Nasa has released the most colourful picture of the universe ever made. The space agency created the image by combining data from the James Webb and Hubble space telescopes to capture light that has never been seen before in one image. The picture shows the galaxy cluster known as MACS0416, which is about 4.3 billion light years from Earth. The reds, blues and bright yellows of the picture represent one of the most comprehensive views of the universe ever taken, Nasa said. The colours represent the wavelengths of light captured, going from the shortest in blue to the longest in red. Those colours also help show the distances of those galaxies. Those galaxies that are closer and more active tend to be blue, while the red ones are further away – though some are also red because the vast amount of cosmic dust in the galaxy absorbs the blue of the light from stars. It was created by gathering both visible and infrared light captured by both telescopes. The original imagery was taken by Hubble in 2014, which captured some of the faintest and youngest galaxies ever detected, and it was then combined with Webb’s infrared data to look even further into the early universe. As well as making for a stunning image, researchers are already studying the data used to create it to examine the galaxy cluster and what it might mean for the universe as a whole. The Webb observations can be used to find “transients”, which are objects that change brightness over time. In the image there are some 14 transients – most of which are likely to be individual stars that are becoming brighter, with a minority that are thought to be supernovae. “We’re calling MACS0416 the Christmas Tree Galaxy Cluster, both because it’s so colorful and because of these flickering lights we find within it. We can see transients everywhere,” said Haojing Yan of the University of Missouri in Columbia, lead author of one paper describing the scientific results. One of them in particular is notable, and has been named Mothra. The object is being magnified by up to 4,000 by a process called gravitational lensing – and is notable because it was in both the new Webb images and the original Hubble ones. Scientists still don’t know how that could happen, since the alignment of galaxy clusters and stars needed to magnify something that much is delicate and would be expected to change. Scientists believe that the likely explanation is another unseen object that could be up to a million times bigger than our Sun and is unidentified. “The most likely explanation is a globular star cluster that’s too faint for Webb to see directly,” stated Jose Diego of the Instituto de Física de Cantabria in Spain, lead author of the paper detailing the finding. “But we don’t know the true nature of this additional lens yet.” The findings are detailed in two new papers, one to be published in The Astrophysical Journal and another that already appears in Astronomy & Astrophysics. Read More Nasa gets ‘puzzling’ data back from spacecraft exploring distant object Nasa sending VR headset up to ISS to treat astronaut’s mental health All-UK space mission will ‘push boundaries of human knowledge’ All-female Nasa astronaut team departs International Space Station on spacewalk Watch: Nasa astronauts step out of ISS for spacewalk Jupiter has a creepy ‘face’ in haunting Halloween photo by NASA

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If you thought Australia’s spiders were scary, wait until you see the prehistoric version. Scientists have found a fossilised giant trapdoor spider in New South Wales, only the fourth specimen of its kind to be found in Australia. The creature would have roamed and hunted in the surrounding areas which were once a lush rainforest, researchers said in a recently filed report. Last year, scientists unearthed fossils of the rainforest area from millions of years ago, teeming with specimens including plants, trapdoor spiders, giant cicadas and wasps. Now the area is a grassland region known as McGraths Flat. Researchers have named the spider fossil ‘Megamonodontium mccluskyi’. It would have lived in the Miocene period 11m to 16m years ago. “Only four spider fossils have ever been found throughout the whole continent, which has made it difficult for scientists to understand their evolutionary history,” said palaeontologist Matthew McCurry of the University of New South Wales and the Australian Museum. “That is why this discovery is so significant, it reveals new information about the extinction of spiders and fills a gap in our understanding of the past. “The closest living relative of this fossil now lives in wet forests in Singapore through to Papua New Guinea. “This suggests that the group once occupied similar environments in mainland Australia but have subsequently gone extinct as Australia became more arid.” The spider was found among many other Miocene fossils. In some of them, the fossils were so well preserved that subcellular structures could be made out. “Scanning electron microscopy allowed us to study minute details of the claws and setae on the spider's pedipalps, legs and the main body,” said virologist Michael Frese of the University of Canberra. The details meant scientists could confidently place it near the modern Monodontium, or trapdoor spider. However, it is five times larger than its modern day relatives. Megamonodontium mccluskyi's body is 23.31 millimetres long – that is just over an inch. The discovery of the species also tells us something of the past climate of Australia, the report added. The fact that it was found in a layer of rainforest sediment means the region was once much wetter than it is now. That could, in turn, help scientists understand how a warming climate has already altered the country’s life forms – and how it might change them again. "Not only is it the largest fossilized spider to be found in Australia but it is the first fossil of the family Barychelidae that has been found worldwide," said arachnologist Robert Raven of Queensland Museum. "There are around 300 species of brush-footed trapdoor spiders alive today, but they don't seem to become fossils very often. "This could be because they spend so much time inside burrows and so aren't in the right environment to be fossilized." The findings were published in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

The iPhone 15 is just days from launch, and will come with a change that Apple might never have wanted to make. The company will remove the Lightning port from the bottom of the iPhone, where it has been used for charging and data transfer since the iPhone 5 in 2012. Instead, it will move to USB-C, a slightly larger and more generic port. Apple has long resisted that port, even as it has comes to other Apple devices including its iPads and MacBooks. But it has been forced to do so by new rules coming from the European Union, which seek to reduce clutter and digital waste by requiring companies to use one charger. That new ruling applies to everything: not just phones, but other small electronic devices such as tablets and GPS systems. But since it was announced, much of the discussion has focused on Apple and its iPhone, largely because it was the only major company to resist the change. When the regulation was being discussed, Apple publicly and unusually criticised it. It said that the change would actually lead to more digital waste, since iPhone users would be forced to throw away their old cables, and that it would set a dangerous precedent in allowing governments to change how products are designed. Instead, it encouraged regulators to look at the other end of the cable: the one that plugs into the wall. If that was standardised then users could still rely on having somewhere to plug their cable into, and Apple already sells the iPhone with USB-C to Lightning cables. But late last year, after years of discussions, the European Parliament approved new rules that would require new devices to support USB-C. Apple confirmed soon after that it would comply with the rules. Apple does not intend to mention any of those regulatory changes or its opposition to them when it announces the iPhone at an event next week, however, according to a new report Bloomberg. Instead, it will aim to stress the benefits of the new technology. Apple will focus on the fact that customers will be able to use a single charging cable for their iPhones as well as their Macs and iPads; that there will be faster transfer speeds for the more expensive Pro phones; that charging will also sometimes be faster; and that they can be used with chargers from other, non-Apple devices. Some have suggested that Apple could limit the USB-C phones to Europe. But would have led to supply chain problems and customer confusion, the Bloomberg report suggested. Apple is still faced with a number of drawbacks for the change, however, including spending on the switch and losing money from licensing products that work with Lightning. The biggest danger might be opposition from users: when Apple switched to Lightning in 2012, it received sustained criticism from customers who were forced not only to buy new wires but also new devices such as docks that relied on that connection. This time around, however, customers might be more ready for the switch since USB-C is already used in so many products. The company will also put a USB-C cable in the box, and has been focusing on other charging technologies such as its proprietary MagSafe. However, Apple removed the charging brick from iPhone boxes with the iPhone 12 in 2020, and touted the environmental effects of doing so in a way that suggested it would not add it back again. As such, some customers might find themselves with enough cables, but nothing to plug them into, Bloomberg suggested. Read More Here’s when you will actually be able to get the new iPhone Apple is about to reveal the new iPhone – and a lot more Apple announces major event to reveal new phone Apple says its new product is making people ‘audibly gasp’ The powerful technology hidden in every iPhone – and all around you Vodafone users say they can’t call people

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