A panel of experts thinks that Nasa should send a spacecraft to Uranus Credito: NASAKathleen MandtKathleen Mandt, a planetary scientist at Johns Hopkins College's Applied Physics Research laboratory. In her Perspectives piece published in the journal Science, Kathleen Mandt highlights the scientific value of a dedicated Uranus probe. Uranus, one of the...
A 30' × 30' fragment of the DSS-1 plate containing the observed fields of NGC 6611. Credit: Michalska et al, 2023Astronomers have used three ground-based telescopes in Chile to search for variable stars in the open cluster NGC 6611. They identified 95 variable stars, most of which are likely cluster members. This discovery was...
Comparison between (proto-)serpentinites of the Duluth Complex and available samples from Mars. Credit: Science Advances (2023). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.add8472A pair of researchers, hailing respectively from the University of Calgary in Canada and the University of Cambridge in the UK, have found that analyzing rocks from Duluth, Minnesota, may yield understanding about the development of the ancient atmosphere...
Artist impression of Quaoar's rings. Credit: Paris ObservatoryA group of researchers has discovered a previously unknown ring system around a dwarf planet located at the outer edge of the solar system. This ring system is unique in that it orbits much farther out than other known ring systems, which challenges current theories about the...
A series of green laser beams seen over Hawaii in January. (National Observatory of Japan)Above the islands of Hawaii on January 28th, a green laser was seen piercing the evening sky, silently tracing a course towards the horizon such as a stutter in the Matrix's code.The scene was captured on camera from a telescope atop...
Positions of the 20 SNRs with detected diffuse UV emission (red squares) and of the 5 SNRs with likely, but confused, diffuse emission (blue squares), overlaid on the image of the Andromeda Galaxy in the F148W filter. Credit: Leahy et al, 2023Utilizing the AstroSat satellite, astronomers from the University of Calgary, Canada, have identified...
Earth's inner core. Credit: Rost-9D/iStockThe rotation of the Earth's solid inner core may have recently stopped briefly as well as could be reversing, according to a study released in Nature Geoscience this week. The authors show proof that oscillation in the rotation of the internal core coincides with periodic changes in the Earth's surface...
The characteristics of lunar tidal wave in the plasmapause. Credit: Nature Physics (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41567-022-01882-8A worldwide team of space scientists reports that the moon exerts a tidal effect on the plasmasphere. For their paper released in the journal Nature Physics, the group used information from multiple spacecraft over an almost 40-year period to gauge tidal perturbations...
Artistic representation of the underground measurement of the 13C(α,n)16O stellar neutron source reaction. Credit: IMPThe Jinping Underground Nuclear Astrophysics (JUNA) collaboration has reported a recent direct measurement of the cross-section of an essential stellar neutron source reaction, 13C(α, n)16O. The study research was published in Physical Review Letters on September 23.By reaching the most...
Credit: Awareness Act.Last year, astronomers discovered Comet C/2022 E3 ZTF, which had not been visible until then due to its distance from Earth. However, it is now approaching Earth, and soon it will be making its closest approach in 50,000 years. Astronomers have stated that this will be the only chance to see it...
