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December 25, 2013

Starless Cloud Cores Reveal Why Some Stars Are Bigger Than Others
Charlottesville VA (SPX) Dec 2253, 2013
Massive stars - those at least 8 times the mass of our Sun - present an intriguing mystery: how do they grow so large when the vast majority of stars in the Milky Way are considerably smaller? To find the answer, astronomers used the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) telescope to survey the cores of some of the darkest, coldest, and densest clouds in our Galaxy to search for the telltale signs of star formation. These objects, known as Infrared Dark Clouds, were observed ap ... read more

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Scientific data lost at alarming rate Eighty per cent of scientific data are lost within two decades, according to a new study that tracks the accessibility of data over time. The culprits? Old e-mail addresses and obsolete storag ... more		Using an Atmosphere to Weigh a Planet A new study finds that the mass of an exoplanet can be determined solely by looking at the starlight that passes through the planet's atmosphere. When sunlight streaming through a planet's atm ... more		Solar activity not a key cause of climate change Climate change has not been strongly influenced by variations in heat from the sun, a new scientific study shows. The findings overturn a widely held scientific view that lengthy periods of wa ... more
				The Rise and Fall of Galactic Cities In the fable of the town and country mice, the country mouse visits his city-dwelling cousin to discover a world of opulence. In the early cosmos, billions of years ago, galaxies resided in the equi ... more		How hypergravity impacts electric arcs Arc discharges are common in everyday conditions like welding or in lightning storms. But in altered gravity, not as much is known about the behaviour of electric discharges. For the first tim ... more

Powerful ancient explosions explain new class of supernovae Astronomers affiliated with the Supernova Legacy Survey (SNLS) have discovered two of the brightest and most distant supernovae ever recorded, 10 billion light-years away and a hundred times more lu ... more		Massive stars mark out Milky Way's 'missing' arms A 12-year study of massive stars has reaffirmed that our Galaxy has four spiral arms, following years of debate sparked by images taken by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope that only showed two arms. ... more		Denmark closes airspace to civilian drones amid rise in sightings Top diplomats of North Korea, China agree to oppose 'hegemonism' What is the high seas treaty?		Electron 'antenna' tunes in to physics beyond Higgs Though it was hailed as a triumph for the "Standard Model" of physics - the reigning model of fundamental forces and particles - physicists were quick to emphasize that last year's discovery of the ... more
				Electron's shapeliness throws a curve at supersymmetry A small band of particle-seeking scientists at Yale and Harvard has established a new benchmark for the electron's almost perfect roundness, raising doubts about certain theories that predict what l ... more		Ultrafast heating of water - This pot boils faster than you can watch it Scientists from the Hamburg Center for Free-Electron Laser Science have devised a novel way to boil water in less than a trillionth of a second. The theoretical concept, which has not yet been demon ... more

CubeSats, SmallSats and MicroSats

International Conference on Protection of Materials and Structures From Space Environment

Tempur-Pedic Mattress Comparison & Memory Foam Mattress Review

NASA Releases New Earthrise Simulation Video NASA has issued a new visualization of the events leading to one of the iconic photographs of the 20th Century - Earth rising over the moon captured by the crew of the Apollo 8 mission. The photo k ... more		Will the Moon be carved-up? Experts forecast that the Moon will become sort of the seventh continent of Earth by the middle of the 21st century. People will reclaim the polar regions and build residential areas there. In this ... more		The first animals on Earth may have been sea sponges, study suggests Wildfire-induced thunderstorms recreated in Earth system models for first time Fengyun satellite strengthens China global weather forecasting capacity		Oracle to buy cloud firm for $1.5 bn Business software giant Oracle announced plans Friday to boost its cloud services with a $1.5 billion acquisition of Responsys. ... more
				Leaner Fourier transforms The fast Fourier transform, one of the most important algorithms of the 20th century, revolutionized signal processing. The algorithm allowed computers to quickly perform Fourier transforms - fundam ... more		Liftoff for ESA's billion-star surveyor ESA's Gaia mission blasted off this morning on a Soyuz rocket from Europe's Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, on its exciting mission to study a billion suns. Gaia is destined to create the ... more

The Sounds of New Horizons

On the Path to Pluto, 5 AU and Closing

SwRI study finds that Pluto satellites' orbital ballet may hint of long-ago collisions

Oil and metal munching microbes dominate deep sandstone formations

Think you know what alien life may look like? Be careful!

Hard rock life

Using an Atmosphere to Weigh a Planet

Gaia Mission Could Help Map Exoplanets

First detection of a predicted unseen exoplanet

Curiosity Team Upgrades Software, Checks Wheel Wear

Mars One mission: one way ticket to new life

Mars Express heading towards daring flyby of Phobos

	NASA's Asteroid Hunter Spacecraft Returns First Images after Reactivation NASA's Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (NEOWISE), a spacecraft that made the most comprehensive survey to date of asteroids and comets, has returned its first set of test image ... more		Most Chang'e-3 science tools activated Six out of the eight pieces of scientific equipment deployed to the moon with the Chang'e-3 lunar mission have been activated by scientists and are functioning properly, according to scientists work ... more		Dawn Creates Guide to Vesta's Hidden Attractions Some beauty is revealed only at a second glance. When viewed with the human eye, the giant asteroid Vesta, which was the object of scrutiny by the Dawn spacecraft from 2011 to 2012, is quite unspect ... more		Supernovae hundreds of times brighter than normal observed U.S. astronomers say they've discovered two supernovas 10 billion light-years from Earth that are 100 times more luminous than a normal supernova. ... more

NASA ISRO radar satellite beams first Earth images from space

India plans mega-dam to counter China water fears

Breakthrough in UAV swarm intelligence as SRI redefines topology mapping

SMA Reveals Giant Star Cluster in the Making		What happens to ISON's remains?		Gaia Mission Could Help Map Exoplanets		Astrium has finalised preparation of Gaia, the star mapper of the Milky Way		Swift satellite catches 100,000 new cosmic X-ray sources
First detection of a predicted unseen exoplanet		Oil and metal munching microbes dominate deep sandstone formations		NASA creates 'rainbow' movie of the sun based on temperature		Study: 'Missing' arms of our Milky Way galaxy are actually there		'Approximate' computers could do tasks not requiring exact answers

Organics Preserved in Ancient Meteorite-Formed Glass

Swirls in remnants of Big Bang may hold clues to universe's infancy

Nearby failed stars may harbor planet

Juno slingshots past Earth on its way to Jupiter

Astronomers solve temperature mystery of planetary atmospheres

Fast Radio Bursts Might Come From Nearby Stars

Clay-Like Minerals Found on Icy Crust of Europa

Astronomers discover first noble gas molecules in space

Recipe for a Universe

China plans to launch Chang'e-5 in 2017

Innovative instrument probes close binary stars, may soon image exoplanets

China's Lunar Lander May Provide Additional Science for NASA Spacecraft

Think you know what alien life may look like? Be careful!

Mining the moon is pie in the sky for China: experts

Rare meteorite sat unnoticed in private Dutch collection for 140 years

Facebook seeks to get smarter with big data

Image of sun shows two areas of sunspots, one arriving and one leaving

MESSENGER Celebrates 1,000 Earth Days in Orbit around Mercury

Countdown Begins for NASA's OSIRIS-REx Asteroid Mission

CU-Boulder scientist: 2012 solar storm points up need for society to prepare

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