Europe’s Euclid space telescope is scheduled to blast off Saturday on the first-ever mission aiming to shed light on two of the Universe’s greatest mysteries: dark energy and dark matter. The launch is planned from Cape Canaveral in Florida at 11:11 am local time (1511 GMT) on a Falcon 9 rocket of the US company
Month: June 2023
A gas giant exoplanet 634 light-years away has a quirk in its atmosphere that suggests it may have swallowed a smaller world. It’s WASP-76b, and it’s already famous for being one of the hottest exoplanets in the galaxy. Whipping around its host star once every 1.8 days, WASP-76b reaches temperatures above 2,000 degrees Celsius (3,632
There are many layers to the human brain. From its wrinkled exterior to its darkest depths, scientists are trying to understand them all. But in honing in on the brain’s intricate neural circuitry, they appear to have overlooked patterns of activity swirling on the surface. A team of fluid physicists from the Universty of Sydney
Gravity’s pull is a constant on Earth, but our planet is no uniform sphere. It’s covered in lumps and bumps, with geology of varying density yanking on nearby masses with subtly differing degrees of force in an undulating map known as a geoid. Deep beneath the Indian Ocean, that pull weakens to an extreme low,
Many sharks are being fished to the point of extinction, and yet one of the proposed solutions – sustainable shark fisheries – has largely failed to catch on. A new paper on the sudden closure of the world’s first eco-certified shark fishery explores why that might be. In 2011, a Canadian fishery for the Pacific
Virgin Galactic successfully flew its first paying customers to the final frontier Thursday, a long-awaited achievement that puts it back on track in the emerging private spaceflight sector. Italian Air Force officers unfurled their nation’s flag and peered out windows at the curve of Earth while enjoying a few minutes of weightlessness at 52.9 miles
A heat dome occurs when a persistent region of high pressure traps heat over an area. The heat dome can stretch over several states and linger for days to weeks, leaving the people, crops and animals below to suffer through stagnant, hot air that can feel like an oven. Typically, heat domes are tied to
Ravine-like channels on Mars are something of a puzzle. They look like the gullies in Antarctica caused by melting glaciers, but the elevated locations of many of the features aren’t places we’d expect to find recently flowing water. So how did these Mars gullies form? Sublimating carbon dioxide ice has been put forward as an
Somewhere out in the depths of the Milky Way galaxy, something stirs. Powerful forces whip charged particles into an energetic frenzy of cosmic rays, launching them at velocities that near the speed of light. We may finally be close to pinning down their origins. A reanalysis of 10 years of data collected by the the
The search for planets outside our Solar System – exoplanets – is one of the most rapidly growing fields in astronomy. Over the past few decades, more than 5,000 exoplanets have been detected and astronomers now estimate that on average there is at least one planet per star in our galaxy. Many current research efforts
Hunter-gatherer roles in human society are not nearly as gendered as anthropologists and archaeologists have traditionally believed, with narratives of ‘man the hunter’ and ‘woman the gatherer’ crumbling in the face of new evidence. In recent years, ancient sites around the world strongly suggest that women have been fishing, hunting big game, and going to
For the first time, starlight has been detected in galaxies burning brightly with the fury of feeding black holes in the first billion years of the Universe’s existence. It stands to reason that these active supermassive black holes – known as quasars – would have galaxies around them. But stretched over such great distances, any
Geoffrey Hinton, one of the so-called “godfathers” of artificial intelligence, urged governments on Wednesday to step in and make sure that machines do not take control of society. Hinton made headlines in May when he announced that he was quitting after a decade of work at Google to speak more freely on the dangers of
The news that orcas are attacking and sinking ships off Europe’s Iberian coast has the world captivated by the strange workings of the creatures’ culture. But these aren’t the only sleek ocean swimmers that have learned to respond to the presence of humans. Scientists at the University of Queensland (UQ) in Australia suspect that bottlenose
It’s official. There’s something out there shaking the stars in a way that can no longer be ascribed to chance. Several teams around the world have independently found a signal in the timing of flashing stars called pulsars that points to giant, long-wavelength gravitational waves rolling through the galaxy. It’s not quite a detection of
A dive into the minds of sleeping octopuses has yielded further evidence that these enigmatic cephalopods experience REM sleep, or something very similar. By simultaneously studying the coloration changes and neural activity of octopuses in the Land of Nod, a team of scientists led by the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) have confirmed
We’ve just identified a brand new isotope of the rarest element in our planet’s crust. With 85 protons and 105 neutrons, 190astatine is the lightest isotope of astatine discovered yet, and could help physicists better understand the process of alpha decay, and the structure and limitations of atomic nuclei. “The studies of new nuclei are
Undeterred after three decades of looking, and with some assistance from a supercomputer, mathematicians have finally discovered a new example of a special integer called a Dedekind number. Only the ninth of its kind, or D(9), it is calculated to equal 286 386 577 668 298 411 128 469 151 667 598 498 812 366,
There’s been a long-standing debate about whether or not the key features that define placental mammals like ourselves emerged in our ancestors before or after the extinction event that wiped out the dinosaurs. Now that debate may have finally been settled, following an analysis by researchers from the University of Bristol in the UK and
It’s shaping up to be a huge week for space and physics news, with two major press conferences about the Universe announced for Thursday 29 June. They may share a date, but they’re both very separate announcements, and from what we can tell, very distinct discoveries that will be shared with the public. Speculation aside,
The currents of air that wrap around our planet are becoming unrecognizable to climate scientists. Some have even compared the chaotic pattern of the jet streams to a Van Gogh painting. The southern part of the jet stream over North America has completely broken apart and is currently trapped in a vicious revolution that has
Deep in the delicate traceries of the Orion Nebula, we’ve finally found an important carbon molecule never before seen in interstellar space. Methenium, also known as the methyl cation (CH3+), is a carbon compound long predicted to play a pivotal role in organic chemistry in interstellar space. Now, using the James Webb Space Telescope, scientists
With satellite imagery and other modern tools, much of the globe is comprehensively mapped out at this point – but there are still plenty of secrets hidden in the most remote and inaccessible parts of the world. A team of archaeologists has been rewarded for trekking some 60 kilometers (37 miles) into the dense Yucatan
If you’re an evil genius supervillain looking to freak out your enemy with a big messy space kablooie, here’s a novel way to do it. Smack a couple of ancient star remnants together right in front of your nemesis. The result will give you a gratifyingly huge, bright explosion plus a bonus gamma-ray burst visible
It’s 2023. By now, we should all be wearing jet packs, living on the Moon, and having deep conversations with our dogs through pet translation devices. Oh, and we should know how consciousness works. We don’t, of course. But a recent event coinciding with the annual meeting of the Association for the Scientific Study of
The body temperature of one of the mightiest predators ever to stalk Earth’s oceans may have contributed to its downfall. A new analysis of the teeth left behind by megalodon (Otodus megalodon) shows that the extinct giant shark was at least partially warm-blooded, as some sharks are today. But this trait, which would have given
You know what Mars looks like. It’s all red and dusty, with its polar caps of white ice, shades of umber and iron rust, and impact scars. But in a different light, our planetary next-door neighbor takes on a new hue. This is beautifully demonstrated in new images from NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN
Based on marks on an ancient bone, it seems someone got hungry enough to chow down on some hominin leg, some 1.45 million years ago. It’s not an unknown behavior, over the years. But the tibia, marked with cuts, and belonging to a mystery human relative who used to live in what is now Kenya,
What’s that smell? Is that what you think it is? You check your shoes and, sure enough, one is adorned with a sticky, foul-smelling patty of fresh wrongness. You have stepped in a landmine of the canine variety. We’ve all been there, and we all know footpaths, nature strips, parks, playing fields and front lawns
We’ve just been given a teaser of the moment everyone has been waiting for: a James Webb Space Telescope image of Saturn, in all its resplendent glory. Although the final, processed images have not yet arrived, the telescope has made its observations using its Near Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) instrument, and the raw images have been
The Universe should be humming. Every supernova, every merger between neutron stars or black holes, even rapidly spinning lone neutron stars, could or should be a source of gravitational waves. Even the rapid inflation of space following the Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago should have produced its own cascade of gravitational waves. Like a
The supermassive black hole lurking at the center of our Milky Way galaxy is not as dormant as had been thought, a new study shows. The slumbering giant woke up around 200 years ago to gobble up some nearby cosmic objects before going back to sleep, according to the study published in the journal Nature
When you think of parasites, you probably think of worms and bugs… but in the brutal realm of the ocean, it seems that anything goes. Not even sharks are safe there, and some rare cases prove just how harsh life below the waves can get. In the hearts and organs of sharks, scientists have occasionally
Peering back into the distant past, astronomers are prying apart the secrets of when the Universe switched on its lights. In four separate papers, accepted into or published in The Astrophysical Journal, scientists have detailed the deepest peek yet into the period known as the Epoch of Reionization – the period in which the thick
It’s generally accepted that partners who live together also sleep together. While snuggle time might be good for our relationships, the benefits to our health are open to debate. Known as sleep divorce, moving into separate beds or rooms from our loved ones isn’t exactly unusual. According to the Sleep Foundation’s 2023 survey of 1,250
Here, wolfie, wolfie, wolfie! Like dogs, wolves recognize and respond to the voices of familiar humans more than strangers, according to a study that has implications both for the story of canine domestication and our broader understanding of the natural world. Holly Root‑Gutteridge of the University of Lincoln, a co-author of the paper that appeared
You’re familiar with the states of matter we encounter daily – such as solid, liquid, and gas – but in more exotic and extreme conditions, new states can appear, and scientists from the US and China just found one. They’re calling it the chiral bose-liquid state, and as with every new arrangement of particles we
There’s something really weird in the center of the Milky Way. The vicinity of a supermassive black hole is a pretty weird place to start with, but in 2020 astronomers found six objects orbiting Sagittarius A* that are unlike anything in the galaxy. They are so peculiar that they have been assigned a brand-new class
Horses’ ancient ancestors once trotted across the landscape on a small number of hooved toes, evolving over the ages to a single solid hoof we see today. According to a comprehensive analysis of horse history, those extra digits truly are now gone. Scientists say it rules out a recent hypothesis that toes were retained in
Biologists usually define ‘life’ as an entity that reproduces, responds to its environment, metabolizes chemicals, consumes energy, and grows. Under this model, ‘life’ is a binary state; something is either alive or not. This definition works reasonably well on planet Earth, with viruses being one notable exception. But if life is elsewhere in the universe,
Algorithmically generated playlists on music streaming services like Spotify make a best guess at what kind of music you’ll enjoy based on what you and others like you listen to and like. A new study reveals how those playlists could be better based on how your brain rocks out to the latest songs. When US
Between 1993 and 2010, humans extracted and moved so much of our planet’s groundwater that it contributed to the migration of Earth’s poles. Just the contribution of groundwater redistribution resulted in a polar shift of 80 centimeters (31.5 inches) towards the east, according to a new analysis led by geophysicist Ki-Weon Seo of Seoul National
American 13-year-olds continue to struggle academically in the wake of the pandemic, especially in mathematics, according to official data out Wednesday. The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), a project that has been monitoring test scores since 1969, tested students in late 2022, finding reading and math scores significantly dropped compared to late 2019. Average
Across the world, rainforests are becoming savanna or farmland, savanna is drying out and turning into desert, and icy tundra is thawing. Indeed, scientific studies have now recorded “regime shifts” like these in more than 20 different types of ecosystems where tipping points have been passed. Across the world, more than 20 percent of ecosystems
To something the size of a human, static electricity is, at most, a hair-raising experience. When you’re a tiny nematode, electrical fields are positively uplifting. Literally. The most famous nematode of all – Caenorhabditis elegans – has been caught using electrical fields to its advantage. The tiny worm can somehow piggyback on electrical fields to
The remnant of a dead star predicted to cannonball through the outskirts of the Solar System is going to do no such thing after all. On reexamination, a white dwarf star just 36 light-years from Earth named WD0810-353 has turned out to be pretty normal. Its only claim to strangeness is its powerful magnetic field,
Blasting debris clear into the stratosphere, the eruption of Tonga’s Hunga Volcano in January, 2022, shattered records for its explosive power. A study by researchers across the US has uncovered more shocking firsts for the event, estimating an astonishing 192,000 flashes of lightning rippling through its tumultuous plume of ash and water vapor in just
A newly discovered star just 773 light-years away belongs to one of the rarest categories in the Milky Way. J1912-4410 is a white dwarf pulsar, a type of star so rarely seen that only one other is known in the entire galaxy. Its discovery confirms that these stars exist in a class of their own,
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