First Stars Formed in Universe 180 Million Years After Big Bang
A group of researchers led by Judd Bowman, an astronomer at Arizona State University, recently made a remarkable discovery by spotting the impressions of the earliest stars in the universe. Soon after the Big Bang, 13.7 billion years ago, the universe expanded, cooled and became very dark. Stars and other cosmological objects hadn’t formed yet. […]
Earth’s Atmosphere Got Its Oxygen in Periodic Bursts Over a 100 Million Year Period
For about the first 2.1 billion years of Earth’s history, its atmosphere didn’t have enough oxygen to support complex life. Scientists believe that Earth’s first atmosphere,formed after its creation, was probably made up of hydrogen and helium. Then as a result of volcanic eruptions that spewed gases from Earth’s interior, in a process known as […]
Science Scanner: Mapping an Asteroid; Why the Universe Didn’t Collapse; Spicy Food Saves Lives
Scientists Create Geologic and Tectonic Map of Vesta the Asteroid A group of scientists used high-resolution images captured by NASA’s Dawn Spacecraft between 2011 and 2012 to create what they say is the first total geologic and tectonic map of the asteroid Vesta. Details on the work appear in the December edition of the journal […]
Science Scanner: Leonardo da Vinci Might be Wrong and is Planet Mercury a Hit-and-run Victim?
Scientists Catch Photosynthesis in Action Researchers have snapped the very first images of photosynthesis as it happens. Photosynthesis is the process which plants use to convert light energy into chemical energy, which is then stored as sugar. Using the U.S. Department of Energy’s LCLS x-ray laser, the world’s most powerful, the researchers imaged the part […]