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Scientists detect chirping cosmic waves in an unexpected part of space

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Scientists detect chirping cosmic waves in an unexpected part of space
News

News

Scientists detect chirping cosmic waves in an unexpected part of space

2025-01-23 00:03 Last Updated At:00:21

NEW YORK (AP) — Scientists have detected cosmic waves that sound like birds chirping in an unexpected place.

These bursts of plasma, called chorus waves, ripple at the same frequency as human hearing. When converted to audio signals, their sharp notes mimic high-pitched bird calls.

Researchers have captured such sounds in space before, but now they have sensed the chirping waves from much farther away: over 62,000 miles (100,000 kilometers) from Earth, where they've never been measured before.

“That opens up a lot of new questions about the physics that could be possible in this area,” said Allison Jaynes, a space physicist at the University of Iowa who was not involved with the work.

Scientists still aren’t sure how the perturbations happen, but they think Earth’s magnetic field may have something to do with it.

The chorus has been picked up on radio antennas for decades, including receivers at an Antarctica research station in the 1960s. And twin spacecraft — NASA's Van Allen Probes — heard the chirps from Earth's radiation belts at a closer distance than the newest detection.

The latest notes were picked up by NASA's Magnetospheric Multiscale satellites, launched in 2015 to explore the Earth and sun's magnetic fields. The new research was published Wednesday in the journal Nature.

Chorus waves have also been spotted near other planets including Jupiter and Saturn. They can even produce high-energy electrons capable of scrambling satellite communications.

“They are one of the strongest and most significant waves in space,” said study author Chengming Liu from Beihang University in an email.

The newfound chorus waves were detected in a region where Earth's magnetic field is stretched out, which scientists didn't expect. That raises fresh questions about how these chirping waves form.

“It's very captivating, very compelling,” Jaynes said. “We definitely need to find more of these events.”

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

NASA’s four Magnetospheric Multiscale, or MMS, satellites at the Astrotech Space Operations facility in Titusville, Florida, March 2015. (NASA via AP)

NASA’s four Magnetospheric Multiscale, or MMS, satellites at the Astrotech Space Operations facility in Titusville, Florida, March 2015. (NASA via AP)

MUGHRAQA, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli forces began withdrawing from a key Gaza corridor on Sunday, Israeli officials said, part of Israel's commitments under a tenuous ceasefire deal with Hamas that is moving ahead but faces a major test over whether the sides can negotiate its planned extension.

Israel agreed as part of the truce to remove its forces from the 4-mile (6-kilometer) Netzarim corridor, a strip of land that bisects northern Gaza from the south that Israel used as a military zone during the war.

At the start of the ceasefire last month, Israel began allowing Palestinians to cross Netzarim to head to their homes in the war-battered north, sending hundreds of thousands streaming across Gaza on foot and by car. The withdrawal of forces from the area will fulfill another commitment to the deal, which paused the 15-month war.

However, the sides appear to have made little progress on negotiating the deal's second phase, which is meant to extend the truce and lead to the release of more Israeli hostages held by Hamas.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was sending a delegation to Qatar, a key mediator in talks between the sides, but the mission included low-level officials, sparking speculation that it won’t lead to a breakthrough in extending the truce. Netanyahu is also expected to convene a meeting of key Cabinet ministers this week on the second phase of the deal.

Separately on Sunday, the Palestinian Health Ministry said that a 23-year-old Palestinian woman who was eight months pregnant was fatally shot by Israeli gunfire in the northern occupied West Bank, where Israeli troops have been carrying out a broad operation.

Since it began on Jan. 19, the ceasefire deal has faced repeated obstacles and disagreements between the sides, underscoring its fragility. But it has held, raising hopes that the devastating war that led to seismic shifts in the Middle East may be headed toward an end.

On Sunday, cars heaped with belongings, including water tanks and suitcases, were seen heading north through a road that crosses Netzarim. Under the deal, Israel is supposed to allow the cars to cross through uninspected, and there did not appear to be troops in the vicinity of the road.

Hamas spokesperson Abdel Latif Al-Qanoua said the withdrawal showed Hamas had “forced the enemy to submit to our demands" and that it thwarted “Netanyahu’s illusion of achieving total victory.”

The Israeli officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to discuss troop movement with the media, did not disclose how many soldiers were withdrawing. Troops currently remain along Gaza's borders with Israel and Egypt and a full withdrawal is expected to be negotiated in a later stage of the truce.

During the first 42-day phase of the ceasefire, Hamas is gradually releasing 33 Israeli hostages captured during its Oct. 7, 2023, attack in exchange for a pause in fighting, freedom for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners and a flood of humanitarian aid to war-battered Gaza. The deal also stipulates that Israeli troops will pull back from populated areas of Gaza as well as the Netzarim corridor.

In the second phase, all remaining living hostages would be released in return for a complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and a “sustainable calm.” But details beyond that are unclear and repeated stumbling blocks throughout the first phase and the deep mistrust between the sides have cast doubt on whether they can nail down the extension.

Israel has said it won’t agree to a complete withdrawal from Gaza until Hamas’ military and political capabilities are eliminated. Hamas says it won’t hand over the last hostages until Israel removes all troops from the territory.

Netanyahu meanwhile is under heavy pressure from his far-right political allies to resume the war after the first phase so that Hamas, which carried out the deadliest attack on Israelis in their history, can be defeated. He is also facing pressure from Israelis who are eager to see more hostages return home and want to deal to continue, especially after the gaunt appearances of the three male captives freed on Saturday stunned the nation.

Complicating things further is a proposal by U.S. President Donald Trump to relocate the population of Gaza and take ownership of the Palestinian territory. Israel has expressed openness to the idea while Hamas, the Palestinians and the broader Arab world have rejected it outright.

The suggested plan is saddled with moral, legal and practical obstacles. But it may have been proposed as a negotiation tactic by Trump, to try to ratchet up pressure on Hamas or as an opening gambit in a bargaining process aimed at securing a normalization deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia. That grand deal appeared to be rattled on Sunday as Saudi Arabia condemned remarks by Netanyahu who said Palestinians could create their state in that territory.

Saudi Arabia said his remarks “aim to divert attention from the successive crimes committed by the Israeli occupation against our Palestinian brothers in Gaza, including the ethnic cleansing they are being subjected to.”

In an interview Thursday with Israel’s Channel 14, Netanyahu said: “The Saudis can create a Palestinian state in Saudi Arabia; they have a lot of land over there.”

The war in Gaza, sparked by Hamas’ attack that killed 1,200 people and saw 250 taken hostage, has killed more than 47,000 Palestinians according to local health authorities who do not differentiate between fighters and noncombatants in their count. Vast parts of the territory have been obliterated in the fighting, leaving many Palestinians returning to damaged or destroyed homes.

Violence has surged in the West Bank throughout the war and has intensified in recent days with an Israeli military operation in the north of the territory. The shooting of the pregnant woman, Sundus Shalabi, happened in the Nur Shams urban refugee camp, a focal point of Israeli operations against Palestinian militants in the territory. The Palestinian Health Ministry also said that Shalabi’s husband was critically wounded by the gunfire.

The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz announced on Sunday the expansion of the Israeli military operation, which started in the city of Jenin several weeks ago. He said the operation was meant to prevent Iran from establishing a foothold in the occupied West Bank.

Goldenberg reported from Tel Aviv, Israel. Associated Press writer Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates contributed to this report.

Follow AP’s war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war

FILE - Israeli soldiers drive near the northern Gaza Strip border in southern Israel, Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit, File)

FILE - Israeli soldiers drive near the northern Gaza Strip border in southern Israel, Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit, File)

FILE - Israeli soldiers wave to the camera from an APC as they cross from the Gaza Strip into Israel, Saturday, Jan. 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Tsafrir Abayov, File)

FILE - Israeli soldiers wave to the camera from an APC as they cross from the Gaza Strip into Israel, Saturday, Jan. 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Tsafrir Abayov, File)

Palestinians are seen near destroyed buildings by Israeli bombardments inside the northern Gaza Strip as seen from southern Israel, Sunday, Feb. 9, 2025. (Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)

Palestinians are seen near destroyed buildings by Israeli bombardments inside the northern Gaza Strip as seen from southern Israel, Sunday, Feb. 9, 2025. (Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)

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