her colleagues proposed that the universe’s first stars could have been powered by dark matter. Dark matter is a mysterious form of matter that does not interact with electromagnetic forces; scientists know it exists only because of its gravitational effects, and they don’t know what it’s made of.

In the early universe, dark stars could have formed from the collapse of helium and hydrogen clouds made in the big bang. If dark matter particles are also their own antiparticles, as many dark matter theories posit, then within these collapsing clouds, those particles would have collided with one another and self-annihilated.

The collision would have kicked off a chain of particle decay that ended with the production of photons, electron-positron pairs and neutrinos. Only the neutrinos would have really left the cloud because they barely interact with matter. The other particles would have hit the hydrogen and helium and transferred their energy to that matter, which would have heated up the cloud and fueled the star’s formation and continued growth.

These stars would have formed at the center of “minihaloes,” which were early protogalaxies that existed 200 million years after the big bang, before the advent of elements heavier than helium and hydrogen. These minihaloes consisted almost entirely of dark matter, making conditions within them ripe to power dark stars. This high concentration of dark matter is why dark stars could form only in the early universe, Freese says.

Originally published on https://www.scientificamerican.com

COMING UP!!

(Wednesday, March 26th, 2025)

"WHAT IS THE OLDEST KNOWN GALAXY??"

[twistedy]

Zitra the electrical droid!

(Massive lore dump)

Zitra is C.O.R.E’s latest droid model that specializes in electrical engineering. She was created out of interest in maintaining high-voltage infrastructure that is incredibly dangerous to humans. Thus, Zitra is impervious to high-voltage intake and can generate up to 480 volts to power systems for tests (or anything). This makes Zitra the ideal candidate for working in active electrical systems without shutting off a major power grid or risking human lives.

Her ears are electromagnetic arcs that resemble the ears of a cat or fox (intentionally vague), which assists with certain expressions since her mouth isn’t projected. (She can still speak, she just chooses not to simulate her mouth).

Zitra is also able to generate voltage from her tail, forearms, and surrounding electromagnetic field, because why not? With controlled outputs, she can close, open, and ground circuits when needed.

Due to her model year and similarities with Marin’s design, they can be considered ‘sisters.’ So yeah, the electrical robot is the sister of the very conductive water robot. This makes for some good pranks.

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Some Science Vocabulary

for your next poem/story

Word — Science Meaning; Public Meaning

Bank - land alongside a river/lake; a place where people store money

Bar - unit of measure of atmospheric pressure; place to drink alcoholic beverages

Belt - collection of asteroids in a disc shape; materials worn around waist to support clothes

Bonding - electrostatic attraction between atoms; making an emotional connection

Charge - force experienced by matter when in an electromagnetic field; demand a price for rendered goods/services

Code - software/computer language; encrypted message

Crust - outermost layer of planet; edge of pizza/pie

Current - water or air moving in a direction; belonging to the present time

Cycling - flow of nutrients or elements; riding a bicycle

Dating - determining age of site/artifact; initial stage of romantic relationship

Driver - influential factor; someone who drives a vehicle

Dwarf - celestial body resembling small planet; characters from Snow White

Fault - fracture in a rock with movement; responsible for accident/misfortune

Fetch - distance traveled by wind/waves over water; go far and then bring back something/someone

Force - strength/energy of action/movement; make someone do something against their will

Grade - gradient/slope; level of proficiency

Hertz - the SI unit of frequency; rental car company

Jet - gas stream ejected from an accretion disk surrounding star; an aircraft powered by jet engines

Mantle - planet layer between crust and core; important role passed from person to person

Matter - physical substance in general; be of importance, have significance

Model - computer simulation; promotes fashion/product

Mole - SI unit used to measure amount of something; small rodent-like mammal

Plastic - substance that is easily shaped/molded; synthetic material

Pressure - force per unit area that gas/liquid/solid exerts on another; use of persuasion to make someone do something

Productive - creating organic matter through photo/chemosynthesis; busy and efficient

Sample - to take a sample for analysis; a small part of something

Scale - system of marks used for measuring; device used for measuring weight

Shear - difference in wind speed/direction; cut wool off of

Shelf - a submarine bank; a surface for displaying/storing objects

Stress - pressure/tension exerted on a material object; mental/emotional strain

Submarine - existing/occurring under the sea surface; a ship that stays submerged under water for extended periods

Surf - line of foam on seashore from breaking waves; riding a surfboard

Swell - sea movement in rolling waves that do not break; to become larger in size (e.g. a body part)

Source ⚜ More: Word Lists

[youzicha]

It's cute to say that stealth aircraft got rounder for the same reason that video game characters did: because the computers got more powerful. But it's not the complete story. More accurately, it was specifically Lockheed's stealth aircraft that evolved that way.

Famously, a Lockheed employee noticed a paper describing how to calculate electromagnetic scattering from a polyhedron. They implemented it in software and used it to design the Have Blue demonstrator, which evolved into the F-117.

But at the same time, Northrop developed the Tacit Blue demonstrator, which was not designed using the edge diffraction software, and did not consist of only flat polygons.

Tacit Blue was the first aircraft to use "edge convolution" (a.k.a. "Gaussian stealth"). This smoothes out the edges by convolving them with a gaussian function. In particular, the convolution makes the edge of the wing sharper than if it was just a wedge between two polygons (with an ideal gaussian function it would extend out infinitely, so the acute angle would approach 0 degrees). This means that the edge of the wing will reflect less radar waves if it is illuminated directly from the side (from the horizon), which is the typical case if the plane is flying straight and the enemy radar is far away.

All stealth aircraft now use the gaussian smoothing idea, and you can clearly see the commonalities between Tacit Blue and the Northrop B-2.

Actually, when it came time to design the ATF (which evolved into the F-22), Lockheed also had to abandon their edge diffraction software. The ATF chief engineer commented:

We did not know how to analyze a curved stealthy shape in those days. The software wasn't sophisticated enough, and we didn't have the computational capacity we needed. We had our hands tied by the analytical problems. Lockheed had become convinced that, if we could not analyze a design as a stealthy shape, then it could not be stealthy. We would not break through that barrier until 1984. [...] We simply started drawing curved shapes even though we could not run the designs through our analytical software models. When we went to curved airplanes, we began to get more acceptable supersonic and maneuver performance. Instead of relying on software models, we built curved shapes and tested them on the company's radar range. The curved shapes performed quite well in the radar tests.

So in the end, I think the "smooth stealth planes" (B-2, F-22) were mainly designed heuristically and evaluated by building actual model airplanes; having fast computers to simulate them was not the bottle neck.

[calciumcarbo-bot]

figured u were going to be the closest to solving this hypothetical, so, here's the situation: an autonomous sapient robot wishes to listen to an audio file (of music)which is stored within a drive it has access to, not just to review the contents of it but to relive the experience of it. It decides to do this by playing the audio out loud, so that it can relive the process of processing the input sounds all over again. SO THE QUESTION IS: would this only work with traditional speakers. Or can computers process radiowaves in the same manner?

(this is abt rei, not u btw. u don't seem like the sentimental music-listening type, no offense)

[RESPONSE: UNIT S.E.N-KU_v1.03]

Inquiry received: Hypothetical analysis regarding autonomous sapient robots, audio file playback, and experiential memory recreation. Clarification: Subject of inquiry is "Rei," not this unit. (Observation: None taken. Emotional attachment to music is a known cognitive inefficiency.)

Answer:

Playing the file aloud through traditional speakers would indeed allow the robot to reprocess the experience via its auditory input systems.

Traditional speakers convert digital signals into mechanical vibrations (air pressure changes) — tangible, physical phenomena.

If the robot’s auditory sensors are designed to detect externalized air vibrations (as with human ears), then yes: it would re-experience the sound just as an organic listener would, creating a new sensory event separate from memory access.

In short: Playing music aloud is an effective method to relive it externally.

Regarding Radiowaves:

Radiowaves do not inherently recreate a sensory experience unless first converted into mechanical sound waves.

Directly processing radiowaves (electromagnetic signals) would bypass the external physical sensory input phase and access the data directly—more like reading the blueprint of the experience than feeling it.

Processing radiowaves without translation would be like reading sheet music without hearing the notes.

Summary:

Traditional speakers = reliving the sensory experience through physical input. Direct radiowave processing = data retrieval, not experiential recreation.

Additional Commentary:

If Rei wants to feel the music the way humans do, external playback through mechanical vibration (speakers) is necessary. Otherwise, it's just simulation. Not sensation.

[END TRANSMISSION]

[bitstitchbitch]

This is what I get to do for my research <3 I love watching the patterns play out

If you've ever ask yourself what the use of math is, here's a great example. These patterns are simulated electromagnetic waves that are generated based on Maxwell's equations - which are partial differential equations. The computer has to calculate multiple values for each grid cell displayed, then calculates the next grid cell off of the previous and surrounding values.

so fun! and even when i mess things up, the patterns still look cool

(this is not a meaningful scenario, i'm just testing border conditions with a very simple set up)

[goshenightie]

Not a lot of people pay attention to this, but most Nanook's/Destruction's blessings in the Simulated Universe are Astronomy related!!

Let's start from the 1 star blessings (not gonna add images because the MAX is 10 images lmao):

Eternally Collapsing Object

(This blessing could be a reference to) The magnetospheric eternally collapsing object (MECO) is an alternative model for black holes initially proposed by Indian scientist Abhas Mitra in 1998 and later generalized by American researchers Darryl J. Leiter and Stanley L. Robertson. A proposed observable difference between MECOs and black holes is that a MECO can produce its own intrinsic magnetic field. An uncharged black hole cannot produce its own magnetic field, though its accretion disk can.

Instability Strip

The unqualified term instability strip usually refers to a region of the Hertzsprung–Russell diagram largely occupied by several related classes of pulsating variable stars: Delta Scuti variables, SX Phoenicis variables, and rapidly oscillating Ap stars (roAps) near the main sequence; RR Lyrae variables where it intersects the horizontal branch; and the Cepheid variables where it crosses the supergiants.

Orbital Redshift

(This blessing could be a reference to) The main causes of electromagnetic redshift in astronomy and cosmology are the relative motions of radiation sources, which give rise to the relativistic Doppler effect, and gravitational potentials, which gravitationally redshift escaping radiation. All sufficiently distant light sources show cosmological redshift corresponding to recession speeds proportional to their distances from Earth, a fact known as Hubble's law that implies the universe is expanding.

Primordial Black Hole

In cosmology, primordial black holes (PBHs) are hypothetical black holes that formed soon after the Big Bang. In the inflationary era and early radiation-dominated universe, extremely dense pockets of subatomic matter may have been tightly packed to the point of gravitational collapse, creating primordial black holes without the supernova compression typically needed to make black holes today. Because the creation of primordial black holes would pre-date the first stars, they are not limited to the narrow mass range of stellar black holes.

(I'm gonna skip the two star blessings because I don't think there's any Astronomy related ones?)

Universal Heat Death Characteristic

The heat death of the universe (also known as the Big Chill or Big Freeze) is a hypothesis on the ultimate fate of the universe, which suggests the universe will evolve to a state of no thermodynamic free energy, and will therefore be unable to sustain processes that increase entropy. Heat death does not imply any particular absolute temperature; it only requires that temperature differences or other processes may no longer be exploited to perform work. In the language of physics, this is when the universe reaches thermodynamic equilibrium.

Non-Inverse Antimatter Equation

E=mc2

The story of antimatter begins (again) with Einstein and his famous formula: E=mc2. It means that energy and mass are interchangeable - so mass can be transformed to energy (as in stars), or energy into mass. And this has huge consequences.

Resonance Interplay: Protostar

A protostar is a very young star that is still gathering mass from its parent molecular cloud. It is the earliest phase in the process of stellar evolution. For a low-mass star (i.e. that of the Sun or lower), it lasts about 500,000 years.

Resonance Interplay: Zero Age Main sequence

zero-age main sequence: a line denoting the main sequence on the H–R diagram for a system of stars that have completed their contraction from interstellar matter and are now deriving all their energy from nuclear reactions, but whose chemical composition has not yet been altered substantially by nuclear reaction.

Resonance Interplay: Substellar Belt

A substellar object, sometimes called a substar, is an astronomical object, the mass of which is smaller than the smallest mass at which hydrogen fusion can be sustained (approximately 0.08 solar masses). This definition includes brown dwarfs and former stars similar to EF Eridani B, and can also include objects of planetary mass, regardless of their formation mechanism and whether or not they are associated with a primary star.

Resonance Formation: Event Horizon

We can think of the event horizon as the black hole's surface. Inside this boundary, the velocity needed to escape the black hole exceeds the speed of light, which is as fast as anything can go. So whatever passes into the event horizon is doomed to stay inside it – even light.

Resonance Formation: Extreme Helium Flash

A helium flash is a very brief thermal runaway nuclear fusion of large quantities of helium into carbon through the triple-alpha process in the core of low-mass stars (between 0.8 solar masses (M☉) and 2.0 M☉) during their red giant phase. The Sun is predicted to experience a flash 1.2 billion years after it leaves the main sequence. A much rarer runaway helium fusion process can also occur on the surface of accreting white dwarf stars.

Resonance Formation: Cataclysmic Variable

Cataclysmic variables (CVs) are binary star systems that have a white dwarf and a normal star companion. They are typically small – the entire binary system is usually the size of the Earth-Moon system – with an orbital period of 1 to 10 hours.

(Sources are all from Wikipedia and the official Nasa website, but correct me if i got some of it wrong^^)

[usafphantom2]

"A right front view of an E-4 advanced airborne command post (AABNCP) on the electromagnetic pulse (EMP) simulator for the testing". Circa 1979

📷📖 catalog.archives.gov/id/6343122 👁‍🗨 @USNatArchives

@MassaiasThanos via X

[mysticstronomy]

WHAT WILL IT TAKE TO REACH ZERO SPACE DEBRIS??

Blog#476

Saturday, February 1st, 2025.

Welcome back,

The space debris problem won’t solve itself. We’ve been kicking the can down the road for years as we continue launching more rockets and payloads into space. In the last couple of years, organizations—especially the European Space Association—have begun to address the problem more seriously.

Now they’re asking this question: What will it take to reach zero space debris?

At first glance, it may seem unreal, maybe naive. There are billions of pieces of space junk orbiting Earth, and more than 25,000 of those pieces are larger than 10 cm. Though small, these pieces are travelling fast and can cause significant damage when impacting satellites or space stations. What will it take to get rid of all this debris?

The ESA has released the Zero Debris Technical Booklet to elucidate the challenges to a zero-debris future and propose solutions to get there. The Booklet’s development follows the signing of the Zero Debris Charter by members of the Zero-Debris community.

“Despite several initiatives for space debris mitigation in recent years and modest improvements in public awareness, there is a general consensus that more ambitious actions are urgently needed from all space stakeholders to prevent, mitigate, and remediate debris,” the report states. The report points out that the Guidelines for the Long-term Sustainability of Outer Space Activities of the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space outlines how access to space is hindered by debris.

The booklet defines zero debris targets and presents “technical needs, solutions and key enablers” that can help organizations achieve them.

The obvious first step is to cease creating more debris.

It begins with avoiding the unintentional release of debris. Exposure to the space environment can degrade materials during missions and beyond their end date, and unintentional impacts can also release debris. The Booklet promotes the “Development of multi-layer insulation and coating technologies preventing long-term degradation of materials” and similar developments for materials that can resist impacts. Improved monitoring, simulations, and testing can help us get there.

The Booklet also points out the need for different propulsion technologies. Some propulsion technologies release enormous quantities of small particles. The Booklet promotes the development of alternate propulsion systems based on things like electromagnetic tethers, momentum-transfer tethers, and drag or solar radiation pressure augmentation devices.

Originally published on https://www.universetoday.com

COMING UP!!

(Wednesday, February 5th, 2025)

"COULD HUMANS SURVIVE LIVING IN SPACE??"

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

First-ever detection of a mid-infrared flare in Sagittarius A*, the Milky Way's supermassive massive black hole

Using the MIRI instrument onboard the James Webb Space Telescope, an international team of scientists made the first-ever detection of a mid-IR flare from Sagittarius A*, the supermassive massive black hole at the heart of the Milky Way. In simultaneous radio observations, the team found a radio counterpart of the flare lagging behind in time. The paper is published on the arXiv preprint server.

Scientists have been actively observing Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*)—a supermassive black hole roughly 4 million times the mass of the sun— since the early 1990s. Sgr A* regularly exhibits flares that can be observed in multiple wavelengths, allowing scientists to see different views of the same flare and better understand how it emits light and how the emission is generated. Despite a long history of successful observations, and even imaging of the cosmic beast by the Event Horizon Telescope in 2022, one crucial piece of the puzzle— mid-infrared observations (Mid-IR)—was missing until now.

Infrared (IR) light is a type of electromagnetic radiation that has longer wavelengths than visible light, but shorter wavelengths than radio light. Mid-IR sits in the middle of the infrared spectrum, and allows astronomers to observe objects, like flares, that are often difficult to observe in other wavelengths due to impenetrable dust. Until the recent study, no team had yet successfully detected Sgr A*'s variability in the mid-IR, leaving a gap in scientists' understanding of what causes flares, and questions about whether theoretical models are complete.

"Sgr A*'s flare evolves and changes quickly, in a matter of hours, and not all of these changes can be seen at every wavelength," says Joseph Michail, one of the lead authors on the paper, a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Harvard CfA. "For over 20 years, we've known what happens in the radio and what happens in the near infrared, but the connection between them was never 100% clear or certain. This new observation in mid-IR fills in that gap and connects the two."

Scientists aren't 100% sure what causes flares, so they rely on models and simulations, which they compare with observations, to try to understand where they come from. Many simulations suggest that flares in Sgr A* are caused by the bunching of magnetic field lines in the supermassive black hole's turbulent accretion disk. When two magnetic field lines approach they can connect to each other and release a large amount of their energy.

The byproduct of this magnetic reconnection—synchrotron emission—occurs when energized electrons travel at speeds close to the speed of light along the magnetic field lines of the supermassive black hole. They emit high-energy radiation photons that power the flare.

Because the mid-IR spectral range sits between the submillimeter and the near-infrared (NIR), it is keeping secrets locked away about the role of electrons, which have to cool to release energy to power the flares. The new observations are consistent with the existing models and simulations, giving one more strong piece of evidence to support the theory of what's behind the flares.

"Our research indicates that there may be a connection between the observed variability at millimeter wavelengths and the observed mid-IR flare emission," says Sebastiano von Fellenberg, a postdoctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy (MPIfR) and the lead author on the new paper.

He adds that the results underscore the importance of expanding multi-wavelength studies of not just Sgr A*, but other supermassive black holes, like M87*, to get a clear picture of what's really happening within and beyond their accretion disks.

"While our observations suggest that Sgr A*'s mid-IR emission does indeed result from synchrotron emission from cooling electrons, there's more to understand about magnetic reconnection and the turbulence in Sgr A*'s accretion disk," says von Fellenberg. "This first-ever mid-IR detection, and the variability seen with the SMA, has not only filled a gap in our understanding of what has caused the flare in Sgr A* but has also opened a new line of important inquiry."

Simultaneous observations with the Submillimeter Array (SMA), the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) and the Chandra X-ray Observatory filled in an additional part of the story. No flare was detected during the X-ray observations, likely because this particular flare didn't accelerate electrons to energies as high as some other flares do. But the team was successful when they turned to the SMA, which detected a millimeter-wave flare lagging roughly 10 minutes behind the mid-IR flare.

"Working on reducing and calibrating the data from James Webb—which is presently one of the best telescopes we have—was a dream come true for me, and I'm really grateful for the amazing mentorship of Sebastiano von Fellenberg and Gunther Witzel. I look forward to working further in this area by pursuing a Ph.D. after graduating this year," says Tamojeet Roychowdhury, currently a student of the Indian Institute of Technology in Bombay.

"We are building an increasingly detailed picture of the processes that take place in the immediate vicinity of a supermassive black hole. The quality of our mid-infrared data is yet another testament to the James Webb Space Telescope's enormous technical capabilities," concludes Witzel, staff scientist at the MPIfR.

TOP IMAGE: The MIRI instrument within the JWST Integrated Science Instrument Module (ISIM). MIRI is the silver colored item on the left of the ISIM—the black structure (left). The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) with its 6.50 m diameter main mirror (right). Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center/Chris Gunn (MIRI). NASA (JWST)

LOWER IMAGE: Mid infrared images of the Galactic Center with JWST. Credit: arXiv (2025). DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2501.07415

[archferret]

Alright I've got time before work and people did express interest so here's my headcanon on how Formie "Powers" and by extension Sparks Hat work.

So to start we know that the art book isn't true canon as Lake said if it's not in the games it doesn't count but given the minimal information given in the games it's really our only source of any kind of info. We also know Romalo functions off of Holographic Nanites and likely is the same for other "Nano Mage" units like the Qiqi's in 3. So let's start there. How I think (in an incredibly pesduo-scientific way as I'm not a real scientist and Spark isn't a hard sci-fi series) these robots (and by extension other Formie Powers) function is by the nanites they control emitting an electromagnetic field. The field simulates the properties of whatever is being made causing it to act as if it's really whatever is being simulated but the effect disappears if the nanites stop receiving power/a signal. So for example if Romalo makes a pie and throws it at you it feels like a real pie, but disappears as soon as he uses those nanites for another task. If you were to try and eat it the connection may become disrupted by your bodies own interference and it would vanish anyway, or if Romalo was damaged he might run out of power/disrupt the signal ect. Some effects might linger, for example nanties that cause fire aren't actually just fire they heat up already existing particles to cause real flames. Thus if you were to use a power to light something on fire it would remain on fire even when power/signal is cut.

Now onto Formie "Powers". The tools Spark picks up during Spark 1 are quite litterally just that, they're tools and toys used by other Formies in everyday life. And how I think they work is when you wear or hold the item it forms some kind of connection with a Formies nervous system through its electrical signaling. This allows a Formie to control the Power as if it was an extension of their own body. This would also mean overusing a Power too much can even cause physical exhaustion. They all come with an electromagnetic barrier (like Sparks Hat) which acts as "safety equipment" protecting the Formie from levels of physical harm to an extent. In this case I'm drawing more from pure theory than basis in examples but I'd wager normal commercial Powers tend to be fairly weak to allow them to be compatible with a wide range of people (since not every nervous system is identical) while modded/homemade gear like Sparks Hat tend to be more potent but more specialized to an individual. Not that it *couldnt* be used by others but the chance of "feedback" and damage from the connection would be much higher.

Now for Sparks Hat... in 1 he usually wears it in addition to the regular equipment provided by the Powers. For example the wind Scarf doesn't come with a hat yet Wind Spark still has hit hat on. What I'm thinking is Sparks hat while decently strong on its own is acting as an amplifier to the other equipment Sparks wearing. The stuff he's picking up are normal Powers and aren't as strong in the hands of someone else because Spark isn't using 1 Power he's using 2! So the regular Wind Scarf isn't anywhere near capable of what Spark can pull off with it.

And for the sake of just making things make sense in my head beyond gameplay mechanics being gameplay mechanics I like to headcanon the reason he doesn't use Powers in 3 the same way he does in 1 is that his Hat is actually too strong at this point and would overload any equipment he tries to use it with!