News Archive for December 2023

The Running Chicken Nebula comprises several clouds, all of which we can see in this OmegaCAM/VST image. Image credit: ESO / VPHAS+ Team / CASU.

OmegaCAM Snaps Best Ever Image of Running Chicken Nebula

Dec 21, 2023 by Enrico de Lazaro

Astronomers using the OmegaCAM instrument on ESO’s VLT Survey Telescope (VST) have captured the 1.5-billion-pixel image of a vast stellar nursery called...

Limnonectes phyllofolia. Image credit: Frederick et al., doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0292598.

New Species of Tiny Fanged Frog Discovered in Indonesia

Dec 21, 2023 by Natali Anderson

Biologists have discovered a new species of the terrestrially-nesting fanged frog genus Limnonectes living on Sulawesi Island, Indonesia. The species has...

An artist’s impression of FRB 110523 reaching Earth; the colors represent the burst arriving at different radio wavelengths, with long wavelengths (red) arriving seconds after short wavelengths (blue). Image credit: Jingchuan Yu / Beijing Planetarium.

Astronomers Detect Highly Active Repeating Fast Radio Burst

Dec 21, 2023 by News Staff

FRB 20220912A is a repeating fast radio burst that was discovered in 2022 and remained highly active for several months. Using the recently refurbished...

Enceladus’ tiger stripes are known to be spewing ice from the moon’s icy interior into space, creating a cloud of fine ice particles over the moon’s south pole and creating Saturn’s mysterious E-ring. Evidence for this has come from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft that orbited Saturn from 2004 to 2017. Pictured here, a high resolution image of Enceladus is shown from a close flyby. Tiger stripes are visible in false-color blue. Image credit: NASA / ESA / JPL / SSI / Cassini Imaging Team.

Enceladus’ Surface May Contain Relatively High Abundances of Pristine Organic Material

Dec 21, 2023 by News Staff

Enceladus, the sixth-biggest moon of Saturn, presents a remarkable opportunity in our Solar System for searching for evidence of extraterrestrial life,...

This Hubble image shows UGC 8091, a dwarf irregular galaxy some 7 million light-years away in the constellation of Virgo. The color image was made from separate exposures taken with Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) and Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3). Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / Yumi Choi, NSF’s NOIRLab / Karoline Gilbert, STScI / Julianne Dalcanton, Center for Computational Astrophysics & Flatiron Institute, University of Washington.

Hubble Takes Close Look at UGC 8091

Dec 20, 2023 by Enrico de Lazaro

The Hubble team has released a close-up image of the dwarf irregular galaxy UGC 8091, which resembles a sparkling festive snow globe. This Hubble image...

A computer screen shows Taters the cat in a still from the first high-definition streaming video to be sent via laser from deep space, as well as the incoming data stream delivering the frames from the video. Image credit: NASA.

NASA Streams Cat Video from Deep Space via Laser

Dec 20, 2023 by News Staff

A 15-second ultra-high-definition video, featuring a cat named Taters, was streamed via laser from a record-setting 31 million km (19 million miles, or...

Map of Sahul showing the extent of the now-submerged continental shelf (dark gray), with the area of the Northwest Shelf demarcated by a dashed black box, and the present-day distribution of the Köppen climate groups (seasonal precipitation and temperature) showing the extent of modern-day Australia and New Guinea. The tropical distribution of Late Pleistocene sites containing early axe technology are shown as black circles, sites without early axe technology as gray circles, and sites demonstrating Late Pleistocene occupation of the now submerged continental shelves as white circles. Image credit: Peter Hiscock / Norman et al., doi: 10.1016/j.quascirev.2023.108418.

Up To Half Million People Once Lived on Now-Submerged Northwest Shelf of Sahul

Dec 20, 2023 by News Staff

The new-submerged Northwest Shelf of Sahul — the combined landmass of Australia and New Guinea at times of lower sea level — was a vast area...

This composite image shows the young star cluster NGC 2264, also known as the Christmas Tree Cluster. Image credit: NASA / CXC / SAO / T.A. Rector, NRAO, AUI, NSF, NOIRLab & AURA / B.A. Wolpa, NOIRLab, NSF & AURA / IPAC / Caltech / Universe of Massachusetts / L. Frattare / J.Major.

Astronomers Release Stunning Image of ‘Christmas Tree’ Star Cluster

Dec 20, 2023 by News Staff

The ‘Christmas Tree Cluster,’ also known as NGC 2264, is located approximately 2,600 light-years away in the constellation of Monoceros. This composite...

Human colonization and associated bird extinctions: human expansion across the planet is classified into four major waves; major human dispersal routes are indicated with arrows, and silhouettes show example fossil (pre-Holocene - 1500 CE) and observed (1500 CE - present) bird extinctions. Image credit: Cooke et al., doi: 10.1038/s41467-023-43445-2.

Humans May Have Led to Extinction of At Least 1,300 Bird Species since Pleistocene: Study

Dec 20, 2023 by News Staff

Birds are among the best-studied animal groups, but their prehistoric diversity is poorly known due to low fossilization potential. Hence, while many human-driven...

Gremlin slobodorum. Image credit: Ddinodan / Sci.News.

New Herbivorous Dinosaur Species Identified in Canada

Dec 19, 2023 by Enrico de Lazaro

Paleontologists have found the fossil of a previously unknown species of leptoceratopsid dinosaur that lived more than 70 million years ago in what is...

This Hubble image shows the galaxy cluster SDSS J1226+2152. Image credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / Webb / J. Rigby / JWST TEMPLATES Team.

Webb Focuses on Gravitationally-Lensing Galaxy Cluster

Dec 19, 2023 by Enrico de Lazaro

SDSS J1226+2152, a huge galaxy cluster in the constellation of Coma Berenices, acts as a strong gravitational lens, causing light from distant galaxies...

Confocal micrograph of Epulopiscium viviparus. Image credit: Sannino et al., doi: 10.1073/pnas.2306160120.

Researchers Sequence Genome of Giant Symbiotic Bacterium

Dec 19, 2023 by News Staff

Giant bacteria are intriguing, underexplored biological enigmas. Many well-studied giants use abundant internal small-molecule stores and/or light to satisfy...

Bonobos (Pan paniscus) in Edinburgh Zoo. Image credit: Kate Grounds / Edinburgh Zoo.

Bonobos and Chimps Recognize Faces of Their Friends Even after Many Years of Separation

Dec 19, 2023 by News Staff

While human social memory lasts decades and tracks relationships, less is known about non-human ape long-term memory. In a new paper published in the Proceedings...

This ancient brick from the Slemani Museum dates to the reign of Nebuchadnezzar II (ca. 604 to 562 BCE) based on the interpretation of the inscription; this object was looted from its original context before being acquired by the Slemani Museum and stored in that museum with agreement from the central government. Image credit: Howland et al., doi: 10.1073/pnas.2313361120.

Cuneiform-Inscribed Bricks Unveil Strength of Ancient Geomagnetic Field in Mesopotamia

Dec 19, 2023 by News Staff

Reconstructing the behavior of Earth’s magnetic field during archaeological periods is crucial for both achieving a better understanding of the field...

Transcriptomic cell-type taxonomy of the whole mouse brain. Image credit: Yao et al., doi: 10.1038/s41586-023-06812-z.

Researchers Create Comprehensive Map of Mouse Brain

Dec 18, 2023 by News Staff

The mouse is the most commonly used vertebrate experimental model in neuroscience research, and the new atlas paves the way for a greater understanding...

This Webb image exquisitely captures the seasonal north polar cap of Uranus, including the bright, white, inner cap and the dark lane in the bottom of the polar cap. Uranus’ dim inner and outer rings are also visible in this image, including the elusive Zeta ring -- the extremely faint and diffuse ring closest to the planet. Image credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / STScI.

Webb Captures New Images of Uranus, Its Enigmatic Rings and Moons

Dec 18, 2023 by Enrico de Lazaro

New images from the Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) instrument onboard the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope shows Uranus, its ring system and some...

Sketch of a Rydberg molecule (a): the coordinates of the Rydberg electron (blue) and ground state atom (green) relative to the Rydberg core (red) are denoted with black arrows; the relevant spins are that of the Rydberg electron s1, the electron of the ground state atom s2 and the nuclear spin of the ground state atom I. Sketch of a trilobite molecule (b): the Rydberg core and the ground state atom are shown (with exaggerated size) as red and green spheres respectively; the electronic probability density projected to 2D is indicated by the density of blue dots. Image credit: Althön et al., doi: 10.1038/s41467-023-43818-7.

Physicists Observe Trilobite Rydberg Molecules

Dec 18, 2023 by News Staff

A team of physicists at the Rheinland-Pfälzische Technische Universität Kaiserslautern-Landau has produced pure trilobite molecules in rubidium over...

The human genome contains approximately half a million copies of LINE-1. Image credit: Baldwin et al., doi: 10.1038/s41586-023-06947-z.

Scientists Reveal Structure of Ancient Virus-Like Genetic Element

Dec 18, 2023 by News Staff

The Long Interspersed Element-1 (LINE-1) retrotransposon is an ‘ancient genetic parasite’ that has written around one third of the human genome through...

This Hubble image shows MCG-01-24-014, an active spiral galaxy some 275 million light-years away in the constellation of Hydra. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / C. Kilpatrick

Hubble Space Telescope Snaps Beautiful Image of Active Spiral Galaxy

Dec 18, 2023 by Enrico de Lazaro

A dazzling new photo from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows the bright spiral galaxy MCG-01-24-014, which is known to host an active galactic nucleus. This...

Illustration of plume activity on Enceladus. Image credit: Peter et al., doi: 10.1038/s41550-023-02160-0.

Planetary Researchers Detect Hydrogen Cyanide in Plume of Enceladus

Dec 17, 2023 by News Staff

Using data from NASA’s Cassini mission, planetary scientists have detected several compounds of strong importance to the habitability of Saturn’s icy...

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