The data behind the forecasts was beamed home in 2018, when an automated ground-based survey flagged a surge in brightness from a galaxy roughly 860 million light-years from Earth. The flare-up — which can be likened to turning on a cosmic light switch billions of times brighter than our sun — pointed to a star being shredded and consumed by a supermassive black hole, which lurks in the center of a faraway galaxy and weighs roughly 50 million times our sun.

The star's decimated material heated up as it approached the black hole, blasting X-ray and ultraviolet emissions strong enough to be picked up by space telescopes. Those signals faded a little over a year later, hinting that the black hole had fully ingested the star. However, the signals appeared to surge once again two years later, showing that the star's core had actually survived the first pass while its outer envelopes were destroyed.

Based on telescope data about the star and its orbit, astronomers used a model to forecast the black hole's second-to-last meal before August 2023. The results were  confirmed with follow-up observations taken with the Chandra X-ray telescope, which recorded the predicted drop in bright emissions beaming from the system.

Related: James Webb Space Telescope finds a shock near supermassive black hole (image)

"Initially we thought this was a garden-variety case of a black hole totally ripping a star apart," Thomas Wevers of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, who led the 2023 observations, said in a statement. "Instead, the star appears to be living to die another day."

"The black hole was essentially wiping its mouth and pushing back from the table," Dheeraj Pasham, a research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who led the latest study, added in the same statement. 

The ill-fated star also had a companion star, which was tossed into space at speeds comparable to 1,000 kilometers per second (621 miles per second), study co-author Muryel Guolo of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore explained in the statement. "The doomed star was forced to make a drastic change in companions — from another star to a giant black hole," Guolo said. "Its stellar partner escaped, but it did not."

The star left bound to the black hole ended up being devoured in small portions at a time, which is unlike the conventional "once-and-done" meal of a black hole. It thus offers a new way to probe the physics of black hole behavior, the researchers believe.

"We anticipate that this model will be an essential tool for scientists in identifying these discoveries," study co-author Eric Coughlin, a professor of physics at Syracuse University in New York, said in a university news release.

From recent data collected by Chandra and Swift, the researchers predict the shredded star makes its closest approach to the black hole once every 3.5 years. Its orbit indicates the black hole's third meal — that is, if there's anything left of the star — would kick off between May and August next year. If that feast does occur, it will last for almost two years, Coughlin said.

"This will probably be more of a snack than a full meal because the second meal was smaller than the first, and the star is being whittled away."

A study about these results was published on Wednesday (Aug. 14) in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Located about 321 million light-years away from us in the constellation of Coma Berenices, the Coma galaxy cluster has made a significant mark in our study of dark matter. In 1937, it was within this cluster where Caltech astronomer Fritz Zwicky first found evidence for the existence of dark matter. He noticed that the galaxies in the cluster were moving faster than the gravitational field generated by all the cluster's visible matter should allow. In fact, the galaxies were moving so fast that, by all rights, they should have flown right out of the cluster and escaped into deep space. Zwicky thus deduced that there must be a substantial amount of invisible, or "dark," matter present in the Coma Cluster, but his ideas at the time were considered too radical. 

It was only in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when Vera Rubin and Kent Ford systematically found evidence for dark matter in galaxies by studying their rotation curves — that is, how fast the stars and gas in those galaxies are moving — that astronomers became serious about dark matter. 

Today, we know that 90% of the mass of the Coma Cluster is made from mysterious dark matter.

Since those early dark matter milestones, a combination of observations and theory have also resulted in the standard model of cosmology, which depicts a universe threaded by a cosmic web of dark matter and laced with normal matter in the form of gas and dust. Galaxies tend to form along the filaments of this web, and at the nodes of the web where the filaments interlink, we find galaxy clusters.

Related: Dark Energy Camera captures record-breaking image of a dead star's scattered remains

A 2020 study from a team led by Nicola Malavasi of the Ludwig–Maximilians–Universität in Germany found that the Coma Cluster is linked to three separate cosmic-web filaments, with two of the filaments particularly prominent. Dark matter, gas and even whole galaxies flow along the filaments and fall into the Coma Cluster where the filaments meet. One of the filaments is found on the west side (from our point of view when seen on the sky) of the cluster and coincides with an X-ray emitting shockwave generated by infalling matter from the filament colliding with the intra-cluster medium — that is, the hot gas that fills the space between the galaxies in the cluster. 

Another filament is found connecting the north-east corner of the Coma Cluster and is associated with the small group of galaxies that surrounds the giant elliptical galaxy NGC 4839, which is currently falling into the cluster. In particular, this filament is bringing in pristine, cold hydrogen gas that is sparking fresh star formation in that corner of the cluster. It also shows that the Coma Cluster is still accreting matter and growing in mass via these filaments. In general, the more filaments there are connecting to a cluster, the more massive that cluster is and the faster galaxy evolution seems to proceed, with a greater abundance of red elliptical and lenticular galaxies where star formation has virtually ceased.

Earlier this year, astronomers based in South Korea and the United States were able to apply what's known as a weak gravitational lensing technique to find intracluster filaments of dark matter extending through the Coma Cluster. These intracluster filaments are like tendrils at the end of the larger cosmic-web filaments, and in fact feed dark matter into the cluster. They were found using the Hyper Suprime-Cam on the Subaru Telescope on Mauna Kea, Hawaii, which detected the subtle effect of the mass of the dark matter filaments creating enough gravity to warp space just enough to slightly distort the light of galaxies around them. Hence, we call this "weak" lensing, as opposed to strong lensing that magnifies light from much farther objects.

Cosmic web filaments can link neighboring galaxy clusters too, with a filament connecting the Coma Cluster to the Leo Cluster, and together the pair form the Coma Supercluster of more than 3,000 galaxies, spanning 20 million light-years across space.

Despite its name, the Dark Energy Camera that produced this shot of the Coma Cluster has since retired from duties scrutinizing dark energy, following its stint leading the Dark Energy Survey between 2013 and 2019. Now, the 570-megapixel astronomical camera has become a general workhorse, routinely producing incredible images — including this one.

It's been over two years since Jupiter and Mars appeared this close together in the night sky and we'll have to wait until 2033 to see such a close encounter unfold again. 

With Jupiter shining at magnitude -2.2 and Mars at +0.8, Jupiter outshined Mars by a factor of nearly 16 to 1, but that didn't stop the two from putting on quite the show. 

"For a brief moment in time, it presented a fantastic celestial display," photographer Josh Dury told Space.com in an email.

Dury captured this incredible photograph from the summit of Glastonbury Tor, overlooking the Mendips in Somerset, U.K. 

"The photograph itself captures the perspective of the alignment alongside a once-in-a-lifetime chance of a Perseid meteor entering the frame," Dury explained.

"It was a shock surprise to find this in my rushes and for me really delivers the magic and beauty of the cosmos with Jupiter and Mars being the two celestial objects that inspired me into the world of astronomy. A pertinent moment for sure," Dury continued.

Astrophysicist Gianluca Masi of the Virtual Telescope Project livestreamed the conjunction from his view over Maciano, Italy and captured this beautifully detailed image of Jupiter and Mars sharing the same spot in a sky filled with stars. 

The two planets came as close as within a quarter-of-a-degree, or about 50% of the angular size of the lunar disk.

Lorenzo Di Cola also captured the conjunction over L'Aquila Italy. Both Jupiter and Mars were visible to the naked eye in the constellation Taurus during the cozy meet-up.

The photographer also took this amazing composition image made up of nine interval timer photos showing the two planets rising through the sky. Mars and Jupiter are visible in conjunction and if you look carefully you can even see some of Jupiter's moons.

During the conjunction, Ganymede and Callisto were visible next to Jupiter, with Io and Europa situated between Jupiter and Callisto. 

In the image below (to enlarge using the button in the top right corner) you can see bright Jupiter on the right and Mars on the very left. Now, focus on Jupiter. To the lower left of the planet, there is a tiny speck of light. This is Ganymede. Toward the upper right of the planet, you can just about make out a trail of three small dots of light. The closest one to Jupiter is Io, then it's Europa and Callisto.

Many people also took to X (formerly Twitter) to share some incredible photos of the planetary meet-up.

Former astronaut Chris Hadfield shared his friend Andrew Yee's photograph of Jupiter and Mars shining over Toronto, Canada. 

Meanwhile, astronomer Damian Peach captured the duo during the morning twilight. 

"Both planets are very close together with obvious colour difference easily visible to the naked eye. Aldebaran and The Hyades are at right. A striking sight!" Peach wrote in a post on X.

Photographer David Costello really hit the jackpot with this one. Jupiter, Mars and the northern lights were all visible from Wicklow, Ireland!

If you're inspired by these photographs and want to learn more about photographing the night sky, our astrophotography for beginners and top tips for composing astrophotography guides can help. If you want to take an even deeper look at the night sky, be sure to check out our best telescopes roundup. 

If you capture a stunning photo or video of the night sky and want to share them with Space.com for a possible story, send images, comments on the view and your location, and usage permissions to spacephotos@space.com.

A Falcon 9 rocket carrying the Transporter 11 group of satellites is slated to fly to orbit from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California no earlier than 2:20 p.m. EDT (1820 GMT; 11:20 a.m. local time.)

SpaceX usually opens the broadcast about five minutes before launch on X, formerly Twitter, where you can watch the event live.

Related: SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launches 2 Maxar satellites on record-tying 20th flight (video)

Transporter 11 includes a range of payloads from different companies. One of the payloads, for example, is an Nvidia Jetson Orin NX chip. The chip is a noted artificial intelligence and edge computing graphics processing unit (GPU). 

The GPU will be shielded with a nanoparticle-infused polymer made by Cosmic Shielding Corporation (CSC), a spin-out from Sweden's Chalmers University of Technology. The university already did a test on the International Space Station, but Transporter 11 will be the first time it shields real hardware during a space mission.

SpaceX has already launched four other missions in the past week, with two of those efforts devoted to sending more satellites into space for the Starlink megaconstellation.

The Transporter 11 launch is expected to be SpaceX's 80th of 2024, with more than 70% of the satellites devoted for Starlink.

This device will give you plenty of screen real estate to work with media and any image editing, but questions will remain over whether it packs the firepower of the best-performing laptops on the market. Its massive foldable display and capacity to be used in a variety of different configurations in different environments come at a great price. For many, the stunning OLED HDR display may be worth the investment alone, but there are shortcomings compared with more conventional 2-in-1s that may undermine the value for money you expect from a great device. 

 Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Fold Gen 2 laptop review

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Fold Gen 2: Design

• Refreshing design
• Can be used in a variety of configurations
• Compact when folded away but heavy 

The LG ThinkPad X1 Fold Gen 2 can assume almost any role you want —  but it's perhaps best as a portable monitor to view content. Its expansive 16.3-inch foldable display feels premium thanks to an aluminum chassis supported with magnesium and carbon fiber. And while you're best off making the most of the real estate you get, you can also use it as a handheld tablet in either portrait or landscape mode (if you're comfortable holding such a large display) — or even as a laptop when you fold it, with its lower half becoming a keyboard with haptic feedback. 

The LG ThinkPad X1 Fold can also be used with a detachable Bluetooth keyboard, a stylus that can snap onto the side (or top) of the display depending on how you're using it, and a kickstand that can be magnetically snapped onto its rear. 

In short, it's an extremely versatile device that can well serve a variety of needs. It's also engineered to be packed away in a neat package with a 12-inch diagonal — albeit, this device is a little heavier than you'd like. For example, the Asus Zenbook 17 Fold weighs just 3.31 lbs (1.50 kg) and has a larger screen, with the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Fold weighing 4.27 lbs (1.94 kg).

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Fold Gen 2: Performance and features

•  Middling CPU performance
•  Weak graphical performance
•  Underwhelming battery life

You wouldn't conventionally expect much firepower from a tablet — but you should from a Windows 11 device that's worth more than $3,000. That's where the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Fold Gen 2 disappoints. Its Intel Core i7-1250U mobile CPU was deemed high-end a few generations ago, and you only get 16GB RAM as well as a 512GB SSD. Intel Iris Xe graphics, too, is an integrated configuration that predates the current state-of-the-art dedicated Intel Arc Graphics GPU. 

In other words, you aren't getting value for money with the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Fold if performance is your priority — and that was reflected in our performance benchmarking. Testing with Geekbench 6 found decent single-threaded performance but disappointing multi-tasking results. Graphics performance, too, scored poorly compared to GPUs in the very latest machines. This means that you won't be able to rely on this machine for intense graphics-based applications — despite its display being great for viewing media. 

We were also disappointed with the battery life — just under eight hours in our looped video playback testing — which won't be enough to get you through a day of usage away from a power source. This is perhaps a cost of the form factor and power-guzzling 16.3-inch OLED display. 

There are a handful of ports with the ThinkPad X1 Fold, including three USB-C ports and a SIM card slot, with a 5MP webcam on the frame of the display too. The placement of the USB-C ports is odd, however, given one of these will always be obscured if you're using the display on your desk with the kickstand and keyboard. Alongside an optional SIM slot, connectivity options include Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.1 — which, as with other components, are a few generations behind now. 

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Fold Gen 2: Image editing

•  Expansive and vivid OLED display
•  Bright enough to work with, even outdoors
•  The lack of 4K is disappointing 

The 16.3-inch OLED display is stunningly bright and vibrant and would be a great choice for viewing media and basic image and video editing. But there are some caveats to bear in mind and a few sore spots. 

Its 1.26:1 orientation, for example, is highly unusual and takes some getting used to because large black bars will appear above and beneath anything you're looking at in a conventional 16:9 format. But you get used to this, and having a bit more vertical space can be useful if you're working with visuals. We would have also loved a 4K display especially given the asking price — with the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Fold only stretching to a 2,024 x 2,560 resolution, meaning a rather low pixels-per-inch (PPI) of 200.2. This would have capped off an otherwise bright and vibrant screen for graphics work.

Indeed, we registered a brightness reading of 446 nits with our display calibrator, which is just shy of the 500 cd/m2 that Apple claims a MacBook Pro can reach. This brightness is complemented by a near-perfect 99.9% coverage of the sRGB color gamut — meaning it covers almost the full breadth of colors in the RGB space. This is alongside deep, inky blacks and great contrast you'd expect from OLED technology. There is marginal undersaturation of blues and reds and slight oversaturation of greens, but almost no color distortions.  

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Fold Gen 2 laptop: User reviews

Users tend to love the quality of the display you get with the LG ThinkPad X1 Fold — and that correlates precisely with our own testing. They love the extra real estate you get with a 16.3-inch display, and the quality of its foldable nature is so good that we needn't even mention it. But it's a little too large to use in your hands, and there are difficulties if using it in a clamshell configuration. If your primary requirement is a laptop — users tend to find it clunkier to use, while it's not going to perform as well as the latest high-end models.

Should you buy the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Fold Gen 2?

There is plenty to love about the LG ThinkPad X1 Fold Gen 2 — and the foldable display itself is almost beyond reproach, saving the lack of 4K. But that's where the draw begins to fade. Investing in this machine will elevate your creative productivity, but only if you're going to make the most of its versatility, the different configurations you can work in, and you don't need to do any ultra-intensive graphical work that needs a dedicated GPU. Given how much it costs, too, you may be better off choosing a laptop and a monitor instead. 

The stunning display — which is a huge selling point — might not be compelling enough if you'd like to use this machine comfortably and reliably as a laptop for large swathes of time. But if you aim to use it to view media and work with images, and you can afford the hefty price tag, you could do much worse.

If the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Fold Gen 2 isn't for you

We would recommend checking out the Asus Zenbook Fold 17, which is the closest device on the market to the LG ThinkPad X1 Fold right now. The specifications are similar and you get a larger screen as well as a slightly larger battery. Both machines are really expensive, though, and if you really don't need a foldable device, you could do worse than checking out the HP Spectre x360 14. This is a much smaller and more conventional 2-in-1 device that also comes with an OLED display and a stylus to help give you a creative boost.

At this spot, which is rich in hydrothermal vents, the interactions between mantle rocks and seawater create chemicals that are important for life. Previous efforts to drill into mantle rocks brought to the surface in the deep sea had reached only 659 feet (201 meters) — not deep enough to look for organisms such as heat-loving bacteria that might dwell farther down, said Gordon Southam, a geomicrobiologist at the University of Queensland in Australia and a co-author of a new study describing the core sample.

"Every time the drillers recovered another section of deep core, the microbiology team collected samples to culture bacteria to determine the limits of life in this deep subsurface marine ecosystem," Southam wrote in an email to Live Science. "Our ultimate goal is to improve our understanding of the origins of life and to define the potential for life beyond Earth."

The rock core can also answer questions about the movement of the mantle, said Johan Lissenberg, a geochemist at the University of Cardiff in the U.K. and first author of the study, published today (Aug. 8) in the journal Science. "We know from the rocks that erupt in oceanic volcanoes that the mantle has a lot of different 'flavors,'" Lissenberg told Live Science. These "flavors" are varying rock compositions that come from the recycling of tectonic plates into Earth's interior.

Related: Giant blobs in Earth's mantle may be driving a 'diamond factory' near our planet's core

With the new mantle sample, "we can really try to see what flavors have we got and on what scale do they vary," Lissenberg said, "and then reconstruct how those different bits of the mantle melted and then how they migrated towards the surface."

So far, the team has found that rather than traveling vertically, melts seem to move obliquely, traveling in a diagonal, inclined path toward the surface, Lissenberg said.

The core was drilled by the International Ocean Discovery Program in 2023. Researchers aboard the JOIDES Resolution research vessel drilled into the Atlantic Massif, a portion of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge where the ocean floor is pulling apart and mantle rocks are rising to the surface. The spot drilled was near the "Lost City," a hydrothermal vent field crowded with beehive- and tower-shaped structures that release methane and hydrogen into the ocean. Numerous microorganisms live off these molecules, supporting communities of small invertebrates like snails and tubeworms.

Mantle rock is fragile and tends to fall apart, jamming drill bits, Lissenberg said, but the team was remarkably lucky.

"For some reason, the mantle rocks in our site drilled like a dream," he said. "It was absolutely incredible to see."

The team began pulling intact sections of up to 16.4 feet (5 m) from the hole. In total, they retrieved a continuous record of more than 70% of the 0.7-mile core.

"We collected so many more samples than we had been expecting that we had already consumed many of our sample collection supplies by halfway through the expedition," study co-author William Brazelton, a microbiologist at the University of Utah, wrote in a statement emailed to Live Science. The microbiology team was smashing rocks with sledgehammers nearly 24 hours a day for the two-month drilling project, he added.

"The nearly continuous recovery down to 1.2 km provides an excellent opportunity to document the relationships among microbial diversity, abundance, and activity with depth and temperature, including temperatures approaching the limit for life," Brazelton said.

Additionally, working versions of these sensors would offer new opportunities for scientific discoveries through the study of quantum phenomena, testing the limits of fundamental physics — and maybe even pushing beyond theories such as general relativity and the Standard Model of particle physics. If so, that would undoubtedly lead to a revolution in  — space exploration as well.

"Reaching this milestone was incredibly challenging, and our success was not always a given," Jason Williams, the Cold Atom Lab project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, said in a statement. "It took dedication and a sense of adventure by the team to make this happen." 

Basically, CAL researchers were able to measure the subtle vibrations of the ISS itself, using an instrument called an atom interferometer — it's one of the most advanced technologies for making high-precision measurements. The technique is based on the same principles as optical interferometry, where light is split into two beams that travel along different optical paths before getting combined to produce interference. Any differences between the beams' paths allows for extremely precise detection of changes in the environment.

Related: 

Instead of light, however, atom interferometry uses atoms cooled to near absolute zero (-459 degrees Fahrenheit or -273 degrees Celsius), and relies on their ability to exist in multiple positions and motions at the same time due to quantum effects that become apparent at this ultra-cold temperature.

When atoms move through an interferometer, they create patterns called fringes, which contain information about forces like gravity or other environmental influences. And, because atoms move much slower than light, they are affected by these forces for a longer time, allowing for very precise measurements that are much more sensitive than their optical counterparts.

On Earth, atom interferometers have allowed scientists to achieve incredible feats, such as building absolute gravimeters and investigating changes in fundamental constants of nature with baffling accuracy. But physicists have been eager to apply atom interferometry in space, where microgravity helps eliminate interference and allows scientists to take even longer measurements that would actually, in turn, improve the instrument's sensitivity altogether. In the past, however, maintaining coherence between the atom's has been challenging and required hands-on assistance in order to run experiments. 

Yet, the CAL scientists were able to run their measurements remotely from Earth.

The team hopes that, as the instrument further develops, it will become possible to make even more precise measurements of gravity that would allow us to investigate and understand our cosmos in greater detail than ever. "For instance, they could reveal the composition of planets and moons in our solar system, because different materials have different densities that create subtle variations in gravity,"” the NASA team wrote in a press release.

This enhanced sensitivity could also enable scientists to finally detect dark matter, an elusive substance that has remained a cosmic mystery due to its weak interactions with particles and gravitational fields. 

"Atom interferometry could also be used to test Einstein's theory of general relativity in new ways," University of Virginia professor Cass Sackett, a Cold Atom Lab principal investigator and co-author of the new study, said in the statement. "This is the basic theory explaining the large-scale structure of our universe, and we know that there are aspects of the theory that we don’t understand correctly. This technology may help us fill in those gaps and give us a more complete picture of the reality we inhabit."

It will certainly be exciting to see where future experiments lead. "I expect that space-based atom interferometry will lead to exciting new discoveries and fantastic quantum technologies impacting everyday life, and will transport us into a quantum future," Nick Bigelow, a professor at University of Rochester in New York and Cold Atom Lab principal investigator for a consortium of U.S. and German scientists who co-authored the study, said in the statement.

While astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams were expected to spend 10 days in space after their June 5 launch, it's now been 71 days — and they will not come home until mid-August at the earliest. That's because their spacecraft, Boeing's Starliner, underwent numerous technical issues and, perhaps most critically, problems with its thrusters and propulsion system while docking with the International Space Station on June 6. 

NASA's program control board disagrees on whether the root causes of the propulsion misfires have been found, despite months of analysis. It also remains unclear if the agency will authorize Starliner to return to Earth with astronauts on board at all. Rather, the astronauts may return home on SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsule, depending on NASA's findings about Starliner.

Related: Will Boeing's Starliner astronauts ride a SpaceX Dragon home in 2025? NASA could decide next week

In the meantime, however, Wilmore and Williams have been tasked to other activities on the ISS. They knew what they were signing up for. Both are former U.S. Navy test pilots with experience in developmental programs and long deployments, and that's a large reason they were selected for this current mission, known as Crew Flight Test (CFT).

"Before they launch, we discuss nominal and potential off-nominal mission durations. They are always prepared," NASA chief astronaut Joe Acaba, who heads crew selection, told reporters during a telephone briefing Wednesday (Aug. 14). 

He emphasized that communication has continued throughout the mission to make sure the astronauts stay physically and mentally prepared, and all indications are positive in that regard. "As professionals, they're doing great," he said. "We are all concerned for our crew that is on orbit, and they are willing to do whatever it takes to support those crew members."

NASA had also implemented contingency scenarios for if the astronauts would need to stay beyond a couple of weeks, ISS program manager Dana Weigel told reporters on Aug. 7.

The astronauts were "fully trained" on all ISS duties, meaning Williams and Wilmore have been doing extra maintenance and a large share of science during their time on board. Appropriately sized spacesuits were set aside if the astronauts are asked to take on extra-vehicular activities. As for the supplies, the ISS always has a four-month contingency of food, oxygen and other critical items that Williams and Wilmore have been using.

Williams and Wilmore are not permanently stuck in space, but how they will get home is uncertain. 

On one hand, NASA may task SpaceX with adding two extra seats to the cargo area of SpaceX's Crew-8 Dragon, currently docked at the ISS, to use that spacecraft as the duo's return vehicle. Another option lies with launching a half-empty SpaceX Crew-9 in September with only two astronauts on board, leaving two seats empty for Wilmore and Williams to return in sometime during February 2025. Alternatively, the Starliner astronauts may come home on Starliner after all.

NASA expects to make a decision around next week or so on which path to pursue, the agency told reporters during the Aug. 15 briefing. Agency officials have also said repeatedly that having multiple vendors sending crews to space (Boeing and SpaceX) allows for many options when missions don't exactly go to plan.

Packaged with a digital stylus pen, it's unchanged in its design compared to last year's model— but that's no bad thing. Its premium build quality and high-end feel underline a machine with plenty to offer. Geared to creatives, HP's well-engineered device is fitted with the latest components—including a high-end Intel CPU and a whopping 32 GB RAM — and a stunning OLED display that lets colors pop.

If you are looking for dedicated graphics for astrophotography or image work, this 2-in-1 is also well worth considering. We registered a hefty amount of graphical power in this machine during testing, coming close to matching Apple's M3 chip. We were also impressed with its battery life, although it does land on the heavier side—something to consider if you'll be carrying it around with you a lot.

HP Spectre x360 14 (2024) laptop review

HP Spectre x360 14 (2024) laptop: Design

• Available in nightfall black, natural silver and nocturnal blue
• Fantastic build quality
• On the thicker and heavier side

While HP hasn't changed the design of the HP Spectre x360 14 on its previous model, that's fine by us, given how good it looks and the high build quality of the aluminum chassis. Our version of the HP Spectre x360 14 was coated in a nightfall black finish, but you can also pick it up in natural silver or nocturnal blue variants. We loved the little details that went into the design, including the gold accents on the clipped edges on either side of the rear. The quality of the keyboard and touchpad complements a handsome-looking device that's stylish both in laptop and tablet configurations.  

If we're picking holes, the use of capital letters to label some of the keys is an odd design choice, and somewhat undermines that bid for ultimate elegance, and it's also on the heavier side. As a comparison, the 13-inch HP Elite Dragonfly starts at 2.18 lbs (0.99 kg) — while the HP Elite Spectre x360 14 weighs 3.09 lbs (1.44 kg). We can forgive this to some extent, given it has a slightly larger display, but even the Lenovo Yoga 9i with its 13.3-inch display weighs less, at 2.98 lbs (1.35 kg).

HP Spectre x360 14 (2024) laptop: Performance and features

•  Great performance — but not best-in-class
•  Strong performance with an Intel GPU
•  Excellent battery life 

The HP Spectre x360 14 includes some of the best components out there, including an Intel Core Ultra 7 155H mobile CPU, 32 GB RAM, and dedicated Intel Arc Graphics. With a huge 2TB SSD, there's plenty of room to store media and work with intensive programs like Adobe Photoshop. 

We confirmed as much when we put it through its paces in our performance benchmarking — registering a score of 2,110 in single-threaded performance and 10,480 in multitasking. That might seem abstract, but you can compare it against the M3 MacBook Air, which clocked 3,065 and 11,959 based on public benchmarks. There's no competing with Apple's custom silicon, as we're finding with many devices, but it gives it a run for its money. Similarly, a benchmarking score of 24,993 for the Intel Arc GPU is excellent — as it approaches the 25,842 that the M3 MacBook Air registered. 

Its best quality, however, is its battery life—the HP Spectre x360 14 lasted a very impressive 14 hours and 29 minutes in our looped video playback testing. This is certainly long enough to see you through the day, and you also get fast charging of up to 50% in 45 minutes.  

The device also features 2 USB-C ports and a USB-A slot alongside a 3.5mm headphone jack — which is all welcome considering many 2-in-1s now only include USB-C ports. The device also comes packaged with an HP Rechargeable MPP2.0 Tilt Pen that clips onto the chassis magnetically. You can also tap F2 to hide the 9MP webcam behind a shutter — which is a great touch in the interests of privacy. 

HP Spectre x360 14 (2024) laptop: Image editing

• Fantastic OLED display
• Incredibly accurate and vibrant colors with deep blacks
• Screen could be a little brighter

Like all conventional OLED displays, the 14-inch 2.8K (2,880 x 1,800 pixels) display is a stunning triumph of deep, inky blacks and a cacophony of vivid colors. It's a great fit for any work involving graphics and photo editing, and that's all despite it being a much smaller display than you might otherwise find.

We confirmed these instincts by testing using a specialized display calibrator — which measured the color accuracy and brightness of the display. Our results showed the HP Spectre x360 14 registered 100% coverage of the sRGB color gamut — meaning it covers the full breadth of colors in the RGB space — and scored an extremely high 187% for volume (vibrancy). We didn't notice any undersaturation or oversaturation for red, green or blue — and it also boasts an infinity:1 contrast ratio.

That said, we need to highlight that its maximum brightness is just 365 nits — which isn't terrible by any means but does slightly let down an otherwise fantastic display. By contrast, the MacBook Pro can hit 500 nits. We wouldn't say this is enough for you to avoid using this machine for any work that involves image editing or running graphically intensive software — and you could always plug it into an external monitor if you need to.

HP Spectre x360 14 (2024): User reviews

Chiming with our experience using the HP Spectre x360 14, most people tend to love it. They typically praise its lengthy battery life as well as its design and high build quality. Simply put, it's a stylish piece of kit that has a great display and performs well. Some customers, however, bemoan the lack of an SD card slot — which is important if you're using one of the best cameras to, say, capture images of the night sky and want to upload them as quickly as possible. The speakers aren't anything to shout about either — and while not as tinny as you can get, they aren't to the usual standards of the supplier, Bang & Olufsen.  

Should you buy the HP Spectre x360 14 (2024) laptop?

We should stress that the highest configuration of the HP Spectre x360 14 is on the pricey side for a laptop — and for that price, you may well consider a MacBook Pro.  That said, it's a machine geared towards creatives and includes features like 360-degree hinges that mean you can use it as a tablet as well as a stylus, making working with images much easier.

There's plenty to love about this machine, and we especially loved its long battery life and strong performance, not to mention the stunning colors of its OLED display. It's just a little shame it isn't a brighter machine, but it's certainly not a deal breaker. 

If the HP Spectre x360 14 (2024) laptop isn't for you

If you're looking for a machine that's similar, the Lenovo Yoga 9i comes close and might be available for a little cheaper than the HP Elite Spectre x360 14 depending on the configurations you're comparing.

If you can afford to part with a little more money, then we would also consider the aforementioned HP Elite Dragonfly Gen 4. This is the latest machine in an exquisite series of devices that tend to be almost entirely fault-free and incredibly portable. 

For a much cheaper alternative, the Dell Inspiron 14 2-in-1 will set you back roughly $1,000. It is relatively underpowered compared with the HP Elite Spectre x360 14, but it's still a great laptop in its own right and great for those who don't need the highest-end specs.  

The James Webb Space Telescope's observations put the average value of the Hubble constant (H0), key in determining the rate at which the universe is expanding, at 69.96 kilometers per second per megaparsec. This is indeed consistent with predictions stemming from the standard model of cosmology, which should sound like an end to the issue — but the findings also highlight a critical disagreement.

In 2013, the European Space Agency's Planck mission measured the Hubble constant to be 67.4 kilometers per second per megaparsecs. In other words, this means that every megaparsec (a million parsecs, or 3.26 million light-years) is expanding by 67.4 kilometers (41.9 miles) every second. The Planck science team was able to deduce this value of the Hubble constant by measuring the fundamental properties of the universe captured in the light of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) and then applying our standard model of cosmology to predict the expansion rate. Assuming the standard model is correct, this method should be accurate to within 1%.

Furthermore, measurements by a team led by Adam Riess of Johns Hopkins University, who have been using the Hubble Space Telescope to measure cosmic expansion using type Ia supernovas, which are the explosions of white dwarf stars, beg to differ. Type Ia supernovas have a standardizable maximum brightness, meaning astronomers can measure how far away they must be based on how bright they appear. This distance is then compared to their redshift, because the faster the universe is expanding, the greater an object's redshift. That method puts H0 at 73.2 kilometers per second per megaparsec, implying that the universe is expanding faster than the standard model predicts. It's this disagreement that scientists describe as the Hubble tension.

Related: James Webb Space Telescope complicates expanding universe paradox by checking Hubble's work

And now, the new work led by Wendy Freedman of the University of Chicago raises some difficult questions. 

Freedman's team, working on a project called the Chicago–Carnegie–Hubble Program (CCHP), used the JWST to measure the distance to ten relatively nearby galaxies that have all been observed to have had a type Ia supernova occurrence. The distance measurements were then cross-checked by three independent means.

The first of these three independent methods is known as the "tip of the red giant branch," which describes the maximum brightness that evolved sun-like stars called red giants can reach. The second method involves something called the J-region asymptotic giant branch, which refers to a flavor of red giant stars that are rich in carbon and that have similar intrinsic infrared brightnesses. The third cross-check was done with Cepheid variable stars, which have a period–luminosity relation first discovered by Henrietta Swan Leavitt in 1908, which connects the period of pulsation with maximum luminosity. In other words, simply by measuring how long a star takes to pulse, we can calculate what its maximum brightness should be and compare that to how bright it appears in the night sky to deduce how far away it must be.

The CCHP team measured H0 as 69.85 km/s/Mpc using the tip of the red giant branch, and they measured 67.96 km/s/Mpc using the carbon stars. So far, so good — the associated error bars encompass the Planck measurement of H0, putting them in good agreement with the standard model.

The Cepheid variables, though, were not playing ball. From them, the CCHP team arrived at a value of 72.04 km/s/Mpc, which is not in agreement with the other measurements. Taken together, the four methods give a average value of 69.96 km/s/Mpc.

"Based on these new JWST data and using three independent methods, we do not find strong evidence for a Hubble tension," said Freedman in a statement. "To the contrary, it looks like our standard cosmological model for explaining the evolution of the universe is holding up."

Yet, the Cepheid variable measurements do seem to continue to provide tension. Cepheids form the bottom rung of the cosmic distance ladder, with type Ia supernovas as the next rung up because they can be seen out to greater distance than Cepheids. In the work by Riess' group — Supernova H0 for the Equation of State, or SH0ES for short — Cepheids are crucial for calibrating the type Ia supernova measurements. 

However, Freedman has in the past expressed concerns about a potential problem called "crowding." Although the Hubble Space Telescope has sufficiently powerful resolution to identify Cepheid variable stars in other galaxies, it is possible that low-mass stars very close to a Cepheid can be unresolved and end up blurring in with the light from the Cepheid, thus affecting scientific results.

Earlier this year, Riess led a team that used the JWST to double-check Hubble's observations of Cepheids and came to the conclusion that crowding was not an issue. However, in their research paper, Freedman and fellow researchers point out that the two methods least affected by crowding — the tip of the red giant branch and the carbon stars — give values in accordance with the standard model.

While attention will now focus on measurements of galactic distances using Cepheid variables, more measurements with the JWST of galaxies with type Ia supernovae will be invaluable for confirming the results from these 10 galaxies. However, type Ia supernovas in galaxies that also have resolvable Cepheids, red giants and carbon stars are relatively rare, meaning it may take some time to get a large enough sample.

The results from the CCHP team led by Freedman are currently available as a pre-print, and have been submitted for peer review at The Astrophysical Journal.