Curiosity Finds Old Streambed on Mars
NASA’s Curiosity rover mission has found evidence a stream once ran vigorously across the area on Mars where the rover is driving. There is earlier evidence for the presence of water on Mars, but this evidence — images of rocks containing [...]
Planets Around Pulsars – Can They Support Life?
Pulsars are among the most extreme stars in the Universe: dense balls of matter which are heavier than the Sun, yet only a few tens of kilometres in diameter. They rotate rapidly (up to several hundred revolutions per second) and flash like [...]
Microbial Bebop: Listen To The Music Of Undersea Microbes
Soft horns and a tinkling piano form the backbone of “Fifty Degrees North, Four Degrees West,” a jazz number with two interesting twists: it has no composer and no actual musicians. Unless you count bacteria and other tiny microbes, that [...]
Stellar Shockwaves Shaped Our Solar System
By Alton Parrish.
The early years of our Solar System were a turbulent time, and questions remain about its development. Dr Tagir Abdylmyanov, Associate Professor from Kazan State Power Engineering University, has been researching shockwaves [...]
Historic Find on Mars by NASA’s Curiosity Rover, Link to Watery Past
By Alton Parrish.
NASA’s Curiosity rover found evidence for an ancient, flowing stream on Mars at a few sites, including the rock outcrop pictured here, which the science team has named “Hottah” after Hottah Lake in Canada’s [...]
The Universe’s Exit Door, The Point of No Return Measured for the First Time
By Alton Parrish.
For the first time, an international team has measured the radius of a black hole.
The point of no return: In astronomy, it’s known as a black hole — a region in space where the pull of gravity is so strong that nothing, [...]
The Deepest Ever View Of The Universe: Hubble Goes To The Extreme
By Alton Parrish.
The Hubble Ultra Deep Field is an image of a small area of space in the constellation of Fornax (The Furnace), created using Hubble Space Telescope data from 2003 and 2004. By collecting faint light over one million [...]
Undersea Volcano Erupting In Ring Of Fire: Tune In Live To Robot Camera
By Alton Parrish.
With just a computer or a mobile device, you can virtually join a NOAA-led team of 35 international scientists as they explore seafloor volcanoes. Watch live video from the deep sea and hear shipboard scientists describe [...]
Ten New Dwarf Planets and Candidates in Our Solar System
By Alton Parrish.
Do you know how many planets and dwarf planets are in our solar system. I thought I did, but I didn’t.
Eris, Haumea, Sedna, Makemake are dwarf planets. Other plutoids or planetoids that may one day be named dwarf planets [...]
When the Rivers Run Red …
By Katelyn Oster.
Countless people are left puzzled and shocked this week because of the mysterious behavior of China’s Yangtze River. The river suddenly turned red for no apparent reason last Thursday, reported to appear the color of [...]
Quantum Teleportation Over 143 Kilometers A New Record
By Alton Parrish.
An international research team including several scientists from the University of Waterloo and the University of Vienna has achieved quantum teleportation over a record-breaking distance of 143 kilometres through free space.
The [...]
Space-Warping White Dwarfs Produce Gravitational Waves
By Alton Parrish.
An international team, including the University of Texas, Harvard Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO and the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias (IAC) has discovered that white dwarfs orbiting binary system J0651 [...]
NASA Reveals Extreme Objects, Millions Of Black Holes, Hot Dog Galaxies, Space Geysers And Other Rarities In Major Press Conference, Video
By Alton Parrish.
With its all-sky infrared survey, NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, has identified millions of quasar candidates.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA
NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer [...]
Nerves Control Iridescence In Squid’s Remarkable ‘Electric Skin’ MBL Scientists Discover
By Alton Parrish.
Squid’s colorful, changeable skin enables the animal — and their close relatives, cuttlefish and octopus — to display extraordinary camouflage, the speed and diversity of which is unmatched in the animal kingdom.But [...]
The Last Blue Moon Until 2015: Appearing Friday
By Katelyn Oster.
Have you ever heard that phrase “once in a blue moon” and wondered when that blue moon would be coming around? You’re in luck! This lunar rarity will be shining bright in the night sky this Friday, August [...]
41 New Planets in 20 Star Systems in Kepler Field of View
By Alton Parrish.
Two newly submitted studies verify 41 new transiting planets in 20 star systems. These results may increase the number of Kepler’s confirmed planets by more than 50 percent: to 116 planets hosted in 67 systems, over half [...]
Irrational Fear that Ladybugs Cause Painful Deafness is Weirdly Related to Crime Risk Knowledge
By Mike Sutton.
In today’s news in the U.K. Danielle Eccles, a British woman, suffered pain and deafness for three years until she was cured when a perfectly preserved ladybird (ladybug) fell out of her ear. So what? you might ask.
Well, for [...]
Giant Galaxy Cluster Sets Record Pace For Star Creation, Astronomers Stunned
By Alton Parrish.
Astronomers have found an extraordinary galaxy cluster — one of the largest objects in the universe — that is breaking several important cosmic records. The discovery of this cluster, known as the Phoenix Cluster, made [...]
New Fossils From The Turkana Basin Shed Light On Early Human Evolution
By Alton Parrish.
One of the newly discovered fossils, KNM-ER62000. The face is very similar to that of the enigmatic fossil known as KNM-ER 1470, discovered four decades ago.
Photo credit: Fred Spoor.Exciting new fossils discovered east [...]
BOSS Largest 3D Map of the Sky: The Cosmic Ruler And The Key To The History Of The Universe
By Alton Parrish.
The Third Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-III) has issued Data Release 9 (DR9), the first public release of data from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS). In this release BOSS, the largest of SDSS-III’s [...]