At more than 200 times sun’s mass, this giant sets a new record.
Published:
2010-07-23 17:37:59
Found in: Astronomy and Atom & Cosmos
BLOG: A study showing a genetic basis for exceptionally long life in humans has come under fire from critics. (p. 10)
Found in: Body & Brain and Genes & Cells
The Rosetta orbiter makes its second swing past a relic of the early solar system.
Published:
2010-07-09 17:12:35
Astronomers from the United Kingdom have published papers criticizing some of the evidence used to support theories of dark matter and energy.
Published:
2010-06-16 15:43:40
Found in: Atom & Cosmos
Hayabusa is the little spacecraft that could. Having survived countless technical challenges over its seven-year journey, the Japanese probe returned to Earth on June 13, disintegrating as planned in a blazing fireball over Australia’s nighttime skies.
But before it burned up in the atmosphere, Hayabusa released its precious cargo: a 40-centimeter-wide capsule that, scientists hope, contains samples of the asteroid the probe visited in 2005. Protected in a larger container, the capsule parachuted down to the Woomera military installation in South Australia, where ground tea...
Published:
2010-06-14 10:38:05
Climate experts turn their gaze north to monitor this summer's Arctic melt.
Published:
2010-06-11 17:34:28
Found in: Earth and Environment
If the object that crashed into Jupiter on June 3 left behind a bruise, it’s a tiny one. No ground-based telescope has found evidence of a scar. But an image taken June 6 with the sharp eye of the Hubble Space Telescope may provide the final say.
Researchers haven’t yet had a chance to get their hands on the Hubble data, says planetary scientist Heidi Hammel of the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. “Until we get that back, it will not be clear whether we have an impact that left a [scar], or a meteor which did not.”
With observations planned months in advance, “...
Published:
2010-06-07 18:03:12
Found in: Astronomy, Atom & Cosmos and Planetary Science
A new theory suggests atmospheric answer to the continuing paradox of why early Earth wasn’t icy.
Published:
2010-06-03 13:50:39
Found in: Earth, Earth Science and Planetary Science
Astronomers at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Miami presented images of exoplanets in high-angle orbits.
Published:
2010-05-24 16:26:26
Found in: Atom & Cosmos
Physicists are embroiled in a verbal slugfest over a few measly WIMPs.WIMPs, or weakly interacting massive particles, are hypothetical subatomic particles that, if shown to exist, might account for some of the invisible dark matter that astronomers say makes up some 85 percent of the mass of the universe.
Astronomers are eager to find dark matter, because it would help them understand the unseen gravitational glue that keeps galaxies and galaxy clusters from flying apart. And a WIMP version of dark matter in particular would thrill many physicists, because it would validate a theory called su...
Published:
2010-05-13 14:22:40