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It’s raining on Titan. Image credit: David A. Hardy, AstroArt / NASA.

Cassini Team Finds Evidence of Summer Rainfall at Titan’s North Pole

Jan 17, 2019 by News Staff

Observations from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft provide evidence of rainfall on the north pole of Saturn’s moon Titan. The rainfall would be the first...

Two seeds of Chenopodium berlandieri spp. jonesianum adhering along one side showing truncate cross section as well as variation in seed coat thickness and margin configuration that varies from flattened to slightly rounded. Image credit: Gary Crawford.

Archaeologists Find 2,900-Year-Old Seeds of Domesticated Goosefoot in Canada

Jan 16, 2019 by News Staff

A team of Canadian archaeologists has found a cache of charred seeds of the pitseed goosefoot (Chenopodium berlandieri spp. jonesianum), a form of quinoa...

An artist’s impression of a view of the HD 98800BaBb binary star system and the surrounding disk. Image credit: Mark Garlick, University of Warwick.

ALMA Discovers Binary Star System with Polar Protoplanetary Disk

Jan 15, 2019 by News Staff

Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/sub-millimeter Array (ALMA) have spotted the first example of a binary system that has flipped its protoplanetary...

Photons emitted near rotating black holes encode quantum information that can be measured by actual quantum information technology. Image credit: Sci-News.com.

Spacetime Geometry near Rotating Black Holes Acts Like Quantum Computer, Physicist Says

Jan 15, 2019 by News Staff

According to a theoretical paper published in the Annals of Physics, by Dr. Ovidiu Racorean from the General Direction of Information Technology in Bucharest,...

Massive Exoplanet Found within Binary Star System

Jan 11, 2019 by Enrico de Lazaro

Astronomers using data from NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope have discovered a planet roughly twice the size of Earth orbiting a star in the low-mass binary...

Less than a billion years after the Big Bang, a supermassive black hole began devouring anything within its gravitational grasp; this triggered a firestorm of star formation around the black hole; a galaxy was being born; a blowtorch of energy blazed across the Universe. Now, 12.8 billion years later, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope captured the beacon from this event. But the telescope needed help to spot it: the gravitational warping of space by a comparatively nearby intervening galaxy greatly amplified and distorted the quasar’s light, making it the brightest such object seen in the early Universe. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / M. Kornmesser.

Astronomers Find Brightest Quasar of Early Universe

Jan 10, 2019 by News Staff

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have spotted the brightest quasar ever seen in the early Universe. Less than a billion years after...

The globally distributed dishes of the European VLBI Network are linked with each other and the 305-m William E. Gordon Telescope at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. Together they have localized FRB121102’s exact position within its host galaxy. Image credit: Danielle Futselaar, www.artsource.nl.

Second Repeating Fast Radio Burst Detected

Jan 10, 2019 by News Staff

Astrophysicists from the CHIME (Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment) Collaboration have spotted 13 new fast radio bursts (FRB) — powerful...

TESS discovered three small exoplanets around nearby stars. Image credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center / MIT News.

TESS Discovers Its Third Small Exoplanet: Sub-Neptune HD 21749b

Jan 9, 2019 by News Staff

NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) has discovered its third small exoplanet, named HD 21749b. The discovery will be reported in a paper...

Hubble Captures Best Ever Image of Triangulum Galaxy

Jan 8, 2019 by News Staff

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has captured a striking portrait of the Triangulum Galaxy, displaying a full spiral face aglow with the light of nearly...

Large Magellanic Cloud on Collision Course with Milky Way Galaxy

Jan 7, 2019 by News Staff

The Large Magellanic Cloud, a dwarf galaxy located approximately 163,000 light-years away, is on a collision course with the Milky Way with which it will...

The Yutu-2 rover moves across the far side of the Moon. Image credit: CNSA.

Chang’e-4 Probe Touches Down on Far Side of the Moon

Jan 4, 2019 by Enrico de Lazaro

At 9:26 p.m. EST on January 2, 2019 (2:26 a.m. GMT, 10:26 a.m. Beijing Time on January 3), China National Space Administration’s Chang’e-4 lunar probe...

This image taken by New Horizons’ Long-Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) is the most detailed of Ultima Thule returned so far by the spacecraft. It was taken at 12:01 a.m. EST (5:01 a.m. GMT) on January 1, 2019, just 30 minutes before closest approach from a range of 18,000 miles (28,000 km). Image credit: NASA / Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory / Southwest Research Institute.

Ultima Thule is Contact Binary, New Horizons Team Says

Jan 3, 2019 by News Staff

New images from NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft — taken from as close as 17,000 miles (27,000 km) on approach — revealed Ultima Thule as a...

JunoCam acquired three images of Io prior to when it entered eclipse, all showing a volcanic plume illuminated beyond the terminator; the image shown here, reconstructed from red, blue and green filter images, was acquired at 12:20 p.m. GMT on December 21, 2018; Juno was 186,411 miles (300,000 km) from Io. Image credit: NASA / SwRI / MSSS.

Juno Observes Volcanic Plume on Io

Jan 3, 2019 by News Staff

NASA’s Juno orbiter has captured images of a volcanic plume on Jupiter’s moon Io during the mission’s 17th flyby of the giant planet. JunoCam acquired...

Researchers Identify Genetic Variant Responsible for Tuberculosis Vulnerability

Jan 3, 2019 by News Staff

A research team led by Rockefeller University scientists has discovered a genetic variant that makes people more vulnerable to tuberculosis, a disease...

Ultima Thule. Image credit: NASA / Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory / Southwest Research Institute.

New Horizons Returns First Clear Photo of Ultima Thule

Jan 2, 2019 by News Staff

NASA has released the first image from the historic Ultima Thule flyby taken with New Horizons’ Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) camera. Ultima...

Just over 24 hours before its closest approach to Ultima Thule, New Horizons has sent back the first images that begin to reveal Ultima Thule’s shape. Image-sharpening techniques combining multiple images show that Ultima Thule is elongated, perhaps twice as long as it is wide. The spacecraft was approximately 1.2 million miles (1.9 million km) from Ultima Thule when this image was taken on December 30, 2018. Image credit: NASA / Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory / Southwest Research Institute.

New Horizons Arrives at Ultima Thule

Jan 1, 2019 by News Staff

After a journey of 13 years and 4 billion miles (6.4 billion km), NASA’s New Horizons probe had a close encounter with a Kuiper Belt object known as...

Artist’s impression of New Horizons encountering a Pluto-like object in the distant Kuiper Belt. Image credit: NASA / JHUAPL / SwRI / Alex Parker.

New Horizons to Reach Ultima Thule on New Year’s Day: Watch Live

Dec 31, 2018 by News Staff

On January 1st, 2019, at 12:33 a.m. EST (5:33 a.m. GMT), NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft will fly past a Kuiper Belt object known as 2014 MU69 (nicknamed...

Klobiodon rochei. Image credit: Mark Witton.

New Jurassic-Era Pterosaur Discovered in England

Dec 28, 2018 by News Staff

Paleontologists from the University of Portsmouth have discovered the fossilized remains of a new species of ancient flying reptile. Klobiodon rochei....

Andesite blocks at Pumpapunku. Image credit: Brattarb / CC BY-SA 3.0.

Pumapunku: Researchers Reconstruct Enigmatic Pre-Columbian Monument

Dec 27, 2018 by News Staff

The Pumapunku (Gateway of the Puma or Jaguar), a highly damaged pre-Columbian monument at the ancient archaeological site of Tiwanaku, Bolivia, has been...