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 […]
Science Images of the Week
Rare and Spectacular Meteor Shower May Light Up the Skies Over North and Central America
If you live in North or Central America, you just might have front row seats to a rare and spectacular meteor shower. Scientists said that the view might even better if you happen to be in the northwestern United States or in southern Canada NASA said the shower — dubbed the May Camelopardalids, which can […]
Earth’s Natural Climate Control Keeps Planet Livable
A new hypothesis explains why Earth has remained habitable despite natural events that have robbed other planets in our solar system of their ability to host and sustain life. As the character Goldilocks exclaimed in the classic fairytale, The Story of the Three Bears, Earth is the one planet in our solar system that’s “just […]
Scientists Identify Four New Ozone Depleting Gases in Atmosphere
Scientists have identified four new man-made gases in the atmosphere that they say are helping to destroy Earth’s protective ozone layer. Writing in Nature Geoscience, the researchers said that there are about 74,000,000 kilograms of three newly identified chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) – compounds that only contain the atoms of carbon, fluorine and chlorine – and one […]
Ancient Zircon Reveals Age of Earth’s Crust
A tiny sliver of ancient zircon reveals the crust of our planet formed at least 4.4 billion years ago—160 million years after the birth of the solar system, according to a new study. Earth itself is believed to be about 4.5 billion years old. The researchers examined some of the oldest materials ever found on […]
New-found Planet Defies Scientific Theory
A newly-discovered planet outside of our solar system has scientists rethinking how planets form. The international research team said the new exoplanet, with the registration number HD 106906b, is not only huge, weighing 11 times Jupiter’s mass, but also orbits its sun from a distance of 650 au’s – astronomical units or 97,238,615,955 km. In […]
The Sun is About to Flip Its (Magnetic) Poles
Here at Science World, one of our favorite topics is the sun. We’ve been able to provide you with a number of informational pieces regarding events and phenomena such as the ebb and flow of the sun’s activity throughout its roughly 11 year solar cycle. As the sun goes through this process – from when […]
First Evidence of Comet Strike Found
A team of South African scientists writing in the journal ‘Earth and Planetary Science Letters’ said that they have found the first evidence of a comet striking Earth 28 million years ago. “Comets always visit our skies – they’re these dirty snowballs of ice mixed with dust – but never before in history has material […]