Astronomers Detect Pre-Biotic Molecule Glycolonitrile in Space
Heterocyclic molecules are those containing atoms of at least two different elements (plus hydrogen) arranged in a ring structure. Nitrogen heterocycles are key components in…
Earliest Animals Developed Later Than Previously Thought
Sponges belong to our earliest ancestors. However, fossils, molecules and genes disagree on the rise of these early animals. A large international team of researchers…
Astronomers Discover Closest High-Mass Stellar Objects Ever Measured
Astronomers have discovered a binary star system with the closest high-mass young stellar objects ever measured, providing a valuable “laboratory” to test theories on high…
Hubble Image Of The Week – Nebulous, But No Nebula
This Hubble Picture of the Week shows Messier 28, a globular cluster in the constellation of Sagittarius (The Archer), in jewel-bright detail. It is about…
Hubble & Gaia Reveal Weight of the Milky Way: 1.5 Trillion Solar Masses
In a striking example of multi-mission astronomy, measurements from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and the ESA Gaia mission have been combined to improve the…
Yale Scientists Show Actin in Action
Actin is the second most abundant protein on earth, and scientists have extensively detailed the chemistry that enables it to string together into filaments that…
Scientists Observe Water Molecules Moving Around the Moon
Using an instrument aboard NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), scientists have observed water molecules moving around the dayside of the Moon. A paper published in…
K Stars May Be Perfect for Finding Habitable Worlds
Scientists looking for signs of life beyond our solar system face major challenges, one of which is that there are hundreds of billions of stars…
Scientists Verify Quantum Information Scrambling
Researchers at the Joint Quantum Institute have implemented an experimental test for quantum scrambling, a chaotic shuffling of the information stored among a collection of…
First Air-to-Air Images of Supersonic Shockwave Interaction Captured
“We never dreamt that it would be this clear, this beautiful.” Physical Scientist J.T. Heineck of NASA’s Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California gets…
Kepler’s First Planet Candidate Confirmed, 10 Years Later
Planet: Kepler-1658b Discovered by: Chontos et al. using NASA’s Kepler telescope Date: February 2019 Key Facts: This newly-confirmed exoplanet is a massive hot Jupiter that whips around its star every 3.85…
SpaceX’s Crew Dragon Spacecraft – Dawn of a New Era in Human Spaceflight
“The dawn of a new era in human spaceflight.” — Astronaut Anne McClain McClain had an unparalleled view from orbit of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft…
SOFIA Explores Supergalactic Wind, Provides Clues to Evolution of Galaxies
The Cigar Galaxy (M82) is famous for its extraordinary speed in making new stars, with stars being born 10 times faster than in the Milky…
Why So Many Planets Outside Our Solar System Have An Odd Configuration
For almost a decade, astronomers have tried to explain why so many pairs of planets outside our solar system have an odd configuration — their…
Astronomers Discover Brown Dwarf Binary Star with Microlensing
Brown dwarfs are stars less massive than the sun and unable to burn hydrogen. They comprise (at least in mass) a bridge between planets and…
Hubble Image of the Week – Colliding Galaxies
Located in the constellation of Hercules, about 230 million light-years away, NGC 6052 is a pair of colliding galaxies. They were first discovered in 1784…
Astronomers Detect Hidden Black Hole Lurking at Galactic Center
Astronomers have detected a stealthy black hole from its effects on an interstellar gas cloud. This intermediate mass black hole is one of over 100…
Do-It-Yourself Dwarf Planet Exploring, Creating Little Bits of Ceres in Labs
Ceres, the dwarf planet between Mars and Jupiter, is a mysterious and exotic world, with its complicated history and recent geologic activity. Since scientists can’t…