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Our planet is surrounded by the magnetosphere, shown here in blue. As charged particles from the Sun flow around the Earth’s magnetosphere, it forms the magnetosheath, shown in yellow. Image credit: Mary Pat Hrybyk-Keith / NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

NASA’s MMS Mission Discovers New Magnetic Process in Earth’s Magnetosheath Region

May 10, 2018 by News Staff

Earth is surrounded by a protective magnetic environment, the magnetosphere, which deflects a supersonic stream of charged particles from the Sun, known...

This artist’s impression shows 2004 EW95, the first carbon-rich asteroid confirmed to exist in the Kuiper Belt and a relic of the primordial Solar System. 2004 EW95 likely formed in the main asteroid belt and has been flung billions of miles from its origin to its current home in the Kuiper Belt. Image credit: M. Kornmesser / ESO.

Astronomers Find First Carbon-Rich Asteroid in Kuiper Belt: 2004 EW95

May 9, 2018 by News Staff

An international team of astronomers has found that a small Kuiper Belt object called 2004 EW95 is a carbonaceous (carbon-rich) asteroid — the first...

Gravity of Venus and Jupiter Elongates Earth’s Orbit Every 405,000 Years

May 8, 2018 by News Staff

A research team led by Rutgers University’s Professor Dennis Kent has documented a gradual shift in Earth’s orbit that repeats regularly every 405,000...

An archaic hominin. Image credit: Ninara / CC BY 2.0.

Archaic Hominins Arrived in Philippines as Early as 700,000 Years Ago

May 7, 2018 by News Staff

An international team of scientists has unearthed 57 stone tools and butchered animal bones at Kalinga in the Cagayan Valley of northern Luzon, the largest...

The United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket lifts off with NASA’s InSight spacecraft, seen through a thick fog blanketing Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Image credit: NASA.

NASA’s InSight Mission Launches to Study Mars’ Interior

May 5, 2018 by News Staff

NASA’s Mars InSight mission successfully launched today at 7:05 a.m. EDT (4:05 a.m. PDT) from Space Launch Complex 3 at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California,...

Professor Stephen Hawking’s Final Theory on Origin of Universe

May 3, 2018 by News Staff

Professor Stephen Hawking’s theory about the Big Bang, which he worked on in collaboration with Katholieke Universiteit Leuven’s Professor Thomas Hertog,...

An artist’s impression of WASP-107b. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / M. Kornmesser.

Helium Detected in Atmosphere of Exoplanet for First Time

May 3, 2018 by News Staff

An international team of astronomers has detected helium — the second-most abundant element in the Universe after hydrogen — in the atmosphere...

This new study is the first comprehensive analysis of the impact of adopting low-risk lifestyle factors on life expectancy in the U.S. Image credit: Matan Ray Vizel.

Five Healthy Lifestyle Habits Can Extend Life by 12-14 Years

May 2, 2018 by News Staff

Living a healthy lifestyle — eating a healthy diet, exercising regularly, keeping a healthy body weight, not drinking too much alcohol, and not smoking...

Earth’s magnetic field connects the North Pole (orange lines) with the South Pole (blue lines) in this NASA-created image. Image credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

Earth’s Magnetic Field is Not in Early Stage of Reversal, Says Study

May 1, 2018 by News Staff

The intensity of Earth’s magnetic field has been dropping for the last two centuries, at a rate that some researchers suspect may cause the field to...

Physicists Entangle Two Macroscopic-Scale Objects

Apr 30, 2018 by News Staff

Entanglement — an intriguing phenomenon in which two distant objects can manifest correlations, even if they are far away from each other —...

Meta-Analysis Identifies 30 New Genetic Risk Factors for Major Depression

Apr 30, 2018 by News Staff

A new genome-wide association meta-analysis has identified 44 genomic variants (loci) that have a significant association with major depression. Of these...

Oxford researchers Katerina Johnson and Kevin Foster argue that understanding why gut microbiome influences behavior requires a focus on microbial ecology and local effects within the host. Image credit: Open Clipart-Vectors.

Does Gut Microbiota Manipulate Our Minds?

Apr 30, 2018 by News Staff

A duo of scientists at the University of Oxford, UK, has proposed an evolutionary framework to understand why our gut microbiota affects the brain and...

Ryder et al used Hubble to get the first image of a surviving companion to a supernova; this is the most compelling evidence that some supernova explosions originate in binary star systems. Image credit: NASA / ESA / S. Ryder, Australian Astronomical Observatory / O. Fox, STScI.

Hubble Snaps Image of Surviving Binary Companion to Type IIb Supernova

Apr 27, 2018 by News Staff

On December 10, 2001 Australian amateur astronomer Robert Evans discovered a supernova in the outer edge of NGC 7424, a spiral galaxy located in the southern...

White Sands footprints tell the story of a group of humans tracking and hunting a giant ground sloth. Image credit: Alex McClelland, Bournemouth University.

Ice Age Humans Hunted Giant Ground Sloths, Fossilized Footprints Show

Apr 26, 2018 by News Staff

An international team of scientists has found evidence of an interaction between Ice Age humans and now-extinct giant ground sloths. White Sands footprints...

Gaia’s all-sky view of our Milky Way Galaxy and neighboring galaxies, based on measurements of nearly 1.7 billion stars. Brighter regions indicate denser concentrations of especially bright stars, while darker regions correspond to patches of the sky where fewer bright stars are observed. The color representation is obtained by combining the total amount of light with the amount of blue and red light recorded by Gaia in each patch of the sky. The bright horizontal structure that dominates the image is the Galactic plane, the flattened disc that hosts most of the stars in our home Galaxy. In the middle of the image, the Galactic center appears vivid and teeming with stars. Darker regions across the Galactic plane correspond to foreground clouds of interstellar gas and dust, which absorb the light of stars located further away, behind the clouds. Many of these conceal stellar nurseries where new generations of stars are being born. Sprinkled across the image are also many globular and open clusters -- groupings of stars held together by their mutual gravity, as well as entire galaxies beyond our own. The two bright objects in the lower right of the image are the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, two dwarf galaxies orbiting the Milky Way. In small areas of the image where no color information was available -- to the lower left of the Galactic center, to the upper left of the Small Magellanic Cloud, and in the top portion of the map -- an equivalent grayscale value was assigned. Image credit: ESA / Gaia / DPAC.

ESA’s Gaia Mission Releases Catalog of Nearly 1.7 Billion Stars

Apr 26, 2018 by News Staff

ESA’s Gaia mission has released the largest catalogue ever of Milky Way stars. It includes the positions on the sky for approximately 1.7 billion stars,...

This artist’s impression of SPT2349-56 shows a group of interacting and merging galaxies in the early Universe. Image credit: M. Kornmesser / ESO.

Astronomers Discover Two Massive Protoclusters of Young Galaxies in Early Universe

Apr 26, 2018 by News Staff

Peering deep into space — an astounding 90% of the way across the observable Universe — two groups of astronomers led by University of Edinburgh’s...

Indigenous Bajau People Evolved Larger Spleens for Free-Diving

Apr 25, 2018 by News Staff

The indigenous Bajau people of Southeast Asia spend their whole lives at sea, working 8-hr diving shifts with traditional equipment and short breaks to...

Researchers Find New DNA Structure in Living Human Cells

Apr 24, 2018 by News Staff

A team of scientists from the Garvan Institute of Medical Research and the Universities of New South Wales and Sydney has identified a new DNA structure...

Astronomers Detect Hydrogen Sulfide in Uranus’ Upper Atmosphere

Apr 24, 2018 by News Staff

Astronomers using the Gemini North Telescope on Hawaii’s Maunakea have detected hydrogen sulfide, the gas that gives rotten eggs their distinctive odor,...