September 2017 Science Images
60 Days in Bed For Science; Asteroid Belt Mystery Solved & Ice on Mercury?
Mystery Asteroid Belt Object Really a Binary Asteroid Back in 2011 a Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System or PanSTARRS survey detected an object in the asteroid belt displaying comet-like activity. So along with being labeled an asteroid, when it was discovered five years earlier, scientists also gave it a comet designation. After analyzing […]
Goodbye Cassini; Shape-Shifting Bacteria; New Horizons Wakes Up
NASA Cassini Mission to Saturn Comes to Fiery End English Poet Geoffrey Chaucer once said, “all good things must come to an end”. And so it goes with NASA’s Cassini mission, which provided a close-up look of Saturn, its moons and famous rings over the last 13 years, came to a blazing end on September […]
Antibiotics and Immune System; Freshman “15”; Volcanoes Under Antarctic Ice
Antibiotics Found to Interfere With Immune System
Avoiding the “Freshman 15” Weight Gain
Scientists Track Sun Burst Through Solar System
Huge Volcanic Range Found Under Antarctic Ice
Astronomers Find 4 Earth-Like Planets Near Sun-Like Star
Solar System Mimics Ours; The Big Empty; Closest Human Relative?
Nearby Planetary System Mimics our Solar System A group of scientists using NASA’s airborne Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy or SOFIA recently completed a study that confirmed their previous findings of a young and nearby planetary system. The researchers found that the system surrounding the star Epsilon Eridani, which is about 10.5 light years away […]
New Horizons Journey; Wrong Way Asteroid; Ring Around Mars?
New Horizons Halfway to Next Flyby Destination NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft provided scientists an amazing once in a lifetime look at the distant dwarf planet Pluto as it flew by it in July 2015. Along with spectacular images of Pluto the spacecraft also sent back those of Pluto’s five moons including high definition shots of […]
Is the Universe Connected By a Cosmic Web?
Some people think that the universe is just a hodge-podge of various celestial objects, such as planets, stars and galaxies. But over the years, scientists have found more evidence that the universe may be anything but random, and is actually more organized and interconnected—like an enormous spider web. Our place in the web Let’s start […]
Ants Goof Off Too; Milky Way Steals Stars; Astronomers Spot Exocomets
Ants Balance Work and Rest to Maintain Colony Ants have a reputation of being dedicated and hardworking creatures. But did you know that like humans, ants also seek to maintain a healthy balance of work and rest? While an ant colony appears to be filled with busy workers, according to new research, there are also […]
Is Planet 9 Causing Our Solar System to Wobble?
A new study from researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) suggests that Planet 9, the huge and so far unseen planet said to be lurking in the far reaches of the solar system, might be causing our group of planets to wobble a little and giving an impression that the sun is slightly tilted. […]
Cosmic Cannon; Mars Dust Storm Forecast; Dione’s Subsurface Ocean
Astronomers Find a Cosmic Cannon Astronomers have spotted super-hot blobs of plasma blasting into space like cannonballs near a dying red giant star, some 1,200 light years away. Using the Hubble Space Telescope to make their discovery, the scientists found that the balls of hot gas are flying so fast a trip from the Earth […]