Articles by News Staff

Magnetic fields in the spiral galaxy Messier 77, also known as M77 and NGC 1086, are shown as streamlines over a visible light and X-ray composite image of the galaxy from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, NASA’s Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR), and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. The magnetic fields align along the entire length of the massive spiral arms of Messier 77, implying that the gravitational forces that created the galaxy’s shape are also compressing the its magnetic field. This supports the leading theory of how the spiral arms are forced into their iconic shape known as ‘density wave theory.’ SOFIA studied the galaxy using far-infrared light (89 microns) to reveal facets of its magnetic fields that previous observations using visible and radio telescopes could not detect. Image credit: NASA / SOFIA / JPL-Caltech / Roma Tre University.

Magnetic Fields Play Important Role in Shaping Spiral Galaxies

Dec 11, 2019 by News Staff

New infrared observations from NASA’s Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) of Messier 77, a spiral galaxy located 47 million light-years...

Schematic diagram of orbit determination model output for the 19 January 2019 particle ejection event from Bennu observed by the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft: Bennu is depicted in gray and has a diameter of 1,640 feet (500 m). OSIRIS-REx is indicated with the brown dot, 1.2 miles (2 km) from Bennu’s center of mass; the cone represents the viewing angle; blue arcs are particle trajectories, ending or with gaps where the trajectories pass into shadow; the Sun-angular momentum frame coordinates are shown at bottom right: x - solar vector, y - Bennu orbital direction, z - Bennu north. Image credit: Lauretta et al, doi: 10.1126/science.aay3544.

Bennu is Active Asteroid, OSIRIS-REx Team Says

Dec 11, 2019 by News Staff

NASA’s OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security-Regolith Explorer) spacecraft recently observed several particle...

Spieden J8, a 72-year-old killer whale (Orcinus orca), breaches the water. Image credit: Kenneth Balcomb, Center for Whale Research.

Study: Killer Whale Grandmothers Improve Chances of Survival for Their Grandoffspring

Dec 10, 2019 by News Staff

Postmenopausal female killer whale (Orcinus orca) have a big beneficial impact on the survival chances of their grandoffspring, a University of York-led...

Kupoupou stilwelli. Image credit: Jacob Blokland.

New Species of Paleocene Penguin Bridges Gap in Penguin Family Tree

Dec 10, 2019 by News Staff

Paleontologists in New Zealand have uncovered the fossilized bones from an extinct penguin that swam the oceans between 62.5 and 60 million years ago....

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’ Tiger Stripes Finally Explained

Dec 10, 2019 by News Staff

Saturn’s 300-mile- (500 km) diameter moon Enceladus is thought to have an outer ice shell covering a liquid water ocean. Slashed across the moon’s...

Playing sports has many benefits, including boosting physical, cardiovascular, and mental fitness. Image credit: Mike Kaplan / U.S. Air Force photo.

Athletes Have Quieter Brains, New Research Shows

Dec 10, 2019 by News Staff

Playing sports — including football, soccer and hockey — increases the gain of the external sound signal by turning down the background noise...

This image from ESO’s Very Large Telescope shows the emission nebula RCW 36. Image credit: ESO.

Very Large Telescope Takes Close Look at Emission Nebula RCW 36

Dec 9, 2019 by News Staff

Using the Focal Reducer and low dispersion Spectrograph (FORS) instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), astronomers have obtained a remarkable...

Stentor roeseli is colorless, trumpet shaped, and visible to the naked eye. Image credit: Protist Image Database.

Single-Celled Microorganism Can Make Complex Decisions, Study Shows

Dec 9, 2019 by News Staff

A free-living ciliate species called Stentor roeseli, which lacks a central nervous system, is capable of decision making, according to a study published...

Root-Gutteridge et al show that the ability to spontaneously recognize both the same phonemes across different speakers, and cues to identity across speech utterances from unfamiliar speakers, is present in domestic dogs and thus not a uniquely human trait. Image credit: Anja Gh.

Dogs Understand Spoken Words Better than We Thought

Dec 9, 2019 by News Staff

Dogs are able to listen to different people saying the same word and recognize it as the same word, ignoring the differences between speakers, and can...

From a great distance, our Milky Way Galaxy would look like a thin disk of stars that orbits once every few hundred million years around its central region, where hundreds of billions of stars provide the gravitational ‘glue’ to hold it all together. But this pull of gravity is much weaker in the Galaxy’s far outer disk. There, the hydrogen atoms making up most of the Milky Way’s gas disk are no longer confined to a thin plane, instead they give the disk an S-like, or warped, appearance. Image credit: Xiaodian Chen.

Milky Way’s Thick Disk is 10 Billion Years Old, Astronomers Say

Dec 6, 2019 by News Staff

Our Milky Way Galaxy consists of two disk-like structures, known as ‘thick’ and ‘thin’ disks. The thick disk contains only about 20% of the Galaxy’s...

Life reconstruction of Origolestes lii. Image credit: Chuang Zhao.

New Cretaceous-Period Mammal Unveiled

Dec 6, 2019 by News Staff

Paleontologists have discovered the remains of a previously unknown symmetrodont mammal that lived alongside dinosaurs in what is now China. The fossils...

A moderate coffee intake is considered to be 3-5 cups of coffee a day. Image credit: Jill Wellington.

Low-to-Moderate Coffee Consumption Cuts Risk of Metabolic Syndrome, New Report Says

Dec 6, 2019 by News Staff

Coffee consumption at a level of 1-4 cups of coffee per day is associated with a reduced risk of metabolic syndrome, according to a new report from the...

Eobodotria muisca bridges an approximately 165 million year gap in the cumacean fossil record. Image credit: Javier Luque.

New Fossil Fills Gap in Evolution of Comma Shrimps

Dec 5, 2019 by News Staff

A new species of comma shrimp that lived during the mid-Cretaceous period, between 95 and 90 million years ago, has been identified from well-preserved...

This composite image shows the surroundings of a supermassive black hole that is triggering star formation across the longest distance ever seen; as hot gas swirls around the black hole, it emits large amounts of X-rays that Chandra detects; the black hole is also the source of radio-wave emission from a jet of high-energy particles -- previously detected by scientists with the VLA -- that stretches about a million light-years. Image credit: NASA / CXC / INAF / R. Gilli et al / NRAO / VLA / STScI.

Supermassive Black Hole Triggers Star Formation in Multiple Galaxies

Dec 5, 2019 by News Staff

Enormous black holes usually affect their surroundings through the so-called ‘negative feedback’ — in other words, suppressing the formation...

This map shows locations of samples analyzed to estimate crustal thickness during the Laramide orogeny. Text in white boxes is the average crustal thickness and average age for locations (labeled in brown) with over 5 samples. CRM - Catalina-Rincon Mountains, BM - Baboquivari Mountains. Image credit: Chapman et al, doi: 10.1130/G47117.1.

Southwestern U.S. Was Once Similar to Today’s Tibetan Plateau: Study

Dec 5, 2019 by News Staff

New research suggests that during the Late Cretaceous epoch to the Early Paleogene epoch (80-50 million years ago), much of the southwestern United States...

This illustration shows the white dwarf WD J0914 and its Neptune-like exoplanet. Image credit: M. Kornmesser / ESO.

Astronomers Find Neptune-Like Exoplanet Orbiting White Dwarf

Dec 5, 2019 by News Staff

A Neptune-like exoplanet orbits an Earth-sized white dwarf star called WD J091405.30+191412.25 (WD J0914 for short) once every 10 days, leaving a comet-like...

This illustration shows a gas giant exoplanet orbiting its parent star. Image credit: NASA / ESA / STScI / L. Calcada.

Study Finds No Clear Correlation between Compositions of Giant Exoplanets and Their Host Stars

Dec 4, 2019 by News Staff

There isn’t a strong correlation between gas giant and host star compositions when it comes to elements heavier than hydrogen and helium, according to...

This schematic of the heliosphere shows the solar wind begins slowing at approximately 4 AU radial distance from the Sun and continues to slow as it moves toward the outer Solar System and picks up interstellar material. Current extrapolations reveal the termination shock may currently be closer than found by the Voyager spacecraft. However, increasing solar activity will soon expand the heliosphere and push the termination shock farther out, possibly to the 84-94 AU range encountered by the Voyager spacecraft. Image credit: Southwest Research Institute / NASA / Adler Planetarium.

Solar Wind Slows in Outer Heliosphere, Data from New Horizons Confirm

Dec 4, 2019 by News Staff

As the solar wind — the supersonic stream of charged particles blown out by the Sun — moves farther from the Sun, it encounters an increasing...

Hubble captured this view of comet 46P/Wirtanen on December 13, 2018. Image credit: NASA / ESA / D. Bodewits, Auburn University / J.-Y. Li, Planetary Science Institute.

TESS Observes Huge Outburst from Comet 46P/Wirtanen

Dec 4, 2019 by News Staff

On September 26, 2018, NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) observed an outburst of gas, ice and dust from the nucleus of comet 46P/Wirtanen....

SDO image of the solar corona in UV light (yellow lines represent the magnetic field on the surface of the Sun). Image credit: NASA / SDO / AIA / LMSAL.

Researchers Crack Mystery of Sun’s Magnetic Waves

Dec 3, 2019 by News Staff

For more than six decades, observations of our Sun have shown that as magnetic waves leave its interior they grow in strength, but until now there has...

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