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Asteroid Hygiea could be the smallest dwarf planet yet![]() Munich, Germany (SPX) Oct 29, 2019 Astronomers using ESO's SPHERE instrument at the Very Large Telescope (VLT) have revealed that the asteroid Hygiea could be classified as a dwarf planet. The object is the fourth largest in the asteroid belt after Ceres, Vesta and Pallas. For the first time, astronomers have observed Hygiea in sufficiently high resolution to study its surface and determine its shape and size. They found that Hygiea is spherical, potentially taking the crown from Ceres as the smallest dwarf planet in the Solar Syst ... read more |
How to spot a wormhole if they existBuffalo NY (SPX) Oct 24, 2019 A new study outlines a method for detecting a speculative phenomenon that has long captured the imagination of sci-fi fans: wormholes, which form a passage between two separate regions of spacetime. ... more
China to launch Chang'e-5 lunar probe in 2020Xiamen, China (XNA) Oct 29, 2019 China plans to launch the Chang'e-5 probe in 2020 to bring moon samples back to Earth, according to Wu Weiren, chief designer of China's lunar exploration program. The Long March-5 carrier roc ... more
Building blocks of all life gain new understandingManchester UK (SPX) Oct 24, 2019 New research on an enzyme that is essential for photosynthesis and all life on earth has uncovered a key finding in its structure which reveals how light can interact with matter to make an essentia ... more
Ancient stars shed light on Earth's similarities to other planetsLos Angeles CA (SPX) Oct 18, 2019 Earth-like planets may be common in the universe, a new UCLA study implies. The team of astrophysicists and geochemists presents new evidence that the Earth is not unique. The study was published in ... more |
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Numerous polar storms on Saturn analyzed by the UPV/EHU's Planetary Sciences GroupBarcelona, Spain (SPX) Oct 30, 2019 Sanchez-Lavega's work appears under the title 'A complex storm system in Saturn's north polar atmosphere in 2018', and was produced in collaboration with Teresa del Rio-Gaztelurrutia, Jon Legarreta ... more
TESS reveals an improbable planetPorto, Portgual (SPX) Oct 30, 2019 Using asteroseismic1 data from NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), an international team2, led by Instituto de Astrofisica e Ciencias do Espaco (IA3) researcher Tiago Campante, stud ... more
NASA innovator experiments with force fields for moving matterGreenbelt MD (SPX) Oct 24, 2019 On a metal work bench covered with tools, instruments, cords and bottles of solution, Aaron Yevick is using laser light to create a force field with which to move particles of matter. Yevick i ... more
How supergiant stars repeatedly cool and heat upBrussels, Belgium (SPX) Oct 14, 2019 An international team of professional and amateur astronomers, which includes Alex Lobel, astronomer at the Royal Observatory of Belgium, has determined in detail how the temperature of four yellow ... more
Detector for hunting dark matter installed a mile undergroundLondon UK (SPX) Oct 30, 2019 The central component of LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) - the largest direct-detection dark matter experiment in the US - has been slowly lowered 4,850 feet down a shaft formerly used in gold-mining operations by ... more |
![]() Hubble captures galaxies' ghostly gaze
Placing another piece in the dark matter puzzleMainz, Germany (SPX) Oct 28, 2019 A team led by Prof Dmitry Budker has continued their search for dark matter within the framework of the "Cosmic Axion Spin Precession Experiment" (or "CASPEr" for short). The CASPEr group conducts t ... more |
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A flash and a shudder may reveal inner workings of starsSanta Barbara CA (SPX) Oct 29, 2019 In five billion years or so, when the Sun has used up the hydrogen in its core, it will inflate and turn into a red giant star. This phase of its life - and that of other stars up to twice its mass ... more
Fresh strontium, an ingredient in fireworks, produced by neutron star mergerWashington DC (UPI) Oct 24, 2019 Scientists have for the first time identified a freshly forged heavy metal element inside a neutron star merger. ... more
An overlooked piece of the solar dynamo puzzleDresden, Germany (SPX) Oct 29, 2019 A previously unobserved mechanism is at work in the Sun's rotating plasma: a magnetic instability, which scientists had thought was physically impossible under these conditions. The effect might eve ... more
Las Cumbres helping to develope a Cyberinfrastructure Institute for Astronomical DataGoleta CA (SPX) Oct 28, 2019 Las Cumbres Observatory is one of nine organizations jointly awarded a $2.8 million grant by the National Science Foundation to further develop the concept for a Scalable Cyberinfrastructure Institu ... more
Kennedy Space Center to award $7 billion contract for lunar missionsOrlando FL (SPX) Oct 29, 2019 NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida is close to awarding a 15-year contract for $7 billion to provide logistics support for upcoming Artemis lunar missions, a NASA official said Monday. Big ... more |
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NASA's Juno prepares to jump Jupiter's shadow Pasadena CA (JPL) Oct 02, 2019
Last night, NASA's Juno mission to Jupiter successfully executed a 10.5-hour propulsive maneuver - extraordinarily long by mission standards. The goal of the burn, as it's known, will keep the solar-powered spacecraft out of what would have been a mission-ending shadow cast by Jupiter on the spacecraft during its next close flyby of the planet on Nov. 3, 2019.
Juno began the maneuver yeste ... more |
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TESS reveals an improbable planet Porto, Portgual (SPX) Oct 30, 2019
Using asteroseismic1 data from NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), an international team2, led by Instituto de Astrofisica e Ciencias do Espaco (IA3) researcher Tiago Campante, studied the red-giant stars HD 212771 and HD 203949. These are the first detections of oscillations in previously known exoplanet-host stars by TESS. The result was published today in an article4 in The A ... more |
Mars Express completes 20,000 orbits around the Red Planet Berlin, Germany (SPX) Oct 30, 2019
Mars Express, the European Space Agency's (ESA) first planetary mission, is a true marathon runner among spacecraft. Launched on 2 June 2003, the spacecraft arrived at Mars during the night of 25 December that same year.
On 26 October 2019, this spacecraft completed its twenty-thousandth orbit around Mars. Mars Express is in good company in Martian orbit: NASA's Mars 2001 Odyssey and Mars ... more |
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China to launch Chang'e-5 lunar probe in 2020 Xiamen, China (XNA) Oct 29, 2019
China plans to launch the Chang'e-5 probe in 2020 to bring moon samples back to Earth, according to Wu Weiren, chief designer of China's lunar exploration program.
The Long March-5 carrier rocket, China's current largest launch vehicle, will be used to send the probe into space, Wu, also an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, said at the first China Space Science Assembly, w ... more |
Scientists synthesized light with new intrinsic chirality to tell mirror molecules apart Berlin, Germany (SPX) Oct 29, 2019
Light is the fastest way to distinguish right- and left-handed chiral molecules, which has important applications in chemistry and biology. However, ordinary light only weakly senses molecular handedness.
Researchers from the Max Born Institute for Nonlinear Optics and Short Pulse Spectroscopy (MBI), the Israel Institute of Technology (Technion) and Technische Universitaet Berlin (TU Berli ... more |
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DLR DESIS spectrometer begins routine operations on the ISS Berlin, Germany (SPX) Oct 25, 2019 On 23 October 2019, the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum fur Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) and the U.S. company Teledyne Brown Engineering (TBE) will announce the start of routine operations for the 'DLR Earth Sensing Imaging Spectrometer' (DESIS).
This instrument will be operated by DLR and TBE. It is the most powerful hyperspectral Earth observation instrument in orbit and addresse ... more |
Did an extraterrestrial impact trigger the extinction of ice-age animals? Columbia SC (SPX) Oct 28, 2019
A controversial theory that suggests an extraterrestrial body crashing to Earth almost 13,000 years ago caused the extinction of many large animals and a probable population decline in early humans is gaining traction from research sites around the world.
The Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis, controversial from the time it was presented in 2007, proposes that an asteroid or comet hit the Ea ... more |
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An overlooked piece of the solar dynamo puzzle Dresden, Germany (SPX) Oct 29, 2019
A previously unobserved mechanism is at work in the Sun's rotating plasma: a magnetic instability, which scientists had thought was physically impossible under these conditions. The effect might even play a crucial role in the formation of the Sun's magnetic field, say researchers from Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR), the University of Leeds and the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics ... more |
China plans more space science satellites Xiamen (XNA) Oct 30, 2019
China plans to launch four new science satellite missions by 2023, and scientists have completed concept research on another five to be launched in the next 10 years.
Successful Chinese science satellites launched since 2015 include the Dark Matter Particle Explorer (DAMPE), the Quantum Experiments at Space Scale (QUESS) and the Hard X-ray Modulation Telescope (HXMT). These were under a sp ... more |
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Scientists synthesized light with new intrinsic chirality to tell mirror molecules apart Berlin, Germany (SPX) Oct 29, 2019
Light is the fastest way to distinguish right- and left-handed chiral molecules, which has important applications in chemistry and biology. However, ordinary light only weakly senses molecular handedness.
Researchers from the Max Born Institute for Nonlinear Optics and Short Pulse Spectroscopy (MBI), the Israel Institute of Technology (Technion) and Technische Universitaet Berlin (TU Berli ... more |
The homeland of modern humans Sydney, Australia (SPX) Oct 29, 2019
A study has concluded that the earliest ancestors of anatomically modern humans (Homo sapiens sapiens) emerged in a southern African 'homeland' and thrived there for 70 thousand years.
The findings were published this week in the journal Nature. The authors propose that changes in Africa's climate triggered the first human explorations, which initiated the development of humans' genetic, e ... more |
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US vows closer cooperation with French space agency Washington (AFP) Oct 23, 2019 The United States on Wednesday pledged closer cooperation with France's space agency, saying the two were advancing the commercial development of space.
US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and Jean-Yves Le Gall, president of France's space agency, CNES, signed a declaration of intent, announcing expanded collaboration on space traffic management and space situational awareness, among other mat ... more |
Reframing Antarctica's meltwater pond dangers to ice shelves and sea level Atlanta GA (SPX) Oct 27, 2019
Dangers to ancient Antarctic ice portend a future of rapidly rising seas, but a new study may relieve one nagging fear: that ponds of meltwater fracturing the ice below them could cause protracted chain reactions that unexpectedly collapse floating ice shelves. Though pooled meltwater does fracture ice, ensuing chain reactions appear short-ranged.
Still, massive increases in surface meltin ... more |
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Mountain streams emit surprisingly large amounts of CO2 Washington (UPI) Oct 25, 2019
Mountain streams play a surprisingly significant role in global carbon fluxes, according to a new study. Pound for pound, mountain streams emit more CO2 than the wider waterways below.
In studying the relationship between flowing freshwater and carbon cycles, scientists have mostly focused on streams and rivers in low-altitude regions. But mountains account for a quarter of Earth's surf ... more |
Astronomers use giant galaxy cluster as X-ray magnifying lens Boston MA (SPX) Oct 16, 2019
Astronomers at MIT and elsewhere have used a massive cluster of galaxies as an X-ray magnifying glass to peer back in time, to nearly 9.4 billion years ago. In the process, they spotted a tiny dwarf galaxy in its very first, high-energy stages of star formation.
While galaxy clusters have been used to magnify objects at optical wavelengths, this is the first time scientists have leveraged ... more |
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