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An artist’s impression of a four-planet system. Image credit: Sci-News.com.

Breakthrough Listen Scans Kepler-160 System for Alien Technosignatures

Jun 25, 2020 by Sergio Prostak

The Breakthrough Listen Initiative, the largest ever scientific research program aimed at finding evidence of alien civilizations, has conducted a search...

An artist’s rendition of a mystery compact object in ‘mass gap’ found by LIGO and Virgo gravitational wave detectors. Image credit: LIGO / Caltech / MIT / R. Hurt, IPAC.

GW190814 Sheds Light on Mass Gap between Neutron Stars and Black Holes

Jun 25, 2020 by News Staff

The gravitational-wave signal GW190814, detected on August 14, 2019 by NSF’s Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) and the Virgo...

Astronomers Find Neptune-Sized Exoplanet within Debris Disk around Nearby Star AU Microscopii

Jun 25, 2020 by Enrico de Lazaro

Astronomers using NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) and Spitzer Space Telescope have discovered a planet about the size of Neptune...

An artist’s impression of the TOI-1266 planetary system. Image credit: Sci-News.com.

Two Venus-Zone Planets Found Orbiting Nearby Red Dwarf

Jun 24, 2020 by Natali Anderson

Astronomers have discovered and validated two small exoplanets orbiting the nearby red dwarf star TOI-1266. An artist’s impression of the TOI-1266 planetary...

Photons emitted near rotating black holes encode quantum information that can be measured by actual quantum information technology. Image credit: Sci-News.com.

Physicists Verify Half-Century-Old Theory about Rotating Black Holes

Jun 24, 2020 by News Staff

Physicists from the University of Glasgow and the University of Arizona have experimentally verified a half-century-old theory that began as speculation...

Physicists Create New Isotope of Mendelevium

Jun 24, 2020 by News Staff

In an experiment performed at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s 88-inch cyclotron, a team of physicists successfully created a new isotope of the...

Tanyrhinichthys mcallisteri was most likely a bottom-cruising predator similar in general ecomorphology to modern sturgeon. Image credit: Nobu Tamura.

Paleontologists Redescribe Enigmatic Carboniferous-Period Fish

Jun 23, 2020 by Enrico de Lazaro

A team of U.S. paleontologists has redescribed the morphology of a long-snouted ray-finned fish called Tanyrhinichthys mcallisteri and created a more complete...

An artist’s impression of a hot-Jupiter exoplanet. Image credit: Sci-News.com.

Astronomers Find Youngest Known Hot Jupiter

Jun 23, 2020 by Enrico de Lazaro

Using data from NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) and Spitzer Space Telescope, astronomers have discovered a transiting hot-Jupiter...

View of the wall paintings on the western wall of a house in Chajul, Guatemala. The panel features a possible dwarf with a long stick (individual 1) striding behind the backs of two musicians wearing Spanish costumes (individuals 2 and 3), and approached by a man in Indian-Spanish attire (individual 4). The first musician (individual 2) is shown playing a short wind instrument, probably a flute (xhuli aj) or a chirimía -- instruments still popular in traditional music of the Ixil Maya. The chirimía is a form of a double-reed woodwind instrument (resembling an oboe), which was introduced by the Spaniards. The second musician plays a large drum, beating it with sticks with rounded heads. The same set of instruments (large drum and flute/chirimía) is used today to accompany different feasts and ritual ceremonies. Individuals 1-3 wear typical European costume, comprising a short mantle worn over one shoulder; a kaftan with puffed sleeves and ruff; a broad belt with its loose end dangling to the front, long slim trousers (or perhaps short trousers and stockings); and heeled shoes with long, pointed toes. The individuals wear hats with broad brims adorned with a feather or brush made from animal hair. The only legible fragment of inscription, located above the drummer's head, reads ‘…CADORES’, which probably refers to the word ‘tocadores’, or ‘musicians.’ A figure, possibly a dancer (individual 4), is shown striding towards the musicians, holding a green object resembling a bottle in his extended hand. His costume comprises both European and Indian elements. Image credit: R. Słaboński.

Spectacular Maya Wall Paintings Discovered in Guatemala

Jun 22, 2020 by Sergio Prostak

An unparalleled set of Maya wall paintings, most probably from the 17th to 18th centuries CE, discovered in a local house in the Guatemalan city of San...

A reconstruction of a Jurassic dinosaur track-maker from southern Queensland in front of a silhouette of the largest known Tyrannosaurus rex. Image credit: Anthony Romilio.

Carnivorous Dinosaurs as Big as T. rex Lived in Jurassic Australia

Jun 22, 2020 by News Staff

Paleontologists have analyzed 151- to 165-million-year-old dinosaur footprints from 11 sites in southern Queensland, most of which produced large (length...

Paleontologists Find Giant Soft-Shelled Egg of Cretaceous-Period Marine Reptile in Antarctica

Jun 19, 2020 by News Staff

A giant fossilized egg of an extinct marine reptile has been found in the 68-million-year-old nearshore marine deposits in Antarctica. An artist’s rendering...

Hubble Observes Two Young, Rapidly Evolving Planetary Nebulae: NGC 6302 and NGC 7027

Jun 19, 2020 by News Staff

Planetary nebulae, whose stars shed their layers over thousands of years, can turn into crazy whirligigs while puffing off shells and jets of hot gas....

An artist’s impression of a magnetar. Image credit: ESA.

Astronomers Discover Youngest Magnetar Ever

Jun 18, 2020 by News Staff

Using NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, ESA’s XMM-Newton observatory, NASA’s Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR), and ground-based...

A group of Neanderthals in a cave. Image credit: Tyler B. Tretsven.

Researchers Sequence Genome of Neanderthal Woman from Chagyrskaya Cave

Jun 18, 2020 by Enrico de Lazaro

An international team of researchers has sequenced and analyzed the genome of an 80,000-year-old Neanderthal woman from Chagyrskaya Cave in the Altai Mountains,...

An artist’s impression of ESA’s ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter detecting the green glow of oxygen in the Martian atmosphere. This emission, spotted on the dayside of Mars, is similar to the night glow seen around Earth’s atmosphere from space. Image credit: ESA.

ESA’s Trace Gas Orbiter Detects Glowing Oxygen in Martian Atmosphere

Jun 18, 2020 by News Staff

Using data from the NOMAD (Nadir and Occultation for Mars Discovery) ultraviolet and visible spectrometer instrument on board ESA’s ExoMars Trace Gas...

π-Earth: Newfound Earth-Sized Exoplanet Orbits Its Star in 3.14 Days

Jun 17, 2020 by Natali Anderson

Using data from NASA’s Kepler/K2 mission, the SPECULOOS telescopes and the High Resolution Echelle Spectrometer (HIRES) on the Keck I telescope at W.M....

A Nenets man traveling on a sled pulled by three reindeer, Tambei region of the Yamal peninsula, June 2018. In his left hand he holds the khorei (a wood pole) and in his right the nenzamindya’sa (head rope), both of which are used to communicate with the reindeer during sledding. Image credit: Losey et al, doi: 10.1007/s10816-020-09455-w.

Earliest Evidence of Reindeer Domestication Found in Arctic Siberia

Jun 17, 2020 by Enrico de Lazaro

An international team of archeologists has unearthed numerous L-shaped barbed antler objects at three early sites — Ust’-Polui, Tiutei-Sale I,...

An artist’s illustration of complex organic molecules in space. Image credit: Jenny Mottar / NASA.

Astronomers Detect Organic Molecules in Starless and Prestellar Regions of Nearby Stellar Nursery

Jun 16, 2020 by News Staff

Astronomers have detected the signatures of two complex organic molecules, methanol and acetaldehyde, in starless and prestellar cores of the Taurus Molecular...

An artist’s impression of the Proxima Centauri system. Image credit: Lorenzo Santinelli.

Astronomers Confirm Two Planets in Proxima Centauri System

Jun 15, 2020 by Sergio Prostak

Astronomers have finally confirmed the existence of two exoplanets — Proxima b and c — orbiting Proxima Centauri, the Sun’s closest stellar...