The Sky Tonight

September 29, 2014

Planets with Oddball Orbits Like Mercury Could Host Life
Moffet Field CA (NASA) Sep 29, 2014
Mercury has an oddball orbit - it takes longer for it to rotate on its axis and complete a day than it takes to orbit the sun and complete a year. Now, researchers suggest photosynthesis could take place on an alien planet with a similarly bizarre orbit, potentially helping support complex life. However, the scientists noted that the threat of prolonged periods of darkness and cold on these planets would present significant challenges to life, and could even potentially freeze their atmospheres. T ... read more

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Turning the Moon into a cosmic ray detector Scientists from the University of Southampton are to turn the Moon into a giant particle detector to help understand the origin of Ultra-High-Energy (UHE) cosmic rays - the most energetic particles ... more		Space agency sets Nov 12 date for comet landing Europe's Rosetta spacecraft will attempt on November 12 to land a robot lab on a comet hurtling through deep space in a first for humankind, a statement said Friday. ... more		Male-led teams more likely to get Hubble Telescope time A new study suggests a there's a gender bias in the approval process for research teams looking to use the Hubble Telescope. Researchers at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), the organization that runs the Hubble Space Telescope program, found that male-led proposals are more likely to be approved and granted time with the telescopes than female-led research projects. ... more
				American Meteor Society confirms four fireball sightings The American Meteor Society confirms four separate fireball events, all within 90 minutes, were witnessed in the Midwest, Southeast, and along the Eastern Seaboard. ... more		A piece of work by NUP/UPNA researchers demonstrates various ways for controlling light in the terahertz frequency range The Journal of Optics has devoted the front page of its special edition on Mid-infrared and THz Photonics to the work produced by the NUP/UPNA-Public University of Navarre researchers Victor Pacheco ... more

Tempur-Pedic Mattress Comparison & Memory Foam Mattress Review

Most metal-poor star hints at universe's first supernovae A team of researchers, led by Miho N. Ishigaki, at the Kavli IPMU, The University of Tokyo, pointed out that the elemental abundance of the most iron-poor star can be explained by elements ejected f ... more		Most stars are born in clusters, some leave 'home' New modeling studies from Carnegie's Alan Boss demonstrate that most of the stars we see were formed when unstable clusters of newly formed protostars broke up. These protostars are born out of rota ... more		India signs $7 bn deal for 97 domestically made fighter jets France doubles down on threat to build future fighter jet alone US approves $1.2 bn missile sale to Germany		New milestone in the search for water on distant planets Astronomers have found water vapor in the atmosphere of a planet about four times bigger than Earth, in the constellation Cygnus about 124 light years - or nearly 729 trillion miles - from our home ... more
				Clear skies on exo-Neptune Astronomers using data from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, the Spitzer Space Telescope, and the Kepler Space Telescope have discovered clear skies and steamy water vapour on a planet outside o ... more		Managing Orbital Debris and Space Traffic Those familiar with air traffic management architectures understand the constraints of aircraft flying in the atmosphere, vehicle dynamics and command and control techniques. Unfortunately, compared ... more

Startup in the Land of the Rising Sun; A Japanese Solar Venture - by Bradley L. Bartz

Infant solar system shows signs of windy weather Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) have observed what may be the first-ever signs of windy weather around a T Tauri star, an infant analog of our own Sun. This ... more		Heritage of Earth's water gives rise to hopes of life on other planets A pioneering new study has shown that water found on Earth predates the formation of the Sun - raising hopes that life could exist on exoplanets, the planets orbiting other stars in our galaxy. The ... more		Simulations of Exoplanet Formation May Help Inform Search for Extraterrestrial Life Ancient hot springs reveal how microbes thrived before Earth gained oxygen Framework proposed to study planetary scale impact of life		Solar explosions inside a computer Strong solar flares can bring down communications and power grids on Earth. By demonstrating how these gigantic eruptions are caused, ETH physicists are laying the foundations for future predictions ... more
Interstellar molecules are branching out Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy (Bonn, Germany), Cornell University (USA), and the University of Cologne (Germany) have for the first time detected a carbon-bearing mole ... more		Violent Origins of Disc Galaxies Probed by ALMA For decades scientists have believed that galaxy mergers usually result in the formation of elliptical galaxies. Now, for the the first time, researchers using ALMA and a host of other radio telesco ... more		Putting the squeeze on quantum information CIFAR researchers have shown that information stored in quantum bits can be exponentially compressed without losing information. The achievement is an important proof of principle, and could be usef ... more		Finding hints of gravitational waves in the stars Scientists have shown how gravitational waves-invisible ripples in the fabric of space and time that propagate through the universe-might be "seen" by looking at the stars. The new model proposes th ... more

	CME Week: The Difference Between Flares and CMEs There are many kinds of eruptions on the sun. Solar flares and coronal mass ejections both involve gigantic explosions of energy, but are otherwise quite different. The two phenomena do sometimes oc ... more		Particle detector finds hints of dark matter in space Researchers at MIT's Laboratory for Nuclear Science have released new measurements that promise to shed light on the origin of dark matter. The MIT group leads an international collaboration o ... more

Uranium enrichment: Why Iran refuses to step back

Redwire to Deliver Solar Array Wings for Axiom Station's First Module

Germany's Merz rejects claims he is slowing green shift

Distant planet's atmosphere shows evidence of water vapor		Asteroid named for University of Utah makes public debut		Russia to Launch Full-Scale Moon Exploration Next Decade		Magnetic fields make the excitons go 'round		New 'star' shaped molecule breakthrough
Penn research helps uncover mechanism behind solid-solid phase transitions		Uncovering the forbidden side of molecules		Chemical bond between a superheavy element and a carbon atom established		Mystery of rare 5-hour space explosion explained		Big surprises can come in small packages

Hubble Helps Find Smallest Galaxy Containing Supermassive Black Hole

Neighboring Andromeda Galaxy to eat Milky Way in 5 billion years

What is life? It's a Tricky, Often Confusing Question

Monster galaxies gain weight by eating smaller neighbours

Reinterpreting dark matter

Lunar explorers will walk at higher speeds than thought

Larry Ellison releases helm of mighty Oracle ship

Pulse of a Dead Star Powers Intense Gamma Rays

Violent Origins of Disc Galaxies Probed by ALMA

Three's a charm: NIST detectors reveal entangled photon triplets

Physicists teleport photon over 15 miles

Elusive quantum transformations found near absolute zero

Chandra Finds Planet That Makes Star Act Deceptively Old

Making quantum dots glow brighter

UCI team is first to capture motion of single molecule in real time

Dawn Operating Normally After Safe Mode Triggered

Scientists twist radio beams to send data

'J' marks the spot for Rosetta's lander

'J' marks the spot for historic comet landing

New Study Revisits Miller-Urey Experiment at the Quantum Level

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