CLOSER LOOK AT PHOSPHORENE Sheets of phosphorous just one atom thick have a ridged structure, as shown in this illustration. Graphene sheets, which are made of carbon, are flat.
P. Ye
UP IN THE AIR Clouds can both warm and cool the planet. How clouds will respond to global warming is the largest source of uncertainty in climate change predictions.
NASA
STAR RIVERS The galaxy ESO 137-001, 200 million light-years away, leaves trails (shown in blue in this false-color Hubble Space Telescope image) of gas and newly born stars as it plows through the Norma Cluster. Bright stars in the foreground sit within our galaxy.
Ming Sun/UAH, Serge Meunier, NASA, ESA
LURKER The twitches that let a European garden spider know that lunch has landed may not be as easy to detect if strands of its web anchor to human-made materials.
kellylovesphotography/iStockphoto
DEAD GALAXY The giant elliptical galaxy NGC 5044, seen in this composite image, is filled with cold gas, yet it is not making stars. New research suggests a black hole may be to blame. The galaxy is filled with threads of warm hydrogen gas (red) that snake through an atmosphere of hot gas (blue). Stars appear white.
Digitized Sky Survey, Chandra/NASA , Southern Observatory for Astrophysical Research, Very Large Array
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