Arctic Bacterium Offers Clues to Life on Mars
A permafrost microbe has been discovered growing at –15°C, the coldest temperature ever reported for bacterial growth. A team of scientists from Montreal’s McGill University made the discovery on Ellesmere Island, located in the Canadian High Arctic. Researchers said they found the living strain of bacteria growing in the extreme cold of the permafrost, which […]
Glitch Jeopardizes Planet Hunter’s Mission
A malfunction could force an abrupt end to the Kepler Space Telescope’s planet-hunting mission. NASA received the unwelcome news last Sunday after discovering Kepler had malfunctioned and is currently operating in a self-protective “safe-mode” as it also did earlier this month. The US space agency made the news public this past Wednesday. It appears at […]
Flash Could Allow Scientists to Witness Birth of a Black Hole
A cosmic flash generated by a dying star might allow scientists to see something they’ve never witnessed before – the birth of a black hole. A black hole is a celestial object that is so dense not even light can escape its intense gravitational pull. This phenomenon occurs when a dying star runs out of […]
Saturn’s Rings Are Raining on Planet
The old adage “April showers bring May flowers” may take on new meaning with the release of a new NASA-funded study tracking the rain of charged water particles from Saturn’s famous rings into the planet’s atmosphere. The study, led by the University of Leicester, England, found there’s more of this rain and its spread over […]
NASA Wants to Speed Journey to Mars
NASA wants to shorten the journey to Mars. It took about eight months for its Mars rover, Curiosity, to reach the red planet. And now, the US space agency is looking for ways to cut the travel time for future manned missions there. Researchers in Washington State say that might be possible through a unique […]
Hubble Spots Farthest Supernova Yet
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has found the farthest known supernova discovered to date. Nicknamed “SN Wilson,” after the American President Woodrow Wilson, scientists say supernova UDS10Wil, exploded more than 10 billion years ago, about 3.77 billion years after the Big Bang. SN Wilson is in a special class of exploding stars known as “Type Ia […]
New Imager Finds Distant Planets Unlike Others in Known Universe
Thanks to new technology, astronomers are conducting the first remote reconnaissance of a distant solar system, allowing them to collect the first chemical fingerprints of four exoplanets orbiting a star some 128 light years from Earth. Astronomers involved with Project 1640, a high-contrast imaging program at the Palomar Observatory in California, say the four exoplanets […]
Third Radiation Belt Discovered Around Earth
NASA scientists have discovered a third radiation belt briefly surrounded Earth for about a month before being blasted away by an interplanetary shock wave from the sun. Experts had long thought there were only two distinct regions of trapped radiation. But the third ring was spotted by twin Van Allen radiation probes NASA launched in 2012 […]
After Russian Meteor, Keeping Closer Eye on Sky
Earth resembled a cosmic shooting gallery this month after a meteor exploded over Russia. And then, a few hours later, an asteroid passed closer to Earth than most weather and communications satellites. These two events, happening so close to each other, alerted people to the dangers posed by near-Earth objects such as asteroids, comets and […]
Earth Gets a Hit, Braces for a Miss
Earth suddenly seems to be dodging celestial objects, although there was a direct hit earlier today when a streaking meteorite exploded above Russia’s Ural Mountains. Hundreds of people were injured. The powerful blast damaged the facades of buildings and shattered windows, according to the Russian Interior Ministry, Now all eyes are on an asteroid that […]