Space
Venus’ Fast Winds are Getting Faster
June 19, 2013 11:45 am | by ESA | News | CommentsThe most detailed record of cloud motion in the atmosphere of Venus has revealed that the planet’s winds have steadily been getting faster over the last six years.
NASA Sets Challenge to Find Asteroids
June 19, 2013 7:00 am | by NASA | News | CommentsNASA announced a Grand Challenge focused on finding all asteroid threats to human populations and knowing what to do about them.
Europe's Space Hub Opens Doors to the Public
June 18, 2013 7:00 am | by ESA | News | CommentsEurope has never been more active in space, with a crowded manifest of ESA launches across the rest of the year. But where are all these varied missions born? See for yourself this October.
Dry Ice Skates Over Mars
June 14, 2013 7:00 am | by NASA | Videos | CommentsResearchers are examining strange features on Mars. They're called, "linear gullies," because they're long troughs. They can extend up to two kilometers and they're strange because they go down slopes and then end abruptly in a pit.
Researchers Find 26 Black Holes in the Andromeda Galaxy
June 13, 2013 11:20 am | by NASA | News | CommentsMilky Way's galactic neighbor, Andromeda. This is the largest number of possible black holes found in a galaxy outside of our own.
Astronomers See New Kind of Variable Star
June 13, 2013 7:00 am | by European Southern Observatory | News | CommentsAstronomers using the Swiss 1.2-meter Euler telescope have found a new type of variable star.
Mars' Clay Has Chemical Implicated in the Origin of Life
June 12, 2013 11:00 am | by Univ. of Hawaii at Manoa NASA Astrobiology Institute | News | CommentsResearchers have discovered high concentrations of boron in a Martian meteorite. When present in its oxidized form, boron may have played a key role in the formation of RNA, one of the building blocks for life.
Moon Radiation Findings Reduce Astronaut Health Risks
June 12, 2013 8:29 am | by Univ. of New Hampshire | News | CommentsSpace scientists report that data gathered by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) show lighter materials like plastics provide effective shielding against the radiation hazards faced by astronauts during extended space travel.
Scientists Size Up Universe’s Smallest Galaxy
June 11, 2013 8:30 am | by UC Irvine | News | CommentsThe least massive galaxy in the known universe has been measured, clocking in at just 1,000 or so stars with a bit of dark matter holding them together. The findings offer tantalizing clues about how iron, carbon and other elements key to human life originally formed.
Opportunity Roves Toward Solander Point
June 10, 2013 7:00 am | by NASA | News | CommentsApproaching its 10th anniversary of leaving Earth, NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity is on the move again, trekking to a new study area still many weeks away.
'Dust Trap' Solves Planet Formation Mystery
June 7, 2013 11:49 am | by ESO | News | CommentsAstronomers have imaged a region around a young star where dust particles can grow by clumping together. This is the first time that such a dust trap has been clearly observed and modeled.
Trio of Planets Visible at Sunset
June 7, 2013 7:00 am | by NASA | Videos | CommentsJune began with a gorgeous trio of planets: Mercury, Venus and Jupiter, low on the west-northwest horizon. As the month progresses, Jupiter slips into the sunset while Mercury and Venus rise higher in the sky.
Team Strengthens Big Bang Theory
June 6, 2013 11:26 am | by W. M. Keck Observatory | News | CommentsScientists using the most powerful telescope on Earth have discovered the moments just after the Big Bang happened more like the theory predicts, eliminating a significant discrepancy that troubled physicists for two decades.
Young Star Shows Sun was a Feisty Toddler
June 6, 2013 7:00 am | by Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics | News | CommentsIn lieu of a time machine, we learn about the birth of our sun and its planets by studying young stars in our galaxy. New work suggests that our sun was both active and "feisty" in its infancy.
Galaxy’s Death Holds Clues to Birth of Dwarf Systems
June 5, 2013 12:08 pm | by Yale Univ. | News | CommentsA bright dwarf galaxy, which is relatively close to Earth’s Milky Way and trailing fireballs, is the first clear example of a galaxy in the act of dying.
Black Hole Cores May Be Doorways
June 5, 2013 7:00 am | by Inside Science News Service, Charles Choi | News | CommentsThe cores of black holes may not hold points of infinite density as currently thought, but portals to elsewhere in the universe.
Evidence Says Building Block of Life Came from Meteorites
June 4, 2013 11:18 am | by Univ. of South Florida | News | CommentsScientists may not know for certain whether life exists in outer space, but new research shows that one key element that produced life on Earth was carried here on meteorites.
Video Chronicles History of Mars
June 4, 2013 7:00 am | by ESA | Videos | CommentsNew global maps of Mars released on the 10th anniversary of the launch of ESA’s Mars Express trace the history of water and volcanic activity on the Red Planet, and identify sites of special interest for the next generation of Mars explorers.
Stellar Alignment Allows for Planet Hunt
June 4, 2013 7:00 am | by NASA | News | CommentsNASA's Hubble Space Telescope will have two opportunities in the next few years to hunt for Earth-sized planets around the red dwarf Proxima Centauri.
‘New Set of Eyes’ Will Study Sun
June 3, 2013 7:00 am | by NASA | Videos | CommentsNASA will launch a new set of eyes to offer the most detailed look ever at the sun’s lower atmosphere, called the interface region.
Radiation Exposure from Journey to Mars is Astronomical
May 31, 2013 11:30 am | by Associated Press, Alicia Chang | News | CommentsAstronauts traveling to and from Mars would be bombarded with as much cosmic radiation as they’d get from having a full-body CT scan once a week for a year.
Mission Solves Mystery of Moon's Surface Gravity
May 31, 2013 11:30 am | by NASA | News | CommentsGRAIL has uncovered the origin of massive invisible regions that make the moon's gravity uneven, a phenomenon that affects the operations of lunar-orbiting spacecraft.
Math Model Links Space-Time Theories
May 31, 2013 7:00 am | by Univ. of Southampton | News | CommentsResearchers have taken a significant step in a project to unravel the secrets of the structure of our Universe.
Chemical Reaction May Be Enough to Sustain Life on Mars
May 31, 2013 7:00 am | by Univ. of Colorado Boulder | News | CommentsA chemical reaction between iron-containing minerals and water may produce enough hydrogen “food” to sustain microbial communities living in pores and cracks within the enormous volume of rock below the ocean floor, parts of the continents and possibly Mars.
NASA Uses Weightlessness of Space to Design Earth Materials
May 30, 2013 7:00 am | by Northeastern Univ. | News | CommentsResearchers are helping NASA use the weightlessness of space to design stronger materials here on Earth.
