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...
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...
Intensity as a function of time and spin phase for the two detections of the new eclipsing redback pulsar 47 Tuc ad. Left panel: Parkes observation made on 2004/05/27. Right panel: MeerKAT discovery observation. Credit: Ridolfi et al., 2021.Utilizing the MeerKAT radio telescope, astronomers from the Max Planck Institution for Radio Astronomy (MPIfR) in...
In this photo made available by NASA, the space shuttle Challenger launches the Earth Radiation Budget Satellite in 1984. On Friday, Jan. 6, 2023, the U.S. space agency said the 38-year-old NASA satellite is about to fall from the sky, but the chance of wreckage falling on anybody is “very low.” It's expected to...
Boudinage in brecciated dolostone rocks of the Panamint Range (Wildrose Area, Death Valley National Park). New research shows that periclase is stronger than bridgmanite in the earth's lower mantle, analogous to boudins developing in rigid ("stronger") rocks among less competent ("weaker") rocks. Credit: Jennifer M. Jackson, CaltechAs you are reading this, more than 400...
Credit: Royal Holloway, University of LondonFinding the building blocks of lifeNew research released on the organic analysis of the Winchcombe meteorite that crash-landed onto a driveway in Winchcombe, Gloucestershire, in 2021. The research, led by Dr. Queenie Chan from the Department of Earth Sciences at Royal Holloway, University of London, discovered organic compounds from...
An infrared image of Io snapped by Juno in July 2022. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/ASI/INAF/JIRAM)The most powerful volcanic eruptions in the Solar System occur not on Earth, however on Io, a sulfurous moon orbiting the planet Jupiter.And currently, researchers from the Planetary Science Institute (PSI) in the United States have noticed a current outburst that's been surprisingly productive,...
