Humanity's most complex ground-based astronomy observatory, the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), has officially opened for astronomers at its 16,500-foot high desert plateau in northern Chile. [...more]
Although cold and gaseous rather than a desert world, the newfound planet Kepler-16b is still the closest astronomers have come to discovering Luke Skywalker's home world of Tatooine. [...more]
NASA's Kepler spacecraft has spotted a planet that alternately runs late and early in its orbit because a second, "invisible" world is tugging on it. This is the first definite detection of a previously unknown planet using this method. [...more]
New research shows that some old stars might be held up by their rapid spins, and when they slow down, they explode as supernovae. Thousands of these "time bombs" could be scattered throughout our Galaxy. [...more]
Two studies appearing in the Aug. 25 issue of the journal Nature provide new insights into a cosmic accident that has been streaming X-rays toward Earth since late March. NASA's Swift satellite first alerted astronomers to intense and unusual high-energy flares from the new source in the constellation Draco. [...more]
This Jupiter-sized world reflects less than one percent of the light that falls on it, making it blacker than any planet or moon in our solar system. [...more]
New research shows that aurorae on distant "hot Jupiters" could be 100-1000 times brighter than Earthly aurorae. They also would ripple from equator to poles (due to the planet's proximity to any stellar eruptions), treating the entire planet to an otherworldly spectacle. [...more]
The far-out planet, named 55 Cancri e, is twice as big as Earth and nearly nine times more massive. It is most likely composed of rocky material, similar to Earth, supplemented with light elements such as water and hydrogen gas. Scientists estimate the planet’s surface is much hotter than ours: close to 2,700 degrees Celsius. [...more]
This fossil represents a new genus and species of extinct aneuretopsychid, Jeholopsyche liaoningensis, recently described in a paper in the journal ZooKeys by Conrad Labandeira of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, and Dong Ren and ChungKun Shih of the College of Life Sciences, Capital Normal University, Beijing. The aneuretopsychidae are a family of long-proboscid insects that lived in Asia from the Late Jurassic to Early Cretaceous. The paper documents the first formal record of fossil Aneuretopsychidae in China. The new fossils reveal previously unknown and detailed structure of the mouthparts, antennae, head, thorax, legs and abdomen of this distinctive insect lineage.
Subscribe 