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Two Fragments of Protoplanet Theia Lie Deep within Earth, Geoscientists Say

Yuan et al. suggest that LLVPs are remnants of the ancient protoplanet Theia that violently collided with Earth billions of years ago in the same giant impact that created our Moon. Image credit: Hernán Cañellas.
Nov 1, 2023 by Enrico de Lazaro

A giant collision between the ancient protoplanet Theia and the proto-Earth about 4.5 billion years ago may have formed Earth’s Moon as well as two continent-sized regions — formally known as large low-velocity provinces — within Earth’s mantle, according to a research team led by Caltech scientists. Yuan et al. suggest that LLVPs are remnants of the ancient protoplanet Theia that violently collided with Earth billions of years ago...

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This image of Ganymede was obtained by the JunoCam imager aboard NASA’s Juno spacecraft during its June 7, 2021, flyby of the icy moon. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / SwRI / MSSS.

Juno Detects Various Salts and Organic Compounds on Ganymede

Nov 1, 2023 by News Staff

Using data from the Jovian InfraRed Auroral Mapper (JIRAM) aboard NASA’s Juno spacecraft, planetary scientists have detected hydrated sodium chloride,...

Reconstruction of Jormungandr walhallaensis shown engaging in intraspecific combat. Image credit: Henry Sharpe.

New Mosasaur Species Unearthed in North Dakota

Oct 31, 2023 by Enrico de Lazaro

A new genus and species of mosasaur being named Jormungandr walhallaensis has been discovered by American Museum of Natural History Ph.D. student Amelia...

Life reconstruction of Samsarasuchus pamelae. Image credit: Gabriel Lio.

New Species of Triassic Crocodile-Like Reptile Identified in India

Oct 30, 2023 by Enrico de Lazaro

Paleontologists in India have identified a new genus and species of proterosuchid reptile from both new and historically collected specimens. Life reconstruction...

This composite image, taken by Webb’s NIRCam and MIRI instruments, shows the famous Crab Nebula. Image credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / Webb / STScI / Tea Temim, Princeton University.

Webb Reveals Never-Before-Seen Details in Crab Nebula

Oct 30, 2023 by News Staff

Using the Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) and Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) onboard the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers are searching...

An artist’s impression of Liassophlebia sp., resting on a frond of the paleofern species Phlebopteris muensteri. Image credit: Jules Kiely, Bristol Museum & Art Gallery / Swaby et al., doi: 10.1080/08912963.2023.2261957.

202-Million-Year-Old Damsel-Dragonfly Fossil Unearthed in UK

Oct 27, 2023 by Natali Anderson

The new find suggests that Liassophlebiidae — a small extinct family of damsel-dragonflies known from the Early Mesozoic of Europe, Asia, and Antarctica...

An artistic representation of how Uranus’ northern infrared aurora (marked in red) would have looked like in 2006. Image credit: NASA / ESA / M. Showalter, SETI Institute / Hubble Space Telescope.

Infrared Aurora Detected on Uranus

Oct 27, 2023 by News Staff

While the ultraviolet aurora of Uranus has been observed since 1986, no confirmation of the infrared aurora had been observed until now. An artistic representation...

This composite image, taken by JAXA’s Akatsuki spacecraft, shows Venus. Image credit: JAXA / ISAS / DARTS / Damia Bouic.

Venus May Have Once Had Earth-Like Plate Tectonics

Oct 26, 2023 by News Staff

Venus is the least understood of the terrestrial planets. Despite broad similarities to the Earth in mass and size, Venus has no evidence of plate tectonics...

The 125-million-year-old Mantellisaurus footprints found on the Isle of Wight. Image credit: JBA Consulting / Environment Agency.

125-Million-Year-Old Dinosaur Footprints Discovered on Isle of Wight

Oct 26, 2023 by Enrico de Lazaro

Scientists from the Environment Agency, JBA Consulting and the Dinosaur Isle Museum have found rare footprints of iguanodontian dinosaurs on Yaverland...

An artist’s depiction of a liquid silicate layer wrapped around the Martian core. Image credit: IPGP-CNES.

InSight Finds Evidence for Molten Silicate Layer above Martian Metallic Core

Oct 25, 2023 by News Staff

Mars’ liquid iron alloy core is surrounded by a layer of fully molten silicate (magma) about 150 km thick, according to a pair of papers published in...

Model of the ornithopod dinosaur Qantassaurus intrepidus, a distant relative of Ampelognathus coheni. Image credit: Paleocolour.

New Species of Ornithopod Dinosaur Identified in Texas

Oct 23, 2023 by Enrico de Lazaro

A new genus and species of small-bodied ornithopod dinosaur has been described from a partial jawbone unearthed in Texas, the United States. Model of the...

An artist’s impression of Lorrainosaurus keileni. Image credit: Joschua Knüppe.

Paleontologists Identify Oldest-Known Mega-Predatory Pliosaur

Oct 23, 2023 by Enrico de Lazaro

Lorrainosaurus keileni lived in the Middle Jurassic seas, approximately 170 million years ago. An artist’s impression of Lorrainosaurus keileni. Image...

Comparisons of Neanderthal genomes to anatomically modern human (AMH) genomes show a history of Neanderthal-to-AMH introgression stemming from interbreeding after the migration of AMHs from Africa to Eurasia. All non-sub-Saharan African AMHs have genomic regions genetically similar to Neanderthals that descend from this introgression. Regions of the genome with Neanderthal similarities have also been identified in sub-Saharan African populations, but their origins have been unclear. To better understand how these regions are distributed across sub-Saharan Africa, the source of their origin, and what their distribution within the genome tells us about early AMH and Neanderthal evolution, Harris et al. analyzed a dataset of high-coverage, whole-genome sequences from 180 individuals from 12 diverse sub-Saharan African populations. Image credit: Holger Neumann / Neanderthal Museum.

Neanderthals Interbred with Now-Extinct Lineage of Early Modern Humans Over 250,000 Years Ago

Oct 20, 2023 by News Staff

Approximately 6% of the Altai Neanderthal genome was inherited from an ancient lineage of anatomically modern Homo sapiens that migrated from Africa to...

This artist’s impression illustrates the path of FRB 20220610A, from a group of distant galaxies where it originated all the way to Earth, in one of the Milky Way’s spiral arms. Image credit: M. Kornmesser / ESO.

Astronomers Discover Farthest Fast Radio Burst Yet

Oct 20, 2023 by News Staff

Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are millisecond-duration pulses of radio emission originating from extragalactic sources. An international team of astronomers...

This Webb image of Jupiter shows stunning details of the majestic planet in infrared light. In this image, brightness indicates high altitude. The numerous bright white ‘spots’ and ‘streaks’ are likely very high-altitude cloud tops of condensed convective storms. Aurorae, appearing in red in this image, extend to higher altitudes above both the northern and southern poles of the planet. By contrast, dark ribbons north of the equatorial region have little cloud cover. Image credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / STScI / Ricardo Hueso, UPV / Imke de Pater, UC Berkeley / Thierry Fouchet, Observatory of Paris / Leigh Fletcher, University of Leicester / Michael H. Wong, UC Berkeley / Joseph DePasquale, STScI.

Webb Spots High-Speed Equatorial Jet in Jupiter’s Stratosphere

Oct 19, 2023 by News Staff

The newly-discovered intense (140 m/s) jet is confined to ±3° of Jupiter’s equator, is approximately 4,800 km wide, and is located in the gas giant’s...

Optical mosaics of 42 galaxies from the SGA-2020 sorted by increasing angular diameter from the top-left to the bottom-right. Galaxies are chosen randomly from a uniform (flat) probability distribution in angular diameter. The horizontal white bar in the lower-left corner of each panel represents 1 arcminute and the mosaic cutouts range from 3.2 to 13.4 arcminutes. This figure illustrates the tremendous range of types, sizes, colors and surface brightness profiles, internal structure, and environments of the galaxies in the SGA. Image credit: CTIO / NOIRLab / DOE / NSF / AURA / J. Moustakas.

Astronomers Create Detailed Atlas of Over 380,000 Galaxies

Oct 19, 2023 by News Staff

The Siena Galaxy Atlas (SGA) is a compilation of data from three surveys completed between 2014 and 2017 known as the DESI Legacy Surveys, which were carried...

Reconstruction of Pierolapithecus catalaunicus (Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont)

Scientists Reconstruct Skull of Pierolapithecus catalaunicus

Oct 17, 2023 by Enrico de Lazaro

Pierolapithecus catalaunicus is an extinct species of great ape that lived in what is now Europe about 12 million years ago. A remarkably complete, although...

A Macrospondylus bollensis mother keeps a watchful eye on her young. Image credit: Henry Sutherland Sharpe.

New Research Sheds Light on Enigmatic Jurassic Crocodile Relatives

Oct 17, 2023 by News Staff

In a study published in the journal Papers in Palaeontology, paleontologists from the State Museum of Natural History Stuttgart investigated growth rates...

The slaty-backed nightingale-thrush (Catharus fuscater) in Costa Rica. Image credit: Simon Pierre Barrette / CC BY-SA 4.0 Deed.

Cryptic New Bird Species Identified in Panama

Oct 16, 2023 by Natali Anderson

In new research, ornithologists from Drexel University, the Delaware Museum of Nature & Science, and Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture conducted...

The Paleolithic settlement at Abu Hureyra in what is now Syria may have been destroyed 12,800 years ago because of a comet. Image credit: Jennifer Rice, Comet Research Group.

Comet Airburst Initiated Transition to Agriculture 12,800 Years Ago, Scientists Say

Oct 16, 2023 by News Staff

Around 12,800 years ago, Earth collided with fragments of a disintegrating comet, triggering Younger Dryas climate change; this event created environmental...

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