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Mysterious Star KIC 8462852 Continues to Baffle Astronomers

Artist’s illustration showing a massive exoplanet falling into its host star -- one of the possible explanations for the strange dimming of KIC 8462852. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Alfred Vidal-Madjar, Institut d’Astrophysique de Paris, CNRS.
Oct 5, 2017 by News Staff

A star about 1,480 light-years from Earth called KIC 8462852 has been a fascinating mystery since its discovery was made public in September 2015. Astronomers showed that the star underwent a series of strange dimming events from 2009 to 2013 while it was being monitored by NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope. A new study led by Carnegie Institution astronomer Joshua Simon takes a longer look at KIC 8462852, going back to 2006, and shows that the star...

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This Hubble image shows the inner region of Abell 1689, an immense cluster of galaxies located 2.2 billion light-years away. The cluster’s gravitational field is warping light from background galaxies, causing them to appear as arcs. Dark matter in Abell 1689, which represents about 80% of its mass, is mapped by plotting these arcs. Image credit: NASA / ESA / JPL-Caltech / Yale / CNRS.

Researchers Find Evidence of Dynamical Dark Energy

Oct 3, 2017 by News Staff

An international team of researchers led by University of Portsmouth Professor Gong-Bo Zhao has found that the nature of dark energy may not be the cosmological...

Paranthropus boisei. Image credit: © Roman Yevseyev.

‘Nutcracker Man’ Gave Us Genital Herpes, Study Says

Oct 3, 2017 by News Staff

New research from the University of Cambridge and Oxford Brookes University predicts which species acted as an intermediary between the ancestors of Homo...

Artist’s conception of MAVEN’s Imaging UltraViolet Spectrograph (IUVS) observing Martian aurora, which is similar to Earth’s Aurora borealis but has a different origin. Image credit: University of Colorado.

NASA: Recent Solar Storm Sparked Global Aurora on Mars

Oct 2, 2017 by News Staff

A solar event on September 11, 2017 sparked a global aurora on the Red Planet more than 25 times brighter than any previously seen by NASA’s MAVEN (Mars...

A pair of thylacines, a male and female, c. 1905. Image credit: Smithsonian Institutional Archives / E. J. Keller, National Zoological Park.

Ancient DNA Study Sheds New Light on History of Tasmanian Tigers

Sep 29, 2017 by News Staff

A new study led by University of Adelaide researcher Jeremy Austin traces the history of Tasmanian tiger (thylacine) populations over the last 30,000 years. A...

Comet C/2017 K2: Hubble Spots Rare Visitor from Oort Cloud

Sep 29, 2017 by News Staff

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has photographed the farthest-discovered active inbound comet, C/2017 K2 (PANSTARRS). The comet’s orbit indicates...

Physicists Catch Fourth Gravitational Wave: GW170814

Sep 28, 2017 by News Staff

The LIGO Scientific Collaboration and the Virgo Collaboration report the first joint detection of gravitational waves, ripples in the fabric of space and...

This is an illustration of Uromys vika. Image credit: Velizar Simeonovski, Field Museum.

Uromys vika: New Species of Tree-Dwelling Giant Rat Found in Solomon Islands

Sep 27, 2017 by Enrico de Lazaro

A new rodent species with an unusual lifestyle has been discovered on Vangunu — an island, part of the New Georgia Islands in the Solomon Islands...

The smiley-faced spider Spintharus berniesandersi is named after U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders. Image credit: Glynnis Fawkes.

Fifteen New Species of ‘Smiley-Faced’ Spiders Discovered

Sep 26, 2017 by News Staff

A team of spider experts and students from the University of Vermont has discovered and described 15 new species of the spider genus Spintharus from the...

Gliese 3942b: Super-Earth Found Orbiting Nearby Star

Sep 25, 2017 by Natali Anderson

Dr. Manuel Perger, a postdoctoral researcher at Spain’s Institute of Space Sciences (IEEC-CSIC), and colleagues have discovered a ‘super-Earth’ exoplanet...

Wild male and female Trinidadian guppies (Poecilia reticulata). Image credit: Per Harald Olsen / CC BY 3.0.

Guppies Have Complex Personalities, New Study Shows

Sep 25, 2017 by News Staff

A team of researchers at the University of Exeter, UK, studied how Trinidadian guppies (Poecilia reticulata) behaved in various situations and found complex...

At the Pierre Auger Observatory in Argentina, cosmic rays have been detected from far off galaxies. Image credit: A. Chantelauze / S. Staffi / L. Bret / Pierre Auger Observatory.

Ultra-High-Energy Cosmic Rays Have Extragalactic Origins

Sep 22, 2017 by News Staff

For the first time, astrophysicists have confirmed that cosmic rays with ultra-high energies come from outside our Milky Way Galaxy. At the Pierre Auger...

Palaeolenus lantenoisi showing evidence of crop, digestive glands, alimentary canal along thorax, and excreted waste posterior to pygidium. Scale bar - 5 mm. Image credit: Hopkins et al, doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0184982.

Study: Earliest Trilobites Had Stomachs

Sep 22, 2017 by News Staff

Exceptionally well-preserved trilobite fossils from the Cambrian Wulongqing Formation near Guangwei Village in southern Kunming, the capital city of Yunnan...

Hubble Spots Unusual Binary Asteroid in Main Belt

Sep 21, 2017 by News Staff

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have spotted an unusual object in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter: two asteroids orbiting...

South American horned frog showing round shape and large mouth. Image credit: Kristopher Lappin.

Giant Prehistoric Frogs Ate Small Dinosaurs, Claim Scientists

Sep 20, 2017 by News Staff

Exceptionally large individuals of Beelzebufo ampinga, an extinct species of frog that lived in Madagascar during the Late Cretaceous epoch, about 68 million...

Ancient Indian Manuscript Contains Oldest Example of Mathematical Symbol ‘Zero’

Sep 18, 2017 by News Staff

The Bakhshali manuscript, an ancient Indian mathematical manuscript written on more than 70 leaves of birch bark, is notable for having a dot representing...

Cassini entering Saturn’s atmosphere. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

Cassini Completes Its Historic Journey with Plunge into Atmosphere of Saturn

Sep 15, 2017 by News Staff

Today, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft made its final approach to Saturn and dove into the gas giant’s atmosphere. Loss of contact with the orbiter took...

Hypothetical Planet 9. Image credit: R. Hurt, IPAC / Caltech.

Planet 9, Probably Not a Scooped Up Exoplanet

Sep 14, 2017 by James Romero

Suggestions that the hypothesized Planet 9 formed outside our solar system, or was even stolen from a rival solar system, have been dealt a blow by investigations...

In this screenshot from the short animated film Cassini’s Grand Finale, the spacecraft is shown breaking apart after entering the atmosphere of Saturn. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

Cassini is Ready for ‘Grand Finale’

Sep 14, 2017 by News Staff

On September 15, 2017, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft will make its final approach to Saturn, but this encounter will be like no other. This time, Cassini...

Photomicrograph of Linguamyrmex vladi. Image credit: Barden et al, doi: 10.1111/syen.12253.

98-Million-Year-Old Burmese Amber Preserves Hell Ants

Sep 13, 2017 by Enrico de Lazaro

In a paper published in the journal Systematic Entomology, researchers described an unusual species of prehistoric trap-jaw ant found in several pieces...

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