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Saturn’s Rings are Disappearing at Rapid Pace

With Saturn hanging in the blackness and sheltering NASA’ Cassini spacecraft from the Sun’s blinding glare, the probe viewed Saturn’s rings as never before, revealing previously unknown faint rings and even glimpsing its home world. Image credit: NASA / JPL / Space Science Institute.
Dec 18, 2018 by News Staff

A team of planetary researchers from the United States and the United Kingdom has discovered that Saturn’s rings are younger than previously thought and that they are actually disappearing at a rapid pace through a process called ‘ring rain.’ The findings were published in the journal Icarus. With Saturn hanging in the blackness and sheltering NASA’ Cassini spacecraft from the Sun’s blinding glare, the probe viewed Saturn’s rings as never...

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Life reconstruction of Crittendenceratops krzyzanowskii. Image credit: Sergey Krasovskiy.

New Horned Dinosaur Discovered in Arizona

Dec 17, 2018 by Enrico de Lazaro

A new genus and species of herbivorous ceratopsid (horned) dinosaur being named Crittendenceratops krzyzanowskii has been discovered by paleontologists...

An artist’s impression of the Neptune-sized exoplanet K2-263b. Image credit: Sci-News.com.

Astronomers Discover Icy Neptune-Sized Exoplanet: K2-263b

Dec 17, 2018 by Enrico de Lazaro

Astronomers have discovered a frozen exoplanet nearly the size of Neptune orbiting the quiet G9-type dwarf star K2-263. An artist’s impression of the...

This artist’s illustration shows a giant cloud of hydrogen streaming off the warm Neptune GJ 3470b. The host star’s intense radiation is heating the hydrogen in the planet’s upper atmosphere to a point where it escapes into space. GJ 3470b is losing hydrogen at a rate 100 times faster than a previously observed warm Neptune whose atmosphere is also evaporating away. Image credit: NASA / ESA / D. Player, STScI.

Hubble Finds Fast-Evaporating Warm Neptune: GJ 3470b

Dec 14, 2018 by News Staff

Extrasolar ‘Neptunes’ are exoplanets with masses and radii similar to those of the ice giants in the Solar System. In 2015, astronomers using the NASA/ESA...

An artist’s impression of the disk of dust and gas surrounding the massive protostar MM 1a, with its companion MM 1b forming in the outer regions. Image credit: J.D. Ilee, University of Leeds.

Smaller Member of Binary Protostar Caught Forming Like Planet

Dec 14, 2018 by News Staff

While observing a massive protostar called G11.92-0.61 MM 1, a research team led by University of Leeds astronomers discovered it was not in fact one stellar...

An artist’s rendition of a supernova explosion. Image credit: ESA / Hubble / L. Calcada / NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

Nearby Supernova Explosions Triggered End-Pliocene Marine Mass Extinction, Researchers Say

Dec 13, 2018 by News Staff

Approximately 2.6 million years ago (Pliocene epoch), a tsunami of cosmic energy from a massive supernova or a series of them about 150 light-years away...

This false-color image shows the dwarf planet Ceres. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / UCLA / MPS / DLR / IDA.

Dwarf Planet Ceres Has Carbon-Rich Surface, Study Suggests

Dec 13, 2018 by News Staff

The surface of the dwarf planet Ceres may contain several times the concentration of carbon than is present in the most carbon-rich, primitive meteorites...

Visualization of an expanding drop of quark-gluon plasma. Image credit: Javier Orjuela Koop, University of Colorado, Boulder.

Physicists Create Quark-Gluon Plasma Droplets

Dec 12, 2018 by News Staff

Physicists from the PHENIX Collaboration have created droplets of a liquid-like state of matter called quark-gluon plasma, forming three distinct shapes...

An atomic force microscopy image showing the interaction behavior of genomic DNA with the gold surface. Image credit: Sina et al, doi: 10.1038/s41467-018-07214-w.

Using Gold Nanoparticles to Rapidly Detect Cancer DNA

Dec 11, 2018 by Sam Sander Effron

Using as little as 1 picogram of purified DNA sample (think 2.5 trillion times lighter than a penny), scientists at the University of Brisbane have developed...

An artist concept of the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft. Image credit: NASA / Goddard.

OSIRIS-REx Finds Water-Bearing Minerals on Asteroid Bennu

Dec 11, 2018 by News Staff

New data from two instruments on NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft — the OSIRIS-REx Visible and Infrared Spectrometer (OVIRS) and the OSIRIS-REx Thermal...

This illustration shows the position of NASA’s Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 probes, outside of the heliosphere, a protective bubble created by the Sun that extends well past the orbit of Pluto. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

Voyager 2 Reaches Interstellar Space

Dec 11, 2018 by News Staff

Forty-one years after it launched into space, NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft has crossed the outer edge of the heliosphere. Called the heliopause, this...

This image from InSight’s robotic-arm mounted Instrument Deployment Camera shows the instruments on the spacecraft’s deck, with the Martian surface of Elysium Planitia in the background. The color-calibrated picture was acquired on December 4, 2018 (Sol 8); in the foreground, a copper-colored hexagonal cover protects the SEIS seismometer; the gray dome behind SEIS is the wind and thermal shield, which will be placed over SEIS; to the left is a black cylindrical instrument, the Heat Flow and Physical Properties Probe (HP3); HP3 will drill up to 16 feet (5 m) below the Martian surface, measuring heat released from the interior of the planet; above the deck is InSight’s robotic arm, with the stowed grapple directly facing the camera; to the right can be seen a small portion of one of the two solar panels that help power InSight and part of the UHF communication antenna. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

InSight Records Sound of Wind on Mars

Dec 10, 2018 by News Staff

On December 1, 2018, NASA’s InSight lander captured a haunting low rumble caused by vibrations from the Martian wind, estimated to be blowing between...

This artist’s impression shows the first interstellar asteroid -- 1I/2017 U1 (’Oumuamua). Image credit: M. Kornmesser / ESO.

SETI Astronomers Find No Evidence for Artificial Transmitters on Oumuamua

Dec 7, 2018 by News Staff

In October 2017, a fast moving object of extrasolar origin, named ‘Oumuamua, was discovered close to the Earth with a ground-based telescope in Hawai’i....

A reticulated siren (Siren reticulata) from the waters of northwestern Florida (Okaloosa County) rests on an aquarium floor. Image credit: Pierson Hill.

Reticulated Siren: New Salamander Species Discovered

Dec 7, 2018 by Natali Anderson

A team of researchers has discovered a new species of salamander living in Alabama and the Panhandle region of Florida, the United States. A reticulated...

An artist’s impression of Weewarrasaurus pobeni. Image credit: James Kuether.

New Dinosaur Species Discovered in Australia: Weewarrasaurus pobeni

Dec 6, 2018 by News Staff

Paleontologists in Australia have found a fossil fragment from a new species of ornithopod dinosaur that walked the Earth approximately 100 million years...

The moon jellyfish (Aurelia aurita). Image credit: Alexander Vasenin / CC BY-SA 3.0.

First Jellyfish Genome Sheds Light on Evolution of Animal Complexity

Dec 6, 2018 by News Staff

A team of researchers from the United States and Germany has sequenced and analyzed the genome of the moon jellyfish (Aurelia aurita). The results show...

The current, widely recognized model of the Universe, called LambdaCDM, tells us nothing about what dark matter and dark energy are like physically. We only know about them because of the gravitational effects they have on other, observable matter. Dr. Farnes’ model offers a new explanation. Image credit: NASA / ESA / M. Livio / Hubble 20th Anniversary Team, STScI.

Negative-Mass Dark Fluid: Astonishing New Theory Could Explain Universe’s Missing 95%

Dec 5, 2018 by News Staff

The standard cosmological model known as LambdaCDM can only explain 5% of the observable Universe. The remaining 95% is famously made up almost entirely...

The collision of two black holes is seen in this still from a computer simulation. Image credit: SXS.

Physicists Detect Four New Gravitational Waves

Dec 4, 2018 by News Staff

The twin LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory) detectors, located in Livingston, Louisiana, and Hanford, Washington, and the Virgo...

NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is on a mission to explore the asteroid Bennu and return a sample to Earth. Image credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab.

NASA’s OSIRIS-REx Spacecraft Arrives at Asteroid Bennu

Dec 4, 2018 by News Staff

After traveling through space for more than two years and 1.2 billion miles (2 billion km), NASA’s OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource...

ALMA image of Europa. Image credit: ALMA / ESO / NAOJ / NRAO / S. Trumbo et al.

Astronomers Create Global Thermal Maps of Jupiter’s Moon Europa

Dec 3, 2018 by News Staff

A new series of daytime images of Europa from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) has helped astronomers create first global thermal...

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