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January 31, 2013

Mercury's crust likely made of magnesium-rich basalt
Washington DC (SPX) Jan 31, 2013
With both x-ray and gamma-ray spectrometers, the MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry and Ranging probe (MESSENGER), which entered orbit around Mercury in 2011, is well equipped for carrying out a detailed compositional analysis of Mercury's crust, the understanding of which could help determine the nature of the planet's formation, and of its volcanic past. Using spectrometric measurements and laboratory analyzes of Mercury surface-analogue samples, Stockstill-Cahill et al. determine ... read more

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Hubble Finds Appearances can be Deceptive Globular clusters are roughly spherical collections of extremely old stars, and around 150 of them are scattered around our galaxy. Hubble is one of the best telescopes for studying these, as its ex ... more		Sounding Rocket Mission Offers Roadmap To Future Solar Missions A NASA sounding rocket flight in 2012 captured five minutes of the highest-resolution images ever taken of the Sun's million-degree outer atmosphere, the corona. The new images have provided tantali ... more		Celestial Sleuths Track Historic Meteor Procession To South Atlantic A century ago, one of the most spectacular astronomical sights ever recorded lit up the skies when a grand procession of meteors blazed their way through the Earth's atmosphere. The event made headl ... more
				Exploring the Seafloors of Earth and Europa in search of exo lifeforms Hydrogen sulfide is a poison gas that's lethal for humans even in very low concentrations. Yet, this compound-two parts hydrogen, one part sulfur-turned out to be the food source for bacteria that w ... more		More than one brain behind E=mc2 Two American physicists outline the role played by Austrian physicist Friedrich Hasenohrl in establishing the proportionality between the energy (E) of a quantity of matter with its mass (m) in a ca ... more

CubeSats, SmallSats and MicroSats

Dung beetles follow the Milky Way You might expect dung beetles to keep their "noses to the ground," but they are actually incredibly attuned to the sky. A report published online in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, shows ... more		The Origin And Maintenance Of A Retrograde Exoplanet Astronomers have used the Subaru Telescope to show that the HAT-P-7 planetary system, which is about 1040 light-years from Earth in the constellation Cygnus, includes at least two giant planets and ... 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?		Supercomputer sets computing record Engineers at California's Stanford University say they set a record in computer science by using a supercomputer with more than 1 million computing cores. ... more
				Hi-C Mission Sees Energy in the Sun's Corona The optics engineering expertise at the NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., made it possible for a group of solar scientist to see into the sun's corona in unprecedented detail. ... more		The 3D fireworks of a star In 1901 the star GK Persei gave off a powerful explosion that has not stopped growing and astonishing ever since. Now a team of Spanish and Estonian astronomers has reconstructed the journey of the ... more

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CubeSats, SmallSats and MicroSats

Tempur-Pedic Mattress Comparison & Memory Foam Mattress Review

Baffling pulsar leaves astronomers in the dark New observations of a highly variable pulsar using ESA's XMM-Newton are perplexing astronomers. Monitoring this pulsar simultaneously in X-rays and radio waves, astronomers have revealed that this s ... more		NASA Officially Joins ESA's 'Dark Universe' Mission NASA has joined the European Space Agency's (ESA's) Euclid mission, a space telescope designed to investigate the cosmological mysteries of dark matter and dark energy. Euclid will launch in 2020 an ... 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		Wood on the seafloor - an oasis for deep-sea life Trees do not grow in the deep sea, nevertheless sunken pieces of wood can develop into oases for deep-sea life - at least temporarily until the wood is fully degraded. A team of Max Planck researche ... more
				Stanford Researchers Break Million-core Supercomputer Barrier Stanford Engineering's Center for Turbulence Research (CTR) has set a new record in computational science by successfully using a supercomputer with more than one million computing cores to solve a ... more		Betelgeuse braces for a collision Multiple arcs are revealed around Betelgeuse, the nearest red supergiant star to Earth, in this new image from ESA's Herschel space observatory. The star and its arc-shaped shields could collide wit ... more

The PI's Perspective: The Seven-Year Itch

New Horizons Gets a New Year's Workout

Halfway Between Uranus and Neptune, New Horizons Cruises On

Exploring the Seafloors of Earth and Europa in search of exo lifeforms

Wood on the seafloor - an oasis for deep-sea life

Synchrotron infrared unveils a mysterious microbial community

The Origin And Maintenance Of A Retrograde Exoplanet

New Evidence Indicates Auroras Occur Outside Our Solar System

Glitch has space telescope shut down

Ridges on Mars suggest ancient flowing water

Changes on Mars Caused by Seasonal Thawing of CO2

Curiosity Maneuver Prepares for Drilling

	Red Explosions - Secret Life of Binary Stars Revealed A University of Alberta professor has revealed the workings of a celestial event involving binary stars that results in an explosion so powerful it ranks close to supernovae in luminosity. Ast ... more		Chameleon Star Baffles Astronomers Pulsars - tiny spinning stars, heavier than the sun and smaller than a city - have puzzled scientists since they were discovered in 1967. Now, new observations by an international team, includ ... more		Astronomer Creates Computer Models That Help Explain How Galaxies Formed And Evolved When most people think of astronomers, they envision scientists who spend time peering at stars and galaxies through telescopes on high mountain tops. Rutgers astronomer Rachel Somerville depends on ... more		Sun-Gazing Sorce Satellite, Designed To Last 5 Years, Turns 10 When a Sun-gazing NASA satellite designed and built by the University of Colorado Boulder launched into space on Jan. 25, 2003, solar storms were raging. A decade later, the four instruments o ... more

Gold tops $4,000 for first time as traders pile into safe haven

Tesla shares fall on doubts that latest autos will boost sales

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

Commercial Asteroid Hunters Announce Plans For New Robotic Exploration Fleet		Synchrotron infrared unveils a mysterious microbial community		Shedding Light on the Power of M 82's Superwinds		A hidden treasure in the Large Magellanic Cloud		Solar eruption heading toward Earth
Gamma-ray burst blasted Earth in 8th century: study		New Evidence Indicates Auroras Occur Outside Our Solar System		Bubbling up Organics in an Ocean Vent Simulator		Why NASA Scientists Observe the Sun in Different Wavelengths		'Background' light of universe measured

A Microquasar Makes a Giant Manatee Nebula

US company aims to 'harvest' asteroids

Penn Physicists Help Show Math Behind Growth of 'Coffee Rings'

Computer breakthrough: Code of life becomes databank

Cheating to Create the Perfect Simulation

Glitch has space telescope shut down

Black holes growing faster than expected

Kim Dotcom apologises for Mega bugs

NASA's IRIS Spacecraft Is Fully Integrated

Titan Gets a Dune "Makeover"

Comet of the Century?

Light From The Darkness

New Sunspots Producing Space Weather

Herschel intercepts asteroid Apophis

US, Europe team up for moon fly-by

Dynamic, dark energy in an accelerating universe

Jupiter Dances with the Moon on January 21st

Russian scientists get first ice samples from Antarctic Lake Vostok

Laser sends Mona Lisa into space

Russia to Launch Lunar Mission in 2015

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