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Wed, 27 Oct 2021
Astronomers have discovered a structure thought to be a 'protocluster' of galaxies on its way to developing into a galaxy supercluster. Observations show the protocluster, which is located 11 billion light-years from Earth, as it appeared when the universe was 3 billion years old, when stars were produced at higher rates in certain regions of the cosmos.
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Wed, 27 Oct 2021
The Earth's atmosphere has been used as a 'laboratory' to carry out a physics experiment which could help to improve the performance of GPS.
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Wed, 27 Oct 2021
Researchers have developed a concept that would make Martian rocket fuel, on Mars, that could be used to launch future astronauts back to Earth.
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Wed, 27 Oct 2021
Signs of a planet transiting a star outside of the Milky Way galaxy may have been detected. The finding opens up a new window to search for exoplanets at greater distances than ever before.
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Wed, 27 Oct 2021
Space missions, such as NASA's Orion that will take astronauts to Mars, are pushing the limits of human exploration. But during their transit, spacecrafts encounter a continuous stream of damaging cosmic radiation, which can harm or even destroy onboard electronics. To extend future missions, researchers show that transistors and circuits with carbon nanotubes can be configured to maintain their electrical properties and memory after being bombarded by high amounts of radiation.
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Mon, 25 Oct 2021
Most elements lighter than iron are forged in the cores of stars, but scientists have puzzled over what could give rise to gold, platinum, and the rest of the universe's heavy elements. study finds that of two long-suspected sources of heavy metals, one of them -- a merger between two neutron stars -- is more of a goldmine than the other.
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Fri, 22 Oct 2021
One of the youngest planets ever found around a distant infant star has been discovered by an international team of scientists.
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Fri, 22 Oct 2021
Inspired by a concept for discovering exoplanets with a giant space telescope, a team of researchers is developing holographic lenses that render visible and infrared starlight into either a focused image or a spectrum.
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Thu, 21 Oct 2021
By combining Hubble Space Telescope observations with theoretical models, a team of astronomers has gained insights into the chemical and physical makeup of a variety of exoplanets known as hot Jupiters. The findings provide a new and improved 'field guide' for this group of planets and inform ideas about planet formation in general.
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Thu, 21 Oct 2021
As more people travel into space, experts expect more physicians will see patients with space travel-related pain.
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Wed, 20 Oct 2021
New images have revealed detailed clues about how the first stars and structures were formed in the Universe and suggest the formation of the Galaxy got off to a fitful start.
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Wed, 20 Oct 2021
A team has discovered evidence of a giant impact in the nearby HD 17255 star system, in which an Earth-sized terrestrial planet and a smaller impactor likely collided at least 200,000 years ago, stripping off part of one planet's atmosphere.
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Tue, 19 Oct 2021
Researchers have long suspected a connection between information and the physical universe, with various paradoxes and thought experiments used to explore how or why information could be encoded in physical matter. A researcher attempts to shed light on exactly how much of this information is out there and presents a numerical estimate for the amount of encoded information in all the visible matter in the universe -- approximately 6 times 10 to the power of 80 bits of information.
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Mon, 18 Oct 2021
With future space exploration in mind, a team of astronomers has published the final maps of Titan's liquid methane rivers and tributaries -- as seen by NASA's late Cassini mission -- so that may help provide context for Dragonfly's upcoming 2030s expedition.
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Sun, 17 Oct 2021
NASA's Lucy mission, the agency's first to Jupiter's Trojan asteroids, launched from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. Over the next 12 years, Lucy will fly by one main-belt asteroid and seven Trojan asteroids, making it the agency's first single spacecraft mission in history to explore so many different asteroids. Lucy will investigate these 'fossils' of planetary formation up close during its journey.
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Fri, 15 Oct 2021
In the early solar system, a 'protoplanetary disk' of dust and gas rotated around the sun and eventually coalesced into the planets we know today. A new study suggests that a mysterious gap existed within this disk around 4.567 billion years ago, and likely shaped the composition of the solar system's infant planets.
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Thu, 14 Oct 2021
A compositional link between planets and their respective host star has long been assumed in astronomy. Scientists now deliver empirical evidence to support the assumption -- and partly contradict it at the same time.
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Thu, 14 Oct 2021
Researchers have published maps indicating how the auroral zone has moved over the last three millennia.
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Thu, 14 Oct 2021
Not all ice is the same. The solid form of water comes in more than a dozen different - sometimes more, sometimes less crystalline - structures, depending on the conditions of pressure and temperature in the environment. Superionic ice is a special crystalline form, half solid, half liquid - and electrically conductive. Its existence has been predicted on the basis of various models and has already been observed on several occasions under - very extreme - laboratory conditions. New results provide another piece of the puzzle in the spectrum of the manifestations of water. And they may also help to explain the unusual magnetic fields of the planets Uranus and Neptune, which contain a lot of water.
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Wed, 13 Oct 2021
An international team of astronomers recently observed more than 1,650 fast radio bursts (FRBs) detected from one source in deep space, which amounts to the largest set -- by far -- of the mysterious phenomena ever recorded. The source, dubbed FRB 121102, was observed using the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST) in China, and represents more FRBs in one event than all previous reported occurrences combined.
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Wed, 13 Oct 2021
Physicists have made the most precise measurement of the neutron's lifetime, which may help answer questions about the early universe.
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Wed, 13 Oct 2021
Solar prominences hover above the visible solar disk like giant clouds, held there by a supporting framework of magnetic forces, originating from layers deep within the Sun. The magnetic lines of force are moved by ever-present gas currents -- and when the supporting framework moves, so does the prominence cloud. A research team has observed how magnetic forces lifted a prominence by 25,000 kilometers -- about two Earth diameters -- within ten minutes.
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Wed, 13 Oct 2021
Astrophysicists have investigated the past of Venus to find out whether Earth's sister planet once had oceans.
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Wed, 13 Oct 2021
New calculations show that a black hole slurping down a star may not have generated enough energy to launch a neutrino.
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Wed, 13 Oct 2021
A new article proposes that space probes could hitch a ride with 'centaurs' as they become comets. Along the way, the spacecraft would gather data that would otherwise be impossible to record -- including how comets, Earth-like planets, and even the solar system formed.
