Astronomers Find and Confirm 44 New Extrasolar Planets
An international team of astronomers has confirmed the existence of 44 new extrasolar planets. The planets were first spotted by the astronomers through data gathered from Campaign #10 of NASA’s Kepler K2 mission. According to NASA’s Kepler and K2 webpage, campaign #10 ran from July 6, 2016, to September 20, 2016. To verify their findings, […]
Pluto Flyby Data Feed Complete; Nearby Exoplanet May Have Oceans
New Horizon’s Sends Final Data of Pluto Flyby The final bits of data gathered by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft during its July 2015 flyby of Pluto were received this week by its mission operations center at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland. More than 50 gigabytes of observational data was stored on the […]
One Third of the World’s Population Unable to See Milky Way
Among my fondest memories of being a kid back in the 1960’s was taking a week or so of summer vacation to visit relatives at my grandfather’s farm in Herman, PA (about 65 km northeast of Pittsburgh). During my stay I would spend evenings lying on the freshly cut grass of my grandpa’s back yard, just looking up into […]
Extrasolar Object’s Ring System is 200 Times Larger Than Saturn’s
One of our solar system’s most fascinating planets is Saturn. It’s the 2nd largest planet, after Jupiter. But what makes Saturn stand out from the others is the dazzling system of rings that surround it. Recently, a Dutch and an American astronomer found that an extrasolar object, discovered back in 2012, is surrounded by a […]
Rhythmic Light Pulses Help Astronomers Accurately Measure Medium Sized Black Hole
Astronomers have calculated that there may be about 100 million black holes in the galaxy. And they mostly fall into two sizes… stellar and supermassive. The size difference has to do with how much mass they contain versus that of our own sun or solar mass. For some time now, astronomers have also theorized that […]
Earth’s Magnetic Fields Guide Salmon Home to Spawn
Earth’s magnetic fields play a significant role in helping salmon find their way home to spawn, according to two new studies from Oregon State University. After poring over 56 years of data, the researchers found that a magnetic map is responsible for providing sockeye salmon with their keen sense of direction which guides them home, […]
Gene Enhancers Give Human Face Its Final Look
When you look at yourself in the mirror, do you ever wonder why you look the way you do? Do you also wonder what biological processes were at work when it came time to shape and sculpt your face, which is as individual and unique as a fingerprint? The answer is in a little snippet […]
Atoms Star in Smallest Movie Ever Made
The World’s Smallest Stop-action Movie (IBM) Bigger is often better in Hollywood, but IBM is drawing lots of attention for making the smallest movie ever. A Boy and His Atom is a stop-motion, animated movie made with thousands of precisely positioned atoms in nearly 250 motion picture frames. The folks at Guinness World Records® verified […]
NASA Launches Powerful Earth-Observing Satellite
NASA’s latest Earth-observing satellite rocketed into space today continuing a program which began more than 40 years ago. An Atlas V rocket carrying the Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM) spacecraft launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in Lompoc, California. NASA officials called today’s launch “picture perfect.” The spacecraft is now on its own after a […]
Curiosity Adjusts to Life on Mars
On its first full solar day on Mars, the Curiosity rover is under going a month-long series of health checks before getting down to its mission of exploring the chemistry of Mars. Curiosity isn’t expected to drill its first drill hole in a Mars rock for about another month or two, according to Rob Manning, […]