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December 14, 2012

ASU researchers propose new way to look at the dawn of life
Tempe AZ (SPX) Dec 14, 2012
One of the great mysteries of life is how it began. What physical process transformed a nonliving mix of chemicals into something as complex as a living cell? For more than a century, scientists have struggled to reconstruct the key first steps on the road to life. Until recently, their focus has been trained on how the simple building blocks of life might have been synthesized on the early Earth, or perhaps in space. But because it happened so long ago, all chemical traces have long been oblitera ... read more

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Alcohol constrains Physical Constant in the Early Universe Radio-astronomical observations of a distant galaxy indicate that the ratio of the proton's mass to that of the electron has hardly changed over cosmic history. This fundamental constant of na ... more		12 Matter Particles Suffice in Nature How many matter particles exist in nature? Particle physicists have been dealing with this question for a long time. The 12 matter particles contained in the standard model of particle physics? Or a ... more		24-armed Giant to Probe Early Lives of Galaxies A powerful new instrument called KMOS has just been successfully tested on ESO's Very Large Telescope at the Paranal Observatory in Chile. KMOS is unique as it will be able to observe not just one, ... more
				NASA's Hubble Provides First Census of Galaxies Near Cosmic Dawn Using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers have uncovered a previously unseen population of seven primitive galaxies that formed more than 13 billion years ago, when the universe was less than ... more		NASA Gravity Probes Prepare to Hit the Moon A pair of NASA spacecraft that have been studying the Moon's gravitational field are being prepared for a controlled descent into a mountain near the Moon's north pole. Impact is expected at about 2 ... more

CubeSats, SmallSats and MicroSats

Hubble plumbs the universe, yields images of early galaxies The Hubble Space Telescope is giving scientists a look at the oldest galaxies ever seen, dating back some 13.3 billion years - providing a glimpse into how the cosmos must have looked right after the Big Bang. ... more		Student Team Provides Real-Time Video of Asteroid Toutatis An asteroid that some day might threaten Earth is passing relatively close by on the night of December 11-12, and its gliding path among the stars will be tracked by a team of high-school students a ... more		EU 'must respond' to Russia's 'hybrid warfare': von der Leyen Russia says missile strike kills three in Belgorod region: governor Trump unlikely to win Nobel Peace Prize, but who will?		Cassini Spots Mini Nile River on Saturn Moon Scientists with NASA's Cassini mission have spotted what appears to be a miniature, extraterrestrial likeness of Earth's Nile River: a river valley on Saturn's moon Titan that stretches more than 20 ... more
				New knowledge about the remarkable properties of black holes Black holes are surrounded by many mysteries, but now researchers from the Niels Bohr Institute, among others, have come up with new groundbreaking theories that can explain several of their propert ... more		Big Asteroid Tumbles Harmlessly Past Earth This week, NASA's Goldstone radar is tracking a large asteroid as it passes by Earth, and obtaining images of unprecedented clarity. "At closest approach on Dec. 12th, asteroid 4179 Toutatis will be ... more

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CubeSats, SmallSats and MicroSats

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Greedy black hole discovered in Andromeda Studying the Andromeda galaxy with ESA's XMM-Newton X-ray space observatory, astronomers have discovered a new bright X-ray source that hosts a stellar-mass black hole accreting mass at a very high ... more		An Older Vega: New Insights About The Star All Others Are Measured By Vega, a star astronomers have used as a touchstone to measure other stars' brightness for thousands of years, may be more than 200 million years older than previously thought. That's according to ne ... more		No peace: Trump's smoldering Nobel obsession Virtual Jesus? People of faith divided as AI enters religion New species of poisonous frog discovered in Amazon; Snakebite surge as Bangladesh hit by floods		Mining ancient ores for clues to early life An analysis of sulfide ore deposits from one of the world's richest base-metal mines confirms that oxygen levels were extremely low on Earth 2.7 billion years ago, but also shows that microbes were ... more
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Halfway Between Uranus and Neptune, New Horizons Cruises On

Dwarf planet Makemake lacks atmosphere

Keck Observations Bring Weather Of Uranus Into Sharp Focus

ASU researchers propose new way to look at the dawn of life

Mining ancient ores for clues to early life

Search for life extends to the stars

Astronomers discover and 'weigh' infant solar system

Search for Life Suggests Solar Systems More Habitable than Ours

Do missing Jupiters mean massive comet belts?

Opportunity Checking Out Some Rocks At Matijevic Hill

Charitum Montes: a cratered winter wonderland

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In Simandou mountains, Guinea prepares to cash in on iron ore

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British astronomer Patrick Moore dead aged 89		To the moon and back for less than 2 billion dollars		The Bubble Nebula, observed with the new One Degree Imager Camera		Wide Binary Stars: Long-Distance Stellar Relationships		What is Creating Gullies on Vesta?

Secrets of universe revealed thanks to AF research complex

X-ray vision can reveal the moment of birth of violent supernovae

Speeding Space Junk Poses Risks for Spacecraft

Galaxy-wide echoes from the past

NASA's GRAIL Creates Most Accurate Moon Gravity Map

Crowdsourcing the cosmos: Astronomers welcome all to identify star clusters in Andromeda galaxy

Can life emerge on planets around cooling stars?

Heliophysics Nugget: Sungrazing Comets as Solar Probes

Quantum thermodynamics

The dance of quantum tornadoes

A bridge to the quantum world: Dirac electrons found in unique material

'Dark Core' May Not Be So Dark After All

When the first stars blinked on

Astronomers discover and 'weigh' infant solar system

New galaxy census highlights importance of starbursts

Titan, Saturn's Largest Moon, Icier than Scientists Thought

Chinese astronauts may grow veg on Moon

NASA's Cassini Sees Abrupt Turn in Titan's Atmosphere

Search for Life Suggests Solar Systems More Habitable than Ours

Altimeter Built at Goddard Helped Identify Ice on Mercury

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