Articles by News Staff

An artist’s depiction of the ornithopod dinosaur Weewarrasaurus pobeni tending its nest. Image credit: University of New England.

Paleontologists Uncover Fossilized Remains of Baby Ornithopod Dinosaurs in Australia

Dec 23, 2019 by News Staff

Paleontologists have unearthed the 100-million-year-old (Cretaceous period) fossilized bones of perinatal non-iguanodontian ornithopods in the Griman Creek...

This image, taken by Spitzer’s Multiband Imaging Photometer (MIPS) instrument, shows the Perseus molecular cloud. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

Spitzer Observes Perseus Molecular Cloud

Dec 20, 2019 by News Staff

NASA has released a stunning image of the Perseus molecular cloud, a giant stellar nursery about 600 light-years away in the northern constellation of...

Study: Iron Crystals Accumulate and Compact into Thick Layer on Top of Earth’s Inner Core

Dec 20, 2019 by News Staff

Tiny iron particles fall from Earth’s molten outer core and pile on top of the planet’s solid inner core, according to new research published in the...

This is an artist's reconstruction of Homo erectus. Image credit: Yale University.

Last Population of Homo erectus Survived in Central Java until 108,000 Years Ago

Dec 20, 2019 by News Staff

An international team of researchers has pinpointed the first comprehensive age for the last known occurrence of the early hominin species Homo erectus. This...

World’s Oldest Fossil Forest Unearthed

Dec 19, 2019 by News Staff

Paleontologists have unearthed the extensive root system of 386-million-year-old (Devonian period) primitive trees in a sandstone quarry near Cairo, New...

Earth’s technosphere now weighs some 30 trillion tons -- a mass of more than 50 kg for every sq.m of the planet’s surface, according to Jan Zalasiewicz et al.

Humans and Domestic Animals Will Dominate Anthropocene-Era Fossil Record, Paleontologists Say

Dec 19, 2019 by News Staff

The terrestrial fossil record of the current geological epoch, the Anthropocene, will be unique in Earth history and will be dominated by humans, cows,...

ESA’s Cheops spacecraft lifts off from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. Image credit: ESA.

ESA Launches Exoplanet-Studying Satellite Cheops

Dec 19, 2019 by News Staff

The CHaracterising ExOPlanet Satellite (Cheops) — the first mission of the European Space Agency (ESA) dedicated to the study of exoplanets —...

This composite image of the galaxy group-galaxy group merger NGC 6338 contains X-ray data from Chandra (displayed in red) that shows hot gas with temperatures upward of about 20 million degrees Celsius, as well as cooler gas detected with Chandra and XMM (shown in blue) that also emits X-rays. The image contains optical data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Image credit: Chandra / NASA / CXC / SAO / E. O’Sullivan / ESA / XMM / SDSS.

NGC 6338: Two Galaxy Groups are Colliding at Incredible Speed

Dec 19, 2019 by News Staff

Using data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, ESA’s XMM-Newton, the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope, and the Apache Point Observatory, astronomers...

This composite image, which combines infrared (blue), radio (red) and microwave (green) observations from the GISMO instrument, reveals emission from cold dust, areas of vigorous star formation, and filaments formed at the edges of a bubble blown by some powerful event at the Milky Way Galaxy’s center. Image credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

GISMO Sees Huge Molecular Clouds and Filaments in Milky Way’s Central Region

Dec 18, 2019 by News Staff

The NASA-designed Goddard-IRAM Superconducting 2-Millimeter Observer (GISMO), a bolometer camera installed on the 30-m IRAM radio telescope, has produced...

Forced magnetic reconnection, caused by a prominence from the Sun, was seen for the first time in images from SDO. This image shows the Sun on May 3, 2012, with the inset showing a close-up of the reconnection event imaged by SDO’s Atmospheric Imaging Assembly instrument, where the signature X-shape is visible. Image credit: NASA / SDO / Abhishek Srivastava / IIT.

Solar Dynamics Observatory Observes Forced Magnetic Reconnection in Sun’s Corona

Dec 18, 2019 by News Staff

NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) has directly observed a new type of magnetic explosion — called forced reconnection — in the solar...

An enteroendocrine cell (green) lies within the epithelium (red) that lines the intestines of a zebrafish larvae. Image credit: Lihua Ye.

Study: High-Fat Meal Can Silence Communication between Intestine and Rest of the Body

Dec 18, 2019 by News Staff

According to a new study performed in zebrafish (Danio rerio), a high-fat meal can shut down the communication between the enteroendocrine cells —...

Astronomers Measure Size and Mass of Nearby Pulsar, Create Map of Its Surface Hot Spots

Dec 17, 2019 by News Staff

Using the X-ray data from NASA’s Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER), astronomers have produced a map of hot spots on the surface of a...

Martian moon Phobos. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / University of Arizona.

Mars Express Captures New Views of Martian Moon Phobos

Dec 17, 2019 by News Staff

On November 17, 2019, ESA’s Mars Express orbiter made a close flyby of Phobos, the larger and inner of the two natural satellites of Mars. The probe...

Taken with the HAWK-I instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope, this stunning image shows the Milky Way’s central region with an angular resolution of 0.2 arcseconds. The image combines observations in three different wavelength bands. Image credit: ESO / Nogueras-Lara et al.

VLT Observes Milky Way’s Central Region

Dec 16, 2019 by News Staff

Astronomers using ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) have captured a stunning new image of the Milky Way’s densest region of stars, gas and dust, which...

Easter Island is located some 3,512 km from Chile’s west coast and its nearest inhabited neighbor, Pitcairn Island, located some 2,075 km to the west. For reasons still unknown early Rapa Nui people began carving giant statues out of volcanic rock. Image credit: Marlene Hanssen.

Easter Islanders Likely Believed Megalithic Statues Helped Maintain Soil Fertility

Dec 16, 2019 by News Staff

Ancient inhabitants of Easter Island (also known as Rapa Nui) likely believed their megalithic statues called moai stimulated agricultural food production,...

Bed elevation of the Antarctic ice sheet color coded between minus 2 and 1 km (minus 1.2 and 0.6 miles) above sea level. The white lines delineate the basins from the ice sheet mass balance inter-comparison exercise (IMBIE). Image credit: Morlighem et al, doi: 10.1038/s41561-019-0510-8.

Scientists Create New Bed Topography Map of Earth’s Southernmost Continent

Dec 16, 2019 by News Staff

BedMachine Antarctica is a new bed topography map based on ice thickness data from different research institutes dating back to 1967, encompassing nearly...

Woolly mammoths (Mammuthus primigenius). Image credit: Velizar Simeonovski / Field Museum.

DNA-Based ‘Clock’ Predicts Maximum Lifespan in Living and Extinct Vertebrates

Dec 15, 2019 by News Staff

A team of researchers at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Australia, has developed a simple new method for estimating...

A series of JunoCam images from Juno’s 23rd close science pass by Jupiter on November 3, 2019, revealed a sixth circumpolar cyclone in the cluster around Jupiter’s south pole. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / SwRI / MSSS.

Juno Spots New Circumpolar Cyclone at Jupiter’s South Pole

Dec 14, 2019 by News Staff

NASA’s Juno spacecraft spied the new Jovian cyclone on November 3, 2019, during its 23rd science pass of the gas giant. A series of JunoCam images from...

Computer-generated visualization of the orbital paths (white dots) taken by NASA’s MAVEN spacecraft as it mapped winds (blue lines) in the Martian upper atmosphere; red lines coming from the white dots represent local wind speed and direction, measured by MAVEN’s Neutral Gas and Ion Mass Spectrometer instrument. Image credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center / MAVEN / SVS / Greg Shirah.

NASA’s MAVEN Orbiter Maps Martian Upper Atmospheric Winds

Dec 13, 2019 by News Staff

Using NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft, a team of planetary researchers have measured the speed and direction of winds...

On Earth, the Northern and Southern lights occur when the solar wind (electrically charged particles from the Sun) follow our planet’s geomagnetic field lines to the poles and collide with the upper atmosphere. Mars lacks a global magnetic field, so instead the solar wind piles up in front of Mars in a bow shock, which blocks charged particles from reaching the bulk of the atmosphere. However, in a process first observed by NASA’s MAVEN spacecraft, some solar wind protons can slip past the bow shock by first bonding with electrons from the Martian upper atmosphere to form hydrogen atoms. Because these hydrogen atoms are electrically neutral, they can pass through the bow shock and go on to create an ultraviolet proton aurora on the dayside of Mars. Image credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

‘Proton Aurora’ is Most Common Type of Aurora on Mars, Researchers Say

Dec 13, 2019 by News Staff

Proton aurora, a type of Martian aurora first identified in 2016, forms when protons from the solar wind interact with hydrogen in the extended portions...

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