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An artist’s impression of the super-Earth planet Gliese 740b and its parent star. Image credit: Sci-News.com.

Hot Super-Earth Found around Gliese 740

Feb 22, 2021 by Natali Anderson

A team of astronomers from Spain, Italy and Germany has discovered a short-period super-Earth exoplanet circling the nearby red dwarf Gliese 740. An artist’s...

Barite associated with originally sulfidic stromatolites in the Dresser mine in Western Australia. Image credit: Mißbach et al., doi: 10.1038/s41467-021-21323-z.

Researchers Find Ingredients for Microbial Life in 3.5-Billion-Year-Old Rocks

Feb 19, 2021 by Enrico de Lazaro

A team of geobiologists from Germany has found biologically-relevant primordial organic molecules and gases in fluid inclusions trapped in 3.5-billion-year-old...

Perseverance’s first image (colorized) from Jezero Crater, Mars. Image credit: NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

NASA’s Perseverance Rover Successfully Lands on Mars

Feb 19, 2021 by News Staff

After a 203-day journey, NASA’s car-sized Perseverance rover successfully landed in Jezero Crater on Mars on February 18, 2021. Confirmation of the successful...

This illustration shows NASA’s Mars 2020 spacecraft carrying the Perseverance rover as it approaches Mars. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

NASA’s Perseverance Rover to Land on Mars Today: Watch Live

Feb 18, 2021 by News Staff

NASA’s Perseverance rover, with the Ingenuity helicopter attached to its belly, is on target to touch down gently in Jezero Crater on Mars around 3:55...

Life reconstruction of the steppe mammoth (Mammuthus trogontherii). Image credit: Beth Zaiken / Centre for Palaeogenetics.

Researchers Sequence 1.2-Million-Year-Old Mammoth DNA

Feb 17, 2021 by News Staff

An international team of scientists has sequenced and analyzed DNA from three mammoth specimens, two of which are more than one million years old. The...

Astronomers Find Two-Planet System around Backward-Spinning Star

Feb 17, 2021 by Natali Anderson

K2-290A, the primary star in the triple stellar system K2-290, is tilted by 124 degrees compared with the orbits of both of its known planets, and has...

Artist’s impression depicting the separation of the Schiaparelli module from the Trace Gas Orbiter, and heading for Mars. Image credit: D. Ducros / ESA.

Trace Gas Orbiter Detects Hydrogen Chloride Gas in Atmosphere of Mars

Feb 17, 2021 by News Staff

The source of hydrogen chloride (HCl) in the atmosphere of Mars is recent surface volcanism, subsurface magmatic activity, or aerosol chemistry occurring...

Life reconstruction of Yezoceras elegans. Image credit: Daisuke Aiba.

Cretaceous-Period Ammonite Had Bizarre Shell

Feb 15, 2021 by Enrico de Lazaro

A new species of nostoceratid ammonite that lived during the Coniacian stage of the Cretaceous period has been identified from fossils found in Japan. Life...

Reconstruction of the seashell horn being played. In the background, a red dotted buffalo decorates the walls of Marsoulas Cave; similar motifs decorate the instrument. Image credit: Gilles Tosello.

Listen to Sound of 18,000-Year-Old Seashell Horn

Feb 12, 2021 by News Staff

About 18,000 years ago, the Magdalenian occupants of Marsoulas Cave in what is now France transformed a shell of the predatory sea snail Charonia lampas...

An artist’s impression of a group of stellar-mass black holes in the center of NGC 6397. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / N. Bartmann.

Astronomers Find Large Group of Stellar-Mass Black Holes in NGC 6397

Feb 11, 2021 by News Staff

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have found evidence for dozens of stellar-mass black holes lurking in the core-collapsed, globular...

Solar system distances to scale, showing 2018 AG37 compared to other known solar system objects, including the previous record holder 2018 VG18. Image credit: Roberto Molar Candanosa / Scott S. Sheppard, Carnegie Institution for Science / Brooks Bays, University of Hawai’i.

Solar System’s Most Distant Object Confirmed

Feb 11, 2021 by News Staff

Nicknamed ‘Farfarout’ and officially designated 2018 AG37, the newly-confirmed planetoid has a very elongated orbit that takes it out to 175 AU (astronomical...

This artist’s conception shows a hypothetical rocky exoplanet in the Alpha Centauri system. Image credit: Michael S. Helfenbein.

Astronomers Directly Image Habitable-Zone Planet around Alpha Centauri A

Feb 11, 2021 by News Staff

Using a newly developed system for mid-infrared exoplanet imaging, astronomers from the Breakthrough Watch Initiative say they can now use ground-based...

Latimeria chalumnae off Pumula on the KwaZulu-Natal South Coast, South Africa, on November 22, 2019. Image credit: Bruce Henderson, doi: 10.17159/sajs.2020/7806.

Coelacanths Are Not ‘Living Fossils,’ New Study Shows

Feb 10, 2021 by News Staff

The primitive-looking coelacanth has long been regarded as a ‘living fossil,’ with extant specimens looking very similar to fossils dating back to...

Higgs boson candidates decaying to a dilepton pair and a photon. Image credit: ATLAS Collaboration / CERN.

CERN Physicists Find Evidence for Rare Decay of Higgs Boson

Feb 10, 2021 by News Staff

Physicists from the ATLAS (A Toroidal LHC ApparatuS) Collaboration at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) have found first evidence of the Higgs boson...

This is an artistic impression of a red dwarf star’s magnetic interaction with its exoplanet. Image credit: Danielle Futselaar, Artsource.nl.

Terrestrial-Mass Exoplanet Found Orbiting Red Dwarf Gliese 1151

Feb 9, 2021 by Natali Anderson

Magnetic interactions between the newfound planet, designated Gliese 1151b, and its host star are the likely source of low-frequency radio emission recently...

A trio of anthropomorphic figures from the Amak’hee 4 site in Tanzania. Image credit: Maciej Grzelczyk, Jagiellonian University.

Tanzanian Rock Art Depicts Trios of Bizarre Anthropomorphic Figures

Feb 8, 2021 by Enrico de Lazaro

Motifs featuring trios of anthropomorphic figures with stylized buffalo heads have been discovered at a newly-discovered rock art site in the Swaga Swaga...

Native Americans Inherited Lip Shape Gene from Denisovans

Feb 8, 2021 by News Staff

In a genome-wide association study of 6,169 Latin American individuals, an international team of scientists identified 32 gene regions (loci) that influenced...

The 120,000-year-old engraved bone with six deliberately produced incisions from the Nesher Ramla site, Israel. Image credit: Prévost et al., doi: 10.1016/j.quaint.2021.01.002.

120,000-Year-Old Engraved Aurochs Bone Found in Israel

Feb 5, 2021 by Enrico de Lazaro

The 120,000-year-old animal bone fragment with six incised lines is one of the oldest representations of abstract patterns produced by Middle Paleolithic...

Quartz vial containing 300 micrograms of einsteinium-253. The illumination produced is a result of the intense radiation from einsteinium-253, which alpha decays with a half-life of 20.5 days. Image credit: R.G. Haire, U.S. Department of Energy.

Einsteinium: Scientists Reveal Chemical Secrets of Elusive Transplutonium Element

Feb 4, 2021 by News Staff

Transplutonium elements are a group of metals that lie at the edge of the periodic table. As a result, the patterns and trends used to predict the physics...