The Sky Tonight

October 20, 2016

Building Blocks of Life's Building Blocks Come From Starlight
Pasadena CA (JPL) Oct 14, 2016
Life exists in a myriad of wondrous forms, but if you break any organism down to its most basic parts, it's all the same stuff: carbon atoms connected to hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen and other elements. But how these fundamental substances are created in space has been a longstanding mystery. Now, astronomers better understand how molecules form that are necessary for building other chemicals essential for life. Thanks to data from the European Space Agency's Herschel Space Observatory, scientists h ... read more

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Glitch, safe mode as Juno space probe orbits Jupiter Officials in charge of NASA's Juno space probe orbiting Jupiter last weekend delayed a crucial maneuver due to a main engine malfunction, they said Wednesday. ... more		The Sun's coronal tail wags its photospheric dog Solar physicists have long viewed the rotation of sunspots as a primary generator of solar flares - the sudden, powerful blasts of electromagnetic radiation and charged particles that burst into spa ... more		Wayward Field Lines Challenge Solar Radiation Models In addition to the constant emission of warmth and light, our sun sends out occasional bursts of solar radiation that propel high-energy particles toward Earth. These solar energetic particles, or S ... more
				How Deadly Would A Nearby Gamma Ray Burst Be? Despite the obvious doom and gloom associated with mass extinctions, they have a tendency to capture our imagination. After all, the sudden demise of the dinosaurs, presumably due to an asteroid str ... more		Spectacular Lunar Grazing Occultation of Bright Star on Oct. 18 As seen from a path about a mile wide extending from Los Angeles, Calif., to Denver, and on to Minnesota south of Minneapolis (and further east, to Lake Superior and Labrador), the bright star Aldeb ... more

The Milky Way's ancient heart A team led by Dante Minniti (Universidad Andres Bello, Santiago, Chile) and Rodrigo Contreras Ramos (Instituto Milenio de Astrofisica, Santiago, Chile) used observations from the VISTA infrared surv ... more		Dense molecular gas disks drive the growth of supermassive black holes Supermassive black holes more than a million times the mass of our sun exist at the centers of many galaxies, but how they came to be is unclear. Meanwhile, a correlation between the rate at which s ... more		Sidekick autonomy software guides YFQ-42A test mission for CCA program Infleqtion lists shares on NYSE as neutral atom quantum firm Top Chinese gaming companies continue to challenge		China to Collaborate on Search for Intelligent Life in the Universe The National Astronomical Observatories of China (NAOC) is joining forces with the Breakthrough Initiatives to launch a coordinated search for evidence of intell ... more
				Short mid-infrared pulses offer new tool for peering inside atoms and solids A newly developed laser pulse synthesizer that generates femtosecond pulses at mid-infrared (IR) wavelengths promises to provide scientists with a better view of the inner workings of atoms, molecul ... more		Compact graphene-based plasmon generator developed by physicists from MIPT Researchers from MIPT's Laboratory of 2D Materials' Optoelectronics, Institute of Radioengineering and Electronics, and Tohoku University (Japan) have theoretically demonstrated the possibility of c ... more

6th Annual Modular Construction Summit for Oil and Gas Agenda - December 7-9 - Houston

Nuclear Plant Digitalization Conference - Nov 15-16 - Charlotte NC USA

The 1950s: The decade in which gravity physics became experimental In the 1950s and earlier, the gravity theory of Einstein's general relativity was largely a theoretical science. In a new paper published in EPJ H, Jim Peebles, a physicist and theoretical cosmologi ... more		Two-dimensional spin-orbit coupling for Bose-Einstein condensates realized Spin-orbit coupling is one of the fundamental effects in quantum physics. It plays a vital role in many basic physic phenomena and exotic quantum states. These phenomena led to the foundation of sev ... more		Solar-driven ionosphere charges may nudge stressed faults toward rupture Stable black carbon in mangrove soils boosts coastal climate role Low crystallinity iron minerals show promise for chromium cleanup and carbon storage		Massive Cloud on Collision Course with the Milky Way In 1963, an astronomy student named Gail Smith working at an observatory in the Netherlands discovered something odd-a massive cloud of gas orbiting the Milky Way galaxy. Smith's cloud contained eno ... more
Hunter's Supermoon to light up Saturday night sky A hunter's supermoon will light the sky Saturday and Sunday night, the first of three supermoons expected over the next three months. ... more		Lights, action, electrons! Ever since J.J. Thompson's 1897 discovery of the electron, scientists have attempted to describe the subatomic particle's motion using a variety of different means. Electrons are far too small and f ... more		Small Impacts Are Reworking Lunar Soil Faster Than Scientists Thought The Moon's surface is being "gardened" - churned by small impacts - more than 100 times faster than scientists previously thought. This means that surface features believed to be young are perhaps e ... more		Who stole all the stars Investigating the millions of missing stars from the centres - or cores - of two big galaxies, astronomers at Swinburne University of Technology say they may have solved this cosmic whodunit, and th ... more

	Teleporting toward a quantum Internet Quantum physics is a field that appears to give scientists superpowers. Those who understand the world of extremely small or cold particles can perform amazing feats with them - including teleportat ... more		Proxima Centauri might be more sunlike than we thought In August astronomers announced that the nearby star Proxima Centauri hosts an Earth-sized planet (called Proxima b) in its habitable zone. At first glance, Proxima Centauri seems nothing like our S ... more

AALTO plans Zephyr stratospheric hub in northern Australia and seeks local payload partners

Ancient guano drove Chincha coastal power

UAH lands first DARPA award for biological sciences department

'Weighing' atoms with electrons		Stars with Three Planet-Forming Discs of Gas		Study suggests comet strike's link to age-old warming event		Filming light and electrons coupled together as they travel under cover		A facelift for the Moon every 81,000 years
UC physicists join collaborative efforts in search for new ghost neutrinos		Stable molecular state of photons and artificial atom discovered		The Milky Way's Ancient Heart		VISTA finds ancient star cluster in Milky Way center		Hubble detects giant 'cannonballs' shooting from star

Detonating white dwarfs as supernovae

Using oxygen as a tracer of galactic evolution

Stellar ages in seconds

Discovery of an extragalactic hot molecular core

Discovery: A new form of light

The death of a planet nursery?

Kepler Gets the 'Big Picture' of Comet 67P

Researchers discover effect of rare solar wind on Earth's radiation belts

Bern-made laser altimeter taking off to Mercury

TESS will provide exoplanet targets for years to come

Measuring forces with oscillations

Observing the birth of quasiparticles in real time

Big data processing enables worldwide bacterial analysis

Science at cusp of 'transformational' grasp of life via cell modeling

Origin of minor planets' rings revealed

What Swings a Star Around - Another Star or a Distant Planet?

How to control polarization of light

Are planets setting the sun's pace?

Turning to the brain to reboot computing

Scientists solve mystery of the lone wolf wave

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