One of the basic truisms in astronomy is that, when a massive star ends its life, it goes out with a bang. A big one. A supernova. This titanic explosion is triggered when the star runs out of nuclear fuel in its core. The core collapses in a heartbeat, and the energy generated in that…
A Moon of Saturn Is Habitable
Today Earthlings came one very giant step closer to finding life elsewhere in our solar system. In the final months of its 20-year mission, the spacecraft Cassini delivered its most noteworthy revelation yet: the ocean of Enceladus, a moon of Saturn, is releasing hydrogen, an energy source for some microorganisms. In other words, that ocean…
Oldest evidence of life on land discovered in Australia
The oldest fossil evidence of life on land has been discovered in Australian rocks, potentially extending the known era of land-based life by over 500 million years. Ancient deposits from a hot spring in Western Australia’s Pilbara region were found to contain minerals created by microbes, and researchers from the University of NSW were able…
DNA May ID Sailors Looking for Northwest Passage in 1845
Scientists have extracted DNA from the skeletal remains of several 19th-century sailors who died during the ill-fated Franklin Expedition, whose goal was to navigate the fabled Northwest Passage. With a new genetic database of 24 expedition members, researchers hope they’ll be able to identify some of the bodies scattered in the Canadian Arctic, 170 years…
Cassini probe shoots through Saturn’s rings
NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has successfully executed its daring dive through the 1,500-mile-wide gap between Saturn and its rings, the first time a man-made object has navigated through the icy halo that hugs the gas giant. Controllers operating the Deep Space Network antenna in Goldstone, California confirmed data collected during its passage was being received from…
New atmospheric phenomenon named Steve discovered by aurora watchers
An atmospheric phenomenon has been discovered by citizen scientists and aurora photographers — and so little is known about it right now that they’ve named it Steve. So he and his colleagues turned to the European Space Agency’s Swarm — a constellation of satellites studying Earth’s magnetic field — to learn more about it. By…
Science in America – Neil deGrasse Tyson – March For Science – 22nd April
We offer this 4min video on “Science in America”, containing what may be the most important words Neil deGrasse Tyson has ever spoken. Get involved in March For Science 22nd April. We, as citizens of this planet, have the right to preserve what is the truth, to let climate change deniers know that we have…
Saturn’s moon, Enceladus, could support life
The main illustration shows Cassini diving through the Enceladus plume in 2015. New ocean world discoveries from Cassini and Hubble will help inform future exploration and the broader search for life beyond Earth. (Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech) In a major press announcement, NASA announced Enceladus, Saturn’s moon, could support life thanks to the presence of hydrogen discovered….
Quadriplegic man’s arm and hand brought back to life by thought-control tech
A quadriplegic man has had his right arm and hand brought back to life with the help of thought-control technology. Bill Kochevar, 56, was paralysed below his shoulders in a cycling accident eight years ago but can now grasp and lift objects after having two pill-sized electrodes implanted in his brain. The electrodes record the…
Join The March for Science
The March for Science demonstrates our passion for science and sounds a call to support and safeguard the scientific community. Recent policy changes have caused heightened worry among scientists. The incredible and immediate outpouring of support has made clear that these concerns are also shared by the support of hundreds of thousands of people around…
Quantum communicating with the Extraterrestrial Intelligence
Humanity is facing now the dawn of a new technological era involving quantum mechanics in almost all aspects of social life, from computation to communication. It might be natural to ask if we shouldn’t consider search for quantum messages from extraterrestrial intelligence. China has launched the first quantum communication satellite last year bringing the humanity…
Eruptions on the sun trigger surprising phenomenon near Earth
New research from DTU and partners from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the University of New Brunswick shows that eruptions on the Sun’s surface not only send bursts of energetic particles into Earth’s atmosphere causing disturbances in our planet’s magnetic field, they can also strangely decrease the number of free electrons over large areas in…
