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This illustration shows several comets speeding across a vast protoplanetary disk of gas and dust and heading straight for the youthful, central star HD 172555. These exocomets will eventually plunge into the star and vaporize. HD 172555 represents the third extrasolar system where astronomers have detected doomed, wayward comets. All of the systems are young, under 40 million years old. Image credit: NASA / ESA / A. Feild & G. Bacon, STScI.

Astronomers Detect Exocomets Falling into HD 172555

Jan 8, 2017 by News Staff

Exocomets are plunging into HD 172555, a nearby young star surrounded by a debris disk, according to a team of astronomers led by Carol Grady of NASA’s...

PGC 1000714 (center). Image credit: Ryan Beauchemin.

Double-Ringed Elliptical Galaxy Spotted 372 Million Light-Years Away

Jan 6, 2017 by News Staff

Astronomers have spotted for the first time an elliptical galaxy with two fairly round rings. PGC 1000714 (center). Image credit: Centre de Données astronomiques...

In this extended color image of Pluto taken by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft, rounded and bizarrely textured mountains, named the Tartarus Dorsa, rise up along Pluto’s day-night terminator and show intricate but puzzling patterns of blue-gray ridges and reddish material in between. This view, roughly 330 miles (530 km) across, combines blue, red and infrared images taken by New Horizons’ Ralph/Multispectral Visual Imaging Camera on July 14, 2015. Image credit: NASA / Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory / Southwest Research Institute.

New Horizons Spots Penitentes in Pluto’s Tartarus Dorsa Region

Jan 6, 2017 by Enrico de Lazaro

Planetary researchers using data from NASA’s New Horizons mission have found evidence of snow and ice features on the dwarf planet Pluto that, until...

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.

Repeating ‘Fast Radio Burst’ Found to Originate from Extremely Distant Dwarf Galaxy

Jan 5, 2017 by News Staff

A large international team of astronomers has uncovered the cosmological source of a repeating ‘fast radio burst’ known as FRB 121102. The globally...

Reconstruction of the early chimaera Dwykaselachus oosthuizeni. Image credit: Kristen Tietjen.

Dwykaselachus oosthuizeni: Permian Fossil Reveals Origins of Chimaeras

Jan 4, 2017 by News Staff

CT scans of the fossilized skull of Dwykaselachus oosthuizeni — a shark-like fish that lived during the Permian period, around 280 million years...

This image of Orion A is composed of near-infrared observations from ESO’s VISTA survey telescope. Image credit: ESO / VISION Survey.

VISTA Captures Detailed Image of Orion A

Jan 4, 2017 by Enrico de Lazaro

This striking image, captured by ESO’s Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA), shows the Orion A molecular cloud, the nearest known...

Stephanie M. Reeve et al. identified two plasmid-borne genes that confer high-level resistance to trimethoprim for the first time in MRSA isolates from U.S. hospitals; a series of charged propargyl-linked antifolates overcome this resistance via direct inhibition of the acquired resistance elements. This colorized scanning electron micrograph depicts a grouping of MRSA bacteria. These bacteria are methicillin-resistant, and are from one of the first isolates in the U.S. that showed increased resistance to vancomycin as well. Note the increase in cell wall material seen as clumps on the organisms’ surface. Image credit: Janice Haney Carr / Public Health Image Library / CDC.

New Experimental Antibiotics Show Promise against MRSA

Jan 4, 2017 by News Staff

New experimental antibiotics developed by chemists at the University of Connecticut successfully treat methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA)...

Herds of female titanosaurs gathered at traditional nesting grounds 80 million years ago in what is now Patagonia, Argentina. Image credit: Luis Rey / Yale University.

Eggs of Non-Avian Dinosaurs Took 3-6 Months to Hatch

Jan 3, 2017 by News Staff

Non-avian dinosaur eggs took a long time to hatch — between 3 and 6 months, according to new research on the teeth of fossilized dinosaur embryos. Herds...

Hubble Captures Stunning Image of LEDA 52270

Jan 2, 2017 by News Staff

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has taken a picture of LEDA 52270, a combination of two gas-rich spiral galaxies. This image, taken with the Advanced...

Toucan. Image credit: Tambako the Jaguar / CC BY-ND 2.0.

New Estimate: There are Over 18,000 Bird Species on Earth

Dec 29, 2016 by News Staff

A new study published in the journal PLoS ONE suggests that there are 18,043 bird species in the world — nearly twice as many as previously thought. Toucan....

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

Dawn Finds New Evidence for Water Ice on Ceres

Dec 28, 2016 by News Staff

Images from NASA’s Dawn probe have revealed a dark, cratered world whose brightest area is made of reflective salts — not water ice. But several...

ESO’s New Technology Telescope Views Messier 98

Dec 28, 2016 by Natali Anderson

This image snapped by ESO’s New Technology Telescope (NTT), a 3.58-m telescope at the La Silla Observatory in Chile, shows the edge-on spiral galaxy...

This artist’s impression shows how Mars may have looked about 4 billion years ago. Image credit: M. Kornmesser / ESO.

More Evidence for Warm, Wet Early Mars

Dec 27, 2016 by News Staff

A study published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets provides new evidence for a warm early Mars that hosted water across a geologically long...

World’s Thinnest Electrical Wires Developed: Just Three Atoms Wide

Dec 27, 2016 by News Staff

Researchers are reporting development of the world’s thinnest electrical wires, made of chalcogenide and diamondoids (the smallest possible bits of diamond)....

The bony armor on the body of this gulf pipefish, raised in the lab of Prof. Cresko, is not yet well ossified and appears mostly transparent; bones are stained red; cartilage is stained blue. Image credit: Mark Currey.

Gulf Pipefish Genome Sequenced

Dec 26, 2016 by News Staff

A team of scientists from the University of Oregon and Texas A&M University has sequenced and explored the genome of the gulf pipefish (Syngnathus...

This image shows the megamaser galaxy LEDA 58817, which lies in the constellation Ophiuchus, about 370 million light-years away. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / Judy Schmidt, www.geckzilla.com.

Hubble Spots Cosmic Megamaser

Dec 26, 2016 by News Staff

NASA has released a stunning image snapped by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope of the megamaser galaxy LEDA 58817. This image shows the megamaser galaxy...

An anatomical illustration from Sobotta’s Human Anatomy, 1908.

Mesentery: Researchers Reclassify Part of Digestive System as Organ

Dec 23, 2016 by News Staff

The mesentery, which connects the intestine to the abdomen, had for hundreds of years been considered a fragmented structure made up of multiple separate...

Limusaurus inextricabilis is the only known reptile to lose its teeth and form a beak after birth. Image credit: Yu Chen.

Limusaurus: Beaked, Bird-Like Dinosaur Species Had Teeth as Juveniles, Lost Them as They Grew

Dec 23, 2016 by News Staff

An international team of paleontologists has discovered that Limusaurus inextricabilis, a species of Jurassic dinosaur, lost its teeth in adolescence and...

Light and color would look different on a planet orbiting a tiny red star, like this artist’s impression of Proxima b. The Earth-sized planet in the habitable zone is the nearest exoplanet to our Sun. Image credit: ESO / M. Kornmesser.

Are Exoplanets Like Those in ‘Star Wars: Rogue One’ Really Out There?

Dec 21, 2016 by NASA

In the ‘Star Wars’ universe, ice, ocean and desert planets burst from the darkness as your ship drops out of light speed. But these worlds might be...