news, journals and articles from all over the world.
Rutgers astronomers have produced the most advanced galaxy simulations of their kind, which could help reveal the origins of the Milky Way and dozens of small neighboring dwarf galaxies. Their research also could aid the decades-old search for dark matter, which fills an estimated 27 percent of the universe. And the computer simulations of “ultra-faint” dwarf galaxies could help shed light on how the first stars formed in the universe.
Today, Mars is an arid, dusty, and frigid landscape with an average temperature of minus 80 degrees Fahrenheit—inhospitable to life as we know it. But it wasn’t always that way.
Fifty years ago, astronomers discovered carbon monoxide in space. It allowed us to see dark regions of the universe, and helped us understand it more clearly.
Ray Jayawardhana, the Harold Tanner Dean of Arts and Sciences and professor of astronomy at Cornell University, has been awarded the 2020 Carl Sagan Medal by the Division for Planetary Sciences (DPS) of the American Astronomical Society for excellence in public communication in planetary science.
To have dependable power to explore the the frigid surface of Mars, NASA’s Perseverance rover is equipped with a type of power system called a radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG)—which is what the latest episode of Mars Technica will tell listeners all about.
NASA’s new Perseverance rover, which just started its seven-month journey to Mars, carries on board what is likely the most versatile instrument ever created to understand the planet’s past habitability: SuperCam—and a new podcast will tell listeners all about it.
Could Jezero Crater hold the keys to unlocking an ancient and hidden past when life might have existed on the Martian surface?
A pair of binary neutron stars in the Milky Way galaxy – discovered eight years ago by a pulsar survey developed at Cornell University – is giving researchers a front-row seat at what they believe will be the stars’ eventual cataclysmic merger.
Using a new technique originally designed to explore the cosmos, scientists have unveiled structures deep inside the Earth, paving the way towards a new map revealing what Earth’s interior looks like.
Scientists from the University of New Hampshire’s Space Science Center will use a $4.6 million grant from NASA to create the Student Collaboration Project that will offer a diverse group of college students from across the country hands-on research experience designing and building small satellites that will be launched into outer space and collect data for one of NASA’s space missions.
The American Institute of Physics, celebrating the 30th anniversary of the launch of the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, is delighted to host a virtual presentation by Stanford University’s Elizabeth Kessler in an upcoming Lyne Starling Trimble Science Heritage Public Lecture. The lecture series is presented by AIP and features science historians and writers who study the role of science and technology in modern society and culture. “Hubble Space Telescope Images and the Astronomical Sublime” will be hosted virtually, Thursday, May 7 at 3:30 p.m. Eastern (U.S.).
To help future scientists make sense of what their telescopes are showing them, Cornell University astronomers have developed a spectral field guide for rocky worlds orbiting white dwarf stars.
The American Institute of Physics is delighted to host a virtual lecture by Hubble Space Telescope senior project scientist Jennifer Wiseman in an upcoming Lyne Starling Trimble Science Heritage public lecture to celebrate Hubble’s 30th anniversary. The lecture series is hosted by AIP and highlights experts who study the role of science and technology throughout human history and modern society. “The Hubble Space Telescope: 30 Years of Discovery and Awe” will be hosted virtually, April 29 at 3:30 p.m. EDT.
A galactic visitor entered our solar system last year – interstellar comet 2I/Borisov. When astronomers pointed the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) toward the comet on 15 and 16 December 2019, for the first time they directly observed the chemicals stored inside an object from a planetary system other than our own. This research is published online on 20 April 2020 in the journal Nature Astronomy.
When the sun expels plasma, the solar wind cools as it expands through space — but not as much as the laws of physics would predict. UW–Madison physicists now know the reason.
Peering into the darkness to see what we could not previously see, the Hubble Space Telescope has been delighting scientists and the general public with revealing details and images of galaxies and celestial phenomena. The American Institute of Physics recognizes and celebrates the momentous occasion of the 30th anniversary of its launch and Physics Today is highlighting the anniversary in its April issue with a look back at the history of the telescope and analysis of Hubble’s discoveries over the past 30 years.
– Cornell University astronomers have created five models representing key points from our planet’s evolution, like chemical snapshots through Earth’s own geologic epochs. The models will be spectral templates for astronomers to use in the approaching new era of powerful telescopes, and in the hunt for Earth-like planets in distant solar systems.
Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) have found striking orbital geometries in protoplanetary disks around binary stars. While disks orbiting the most compact binary star systems share very nearly the same plane, disks encircling wide binaries have orbital planes that are severely tilted. These systems can teach us about planet formation in complex environments.
Organic compounds called thiophenes are found on Earth in coal, crude oil and oddly enough, in white truffles, the mushroom beloved by epicureans and wild pigs.
Launching no earlier than March 6 at 11:50 PM EST, the Johns Hopkins University will send heart muscle tissues, contained in a specially-designed tissue chip the size of a small cellphone, up to the microgravity environment of the International Space Station (ISS) for one month of observation.
A new machine-learning computer model accurately predicts damaging radiation storms caused by the Van Allen belts two days prior to the storm, the most advanced notice to date, according to a new paper in the journal Space Weather.
More than a year after NASA’s Mars InSight lander touched down in a pebble-filled crater on the Martian equator, the rusty red planet is now serving up its meteorological secrets: gravity waves, surface swirling “dust devils,” and the steady, low rumble of infrasound, Cornell and other researchers have found.
NASA’s BIG Idea Challenge funds eight university teams to work on lunar payloads and study the Moon’s darkest reaches. A student team at Michigan Technological University takes their rover technology to the “dark side”. Not for evil — the polar craters…
The iconic photograph of planet Earth from distant space – the “pale blue dot” – was taken 30 years ago – Feb. 14, 1990, at a distance of 3.7 billion miles, by the NASA spacecraft Voyager 1 as it zipped toward the far edge of the solar system. The late Cornell astronomy professor Carl Sagan came up with the idea for the snapshot, and coined the phrase.
NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope has studied the universe in infrared light since its launch in 2003, and at the end of this month its mission will come to an end — leading NASA and astronomers worldwide to reflect on the…
Until now, determining the orbit of satellites has required many measurements or multiple telescopes. A team of MITRE scientists took their equipment to Chile to view an eclipse—and proved an easier way.
NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) has discovered its first Earth-size planet in its star’s habitable zone, the range of distances where conditions may be just right to allow the presence of liquid water on the surface.
Moll was the only non-NASA physician NASA consulted when it was discovered that an astronaut aboard the ISS had a deep vein thrombosis (DVT) – or blood clot – in the jugular vein of their neck.
Deep in our Milky Way galaxy’s center, a candy cane emerges as the centerpiece of a new, colorful composite image from a NASA camera, just in time for the holidays.
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) scientists and a collaborator from the University of Münster reviewed recent work that shows how meteorites exhibit a fundamental isotopic dichotomy between non-carbonaceous (NC) and carbonaceous (CC – rocks or sediments containing carbon or its compounds) groups, which most likely represent material from the inner and outer solar system.
Space is getting crowded. The biggest challenge is space junk—the debris that results when satellites break up or get shot down. If we aren’t careful, space junk, and space conflict, could cause a lot of problems down here on Earth.
Yervant Terzian, the Tisch Distinguished Professor Emeritus in the Department of Astronomy at Cornell University, who studied the physical matter between stars, dedicated his career to education and chaired the department for two decades, died Nov. 25 in Ithaca. Terzian was 80.
An international team of scientists has reported in the journal Nature that they’ve discovered evidence of a gaseous disk around a white dwarf star — expanding astronomers’ understanding of planetary bodies that can exist around white dwarfs. Lisa Kaltenegger, who…
An international team of researchers, including two astrophysicists from the George Washington University, has observed a gamma-ray burst with an afterglow that featured the highest energy photons—a trillion times more energetic than visible light—ever detected in a burst.
Cornell University researchers are deploying thumbnail-size satellites to monitor environmental conditions as a dry run for using the technology for future space research. At the same time, he is harvesting valuable data that will help growers make more informed decisions about growing crops and caring for animals.
The goal of SCIMMA is to develop algorithms, databases, and computing cyberinfrastructure to help scientists interpret multi-messenger observations — measurements gained from light, gravitational waves and particles.
Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories launched a seven-year mission campaign this month to develop the science, technology and architecture needed for autonomous satellite protection systems. The campaign, called STARCS (Science and Technology Advancing Resilience for Contested Space), will fund dozens of Laboratory Directed Research and Development projects that focus on three critical areas
At the center of a galaxy called NGC 1068, a supermassive black hole hides within a thick doughnut-shaped cloud of dust and gas. When astronomers used the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA)
to study this cloud in more detail, they made an unexpected discovery that could explain why supermassive black holes grew so rapidly in the early Universe.
“Thanks to the spectacular resolution of ALMA, we measured the movement of gas in the inner orbits around the black hole,” explains Violette Impellizzeri of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), working at ALMA in Chile and lead author on a paper published in the Astrophysical Journal. “Surprisingly, we found two disks of gas rotating in opposite directions.”
People have spent centuries wondering whether life exists beyond Earth, but only recently have scientists developed the tools to find out.
The winners of the 2019 AIP Science Communication Awards are announced for their topical works on robotics inspired by animals, the nature of the universe, climate change, the awe and excitement of space, and the mystery of black holes. The winners are David L. Hu, Marcia Bartusiak, Nathaniel Rich, Raman Prinja, and Rushmore DeNooyer.
Becoming an astronaut is challenging for anyone, but for School of Engineering senior Marissa Navarro, that dream was complicated by an eight-year fight to stay in the United States. Find out how she got the attention of NASA’s Mars 2020 deputy surface phase lead, Diana Trujillo, and how she is one step closer to reaching her goal of becoming an astronaut someday.
New Brunswick, N.J. (Sept. 19, 2019) – Rutgers University–New Brunswick Engineering Professor Stephen D. Tse can comment on flame experiments this month on the International Space Station. The NASA project on symmetrical flames, called s-Flame, is aimed at studying combustion,…
A team of researchers at Texas A&M University is studying the use of virtual assistants to provide support during emergencies in space.
Astronomers have uncovered a new way of searching for life in the cosmos. Harsh ultraviolet radiation flares from red suns, once thought to destroy surface life on planets, might help uncover hidden biospheres. Their radiation could trigger a protective glow from life on exoplanets called biofluorescence, according to new Cornell University research.
Pairs of sub-atomic particles may catalyze reactions that happened moments after the Big Bang. The Science Nuclear physicists smash ions together to create and study the soup of quarks and gluons thought to fill the universe milliseconds after the Big…
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