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Great Red Spot Heats Jupiter’s Upper Atmosphere

Artist’s concept of the mechanism of heating from the Great Red Spot. Turbulent atmospheric flows above the storm produce both gravity waves and acoustic waves. Gravity waves are much like how a guitar string moves when plucked, while acoustic waves are compressions of the air (sound waves). Heating in the upper atmosphere 500 miles (805 km) above the storm is thought to be caused by a combination of these two wave types ‘crashing’ like ocean waves on a beach. Image credit: Karen Teramura, University of Hawaii at Manoa / James O’Donoghue, Boston University.
Jul 28, 2016 by News Staff

The upper atmosphere above Jupiter’s Great Red Spot – the largest storm in the Solar System – is hundreds of degrees hotter than anywhere else on the gas giant, according to a team of planetary scientists led by Boston University researcher Dr. James O’Donoghue. Artist’s concept of the mechanism of heating from the Great Red Spot. Turbulent atmospheric flows above the storm produce both gravity waves and acoustic waves. Gravity waves...

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This artist’s impression shows AR Scorpii. In this unique double star a rapidly spinning white dwarf star (right) powers electrons up to almost the speed of light. These high energy particles release blasts of radiation that lash the companion red dwarf star (left) and cause the entire system to pulse dramatically every 1.97 minutes with radiation ranging from the ultraviolet to radio. Image credit: M. Garlick / University of Warwick / ESO.

Astronomers Find New Type of Binary Star

Jul 27, 2016 by News Staff

Astronomers announced today that they have discovered a new type of binary star, in which a rapidly-spinning white dwarf star sweeps powerful beams of...

Aedes aegypti biting human. Image credit: James Gathany / CDC.

First Confirmed Transmission of Zika Virus by Aedes aegypti Mosquitoes

Jul 26, 2016 by News Staff

Led by University of Texas Medical Branch researcher Prof. Scott Weaver, an international team of scientists is the first to directly connect Aedes aegypti...

Venus in real colors, processed from Mariner 10 images. Image credit: Mattias Malmer / NASA.

Clouds High in Venus’ Atmosphere Reveal Features on Planet’s Surface

Jul 26, 2016 by News Staff

Using data from ESA’s Venus Express spacecraft, European planetary researchers have shown how weather patterns seen in Venus’ cloud layers are directly...

Graham. Image credit: Transport Accident Commission of Victoria, Australia.

Graham: Hypothetical Human Who Can Survive High-Speed Car Crash

Jul 25, 2016 by News Staff

Australian artist Patricia Piccinini, trauma surgeons and crash investigation experts have collaborated to produce ‘Graham,’ an educational tool for...

Murusraptor barrosaensis: New Dinosaur Species Discovered in Argentina

Jul 22, 2016 by Enrico de Lazaro

A new species of theropod dinosaur has been discovered by a duo of paleontologists – Prof. Philip Currie from the University of Alberta in Canada and...

Exoplanets TRAPPIST-1b and c Confirmed to be Rocky

Jul 21, 2016 by Enrico de Lazaro

TRAPPIST-1b and c, the two innermost planets in the three-planet system TRAPPIST-1, are primarily rocky, unlike gas giants such as Jupiter, according to...

An aye-aye (Daubentonia madagascariensis). Image credit: David Haring.

Study with Aye-Ayes, Slow Loris Sheds Light on Origins of Alcohol Consumption

Jul 20, 2016 by Enrico de Lazaro

In the first controlled study of its kind, a team of scientists at Dartmouth College has found that two species of non-human primates – the slow loris...

An artist’s rendition of the K2-72 planetary system. Image credit: NASA / JPL.

NASA’s Kepler/K2 Mission Confirms 104 New Extrasolar Planets

Jul 20, 2016 by Sergio Prostak

A team of astronomers has reported a huge haul of new exoplanets discovered and confirmed using data from the first year of the Kepler/K2 mission. Among...

Turtle Shell Evolved for Burrowing, Study Suggests

Jul 19, 2016 by News Staff

A new study on the partially shelled fossil turtles suggests the broad-ribbed proto shell was initially an adaptation, not for protection, but rather for...

One year ago, NASA’s New Horizons space probe entered the history books by exploring the Pluto system. Image credit: NASA / Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory / Southwest Research Institute.

New Horizons’ Top Ten Images, Discoveries at Pluto

Jul 18, 2016 by News Staff

One year ago, NASA’s New Horizons space probe entered the history books by exploring the Pluto system. Image credit: NASA / Johns Hopkins University...

An array of household items, including whole pots. Image credit: Dave Webb / Cambridge Archaeological Unit.

Must Farm: Bronze Age Settlement Sheds Light on Everyday Life

Jul 15, 2016 by News Staff

Archaeologists from the University of Cambridge have made remarkable discoveries about everyday life in the Bronze Age during the excavation of ancient...

This is one slice through the map of the large-scale structure of the Universe from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey. Each dot in this picture indicates the position of a galaxy 6 billion years into the past. The image covers about 1/20th of the sky, a slice of the Universe 6 billion light-years wide, 4.5 billion light-years high, and 500 million light-years thick. Color indicates distance from Earth, ranging from yellow on the near side of the slice to purple on the far side. Galaxies are highly clustered, revealing superclusters and voids whose presence is seeded in the first fraction of a second after the Big Bang. This image contains 48,741 galaxies, about 3% of the full survey dataset. Grey patches are small regions without survey data. Image credit: Daniel Eisenstein / SDSS-III Collaboration.

Astronomers Create 3D Map of 1.2 Million Galaxies to Study Properties of Dark Energy

Jul 15, 2016 by News Staff

Astronomers from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS, part of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey III) have produced the largest-ever 3D map of...

Two Gualicho shinyae attack a smaller dinosaur. Image credit: Jorge Gonzalez / Pablo Lara.

Gualicho shinyae: New Theropod Dinosaur Unearthed in Argentina

Jul 14, 2016 by Natali Anderson

A team of paleontologists has found fossil fragments from a remarkable new species of theropod dinosaur that walked our planet around 94 million years...

This color view from NASA’s Juno spacecraft shows atmospheric features on Jupiter, including the Great Red Spot. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / SwRI / MSSS.

Juno Beams Back First In-Orbit Images of Jupiter, Galilean Moons

Jul 13, 2016 by Enrico de Lazaro

Juno’s low-resolution in-orbit images of Jupiter and three of its largest moons — Europa, Io, and Ganymede — have made their way back to...

Dwarf planet Sedna. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / R. Hurt, SSC-Caltech.

2015 RR245: New Dwarf Planet Discovered in Solar System’s Kuiper Belt

Jul 12, 2016 by Enrico de Lazaro

Astronomers have discovered a new dwarf planet in the Kuiper Belt, a vast ring of icy debris that is encircling the outer rim of our Solar System just...

This image of the Orion Nebula was obtained from multiple exposures using VLT’s HAWK-I infrared camera. This is the deepest view ever of this region and reveals more very faint planetary-mass objects than expected. Image credit: H. Drass et al / ESO.

ESO’s Very Large Telescope Peers Deep into Heart of Orion Nebula

Jul 12, 2016 by News Staff

A group of astronomers has used the High Acuity Wide-field K-band Imager (HAWK-I), an infrared instrument installed on ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT)...

This artist’s impression shows a view of the triple-star system HD 131399 (also known as HIP 72940 and 2MASS J14542529-3408342) from close to the Jupiter-like exoplanet orbiting in the system. HD 131399Ab and appears at the lower-left of the picture. Image credit: L. Calcada / ESO.

HD 131399Ab: Astronomers Find Super-Jupiter in Triple-Star System

Jul 7, 2016 by Enrico de Lazaro

Using ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), astronomers have found a young Jupiter-like planet in a triple-star system. This artist’s impression shows...

View of the LHCb detector. Image credit: CERN.

CERN Physicists Observe Three New Tetraquark Particles

Jul 6, 2016 by Enrico de Lazaro

Physicists on CERN’s LHCb collaboration say they’ve observed three new exotic particles – X(4274), X(4500) and X(4700) – and also confirmed the...

Juno arrives at Jupiter. Image credit: NASA / JPL.

NASA’s Juno Spacecraft Enters Orbit around Jupiter

Jul 5, 2016 by Natali Anderson

After almost five years and 1.7 billion miles (2.7 billion km), NASA’s Juno spacecraft successfully entered the orbit around the biggest planetary inhabitant...

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