Science

After a journey of seven years and nearly 4 billion miles, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft landed gently in the Utah desert on the morning of Sept. 24, 2023, with a precious payload. The spacecraft brought back a sample from the asteroid Bennu. Roughly half a pound of material collected from the 85 million-ton asteroid (77.6 billion

Most of us are very much devoted to our pets, but a new study shows a discrepancy between dog owners and cat owners in terms of the care and attention they give to their animal companions. The international team of researchers behind the study compiled the survey results of 2,117 people across the UK, Denmark,

In July of this year, an asteroid roughly 30 to 60 meters across passed Earth to within one-quarter of the distance to the Moon. It posed no threat to our world, but if it had struck Earth it would have created a blast three times greater than the 2013 Chelyabinsk impact. And we only noticed

In the two years between June 2014 and May 2016, world leaders came together and adopted the landmark Paris Agreement, and the global average sea level rose by a staggering 15 millimeters or 0.6 inches. Although that rise isn’t much more than the length of a fingernail, it was actually a frightening leap on long-term

WASHINGTON — Blue Origin has unveiled a full-sized mockup of an uncrewed version of its Blue Moon lunar lander that will test technologies intended for a crewed version it is developing for NASA’s Artemis effort. In social media posts Oct. 27, the company showed images of the Blue Moon Mark 1 mockup, located at an

A new study from researchers at the California Institute of Technology (CIT) suggests the Long Valley Caldera in eastern California is restlessly tossing and turning as its deep magma chamber cools down for a big, long sleep. The last time the volcano blew was roughly 100,000 years ago. Long before that, it spewed up enough

Dutch-born Christiaan Huygens is probably one of the most famous physicists you’ve never heard of. His work in the late 17th century straddled both the intangible and tangible realms of our Universe: the nature of light, and the mechanics of moving objects. Among his many contributions, Huygens proposed a wave theory of light that would

Certainly, lots of people believe in ghosts – a spirit left behind after someone who was alive has died. In a 2021 poll of 1,000 American adults, 41% said they believe in ghosts, and 20% said they had personally experienced them. If they’re right, that’s more than 50 million spirit encounters in the U.S. alone.

Our Sun is a steady and everlasting companion. Reliable like a clock, its apparent passage across the sky allows us to measure time. The Sun and its path is also the source of Earth’s seasons. But in many respects, our Sun is far from calm and unchanging. Close up, the Sun shows extensive variation and

Diaper waste is a real problem, with an estimated 300,000 of them disposed of every single minute worldwide. Now, scientists may have come up with a solution: a process of turning a key part of these diapers into recyclable liquid in just five minutes. The team behind the innovation, from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology

‘Painting’ with fluorescent markers has long been a handy way to detect unique double-stranded structures in DNA. Once limited to a palette of just 256 colors, scientists can now create stunning works of laboratory art with incredible 16 million shades and hues. The new technique accurately recreates digital images with 24-bit color depth, and the

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — The governments of Australia and the United States have signed an agreement that could allow American rockets to launch from Australian spaceports, although it is unclear how much demand there is for them. The U.S. State Department announced Oct. 26 that the two countries signed a technology safeguards agreement (TSA) regarding space

Highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) has been confirmed in the Antarctic region after brown skuas on Bird Island, South Georgia, tested positive for the virus. These are the first identified cases of avian influenza in the Antarctic. Researchers have previously expressed concern about the devastating impact an outbreak could have on many wildlife species in

Sliding care-free through the complete emptiness of space, light covers a constant 299,792,458 meters every second. No more, no less. This all changes when that wave of electromagnetism is forced to negotiate the electromagnetic fields surrounding bits of matter. Passing through this quagmire, light’s overall speed can slow to a relative crawl. We see this

Sometimes, years of painstaking excavation work are required to uncover the artifacts of the past – and sometimes, as with a recent earthquake in Mexico City, much of the hard digging work is done by nature. The 7.6-magnitude earthquake occurred on 19 September 2022, near Mexico’s west coast, killing two, and the rumbling was felt

Mars may have a hard, dusty shell, but its interior is layered like a jawbreaker – and surprisingly squishy. Two new papers published in the journal Nature detail the way seismic data reveals the specifics of the Martian interior. Each shows a 150 kilometer (93 miles)-thick layer of molten silicate rock at the base of

An ancient river system that has not seen the light of day for at least 14 million years has been discovered underneath the East Antarctic Ice Sheet, new research reports. With ice-penetrating radar and satellite data, Durham University glaciologist Stewart Jamieson and colleagues mapped the topographic features of the landscape hidden beneath the East Antarctic

LAS VEGAS — United Launch Alliance now plans to launch its first Vulcan Centaur rocket on Christmas Eve, carrying a commercial lunar lander. The company announced Oct. 24 that the launch of the Cert-1 mission, the inaugural flight of the Vulcan Centaur, is scheduled for Dec. 24 from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

Each year, humans worldwide eat over 100 billion bananas, most of which are a type called the Cavendish. But perhaps not for long. A fungal disease threatens to wipe Cavendish bananas off the face of the Earth. Some scientists are genetically modifying the fruit to be more resistant to disease. But the best solution to

With their whip-like tails, human sperm propel themselves through viscous fluids, seemingly in defiance of Newton’s third law of motion, according to a new study that characterizes the motion of these sex cells and single-celled algae. Kenta Ishimoto, a mathematical scientist at Kyoto University, and colleagues investigated these non-reciprocal interactions in sperm and other microscopic

An extreme drought in parts of the Amazon has led to a dramatic drop in river water levels, exposing dozens of usually submerged rock formations with carvings of human forms that may date back some 2,000 years. Livia Ribeiro, a longtime resident of the Amazon’s largest city, Manaus, said she heard about the rock engravings

If there’s a man in the Moon, as the old beliefs go, he’s a pretty venerable one. Earth’s lunar companion is thought to have formed not long after the planet itself, some 4.4 billion years or so ago, when the Solar System was young. It was then, according to theory, that a Mars-sized object smacked

Researchers have identified increased levels of sodium (Na+) and chloride (Cl–) ions dissolved in wells across the US, a trend which shows the nation’s groundwater is getting saltier. Working for the US Geological Survey (USGS), the team behind the survey suggests that the rising salinity is going to have implications for infrastructure, ecosystems, and human

Desert-dwelling bacteria that feed on sunlight, slurp up carbon dioxide, and emit oxygen could be incorporated into paint that supplements the air in a habitat on Mars. It’s called Chroococcidiopsis cubana, and scientists have developed a biocoating that emits measurable amounts of oxygen on a daily basis while reducing the amount of carbon dioxide in

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Space Force is exploring the use of small geosynchronous satellites to enhance military communications networks — either through purchased commercial services or government-owned constellations. “We’re trying to leverage new capabilities from the commercial industry,” Clare Hopper, chief of the Space Force’s Commercial Satellite Communications Office, said Oct. 19 at the annual

For years, they sleep. Nestled in shallow burrows a few feet beneath North America’s eastern forests, billions of nymphs belonging to the Magicada genus patiently await a time that’s quite literally prime for their emergence. Come one spring evening, around 13 or 17 years after hatching, the immature insects rise as one in the cool

The Universe is flooded with billions of chemicals, each a tiny pinprick of potential. And we’ve only identified 1 percent of them. Scientists believe undiscovered chemical compounds could help remove greenhouse gases, or trigger a medical breakthrough much like penicillin did. But let’s just get this out there first: it’s not that chemists aren’t curious.

An ancient society that once called the Sahara desert home survived for nearly a millennium without water from regular monsoons or continuously flowing rivers. The forgotten civilization was known as the Garamantes to the Romans, and it was the first urbanized society known to establish itself in a desert. Despite the location, its people not

When it comes to Mars and our ongoing efforts to understand that planet’s ancient habitability, evidence is so far elusive. But scientists have an idea where the evidence is likely hiding: in sediments. New research shows that an ancient mud lake is a good place to explore. Where should we search for evidence of life

After years of policymakers push-starting the solar power sector, its engines may finally be rolling on their own. Researchers in the UK have put together three different models to track snowball events in technology and the economy, and the simulations suggest solar power is well on its way to becoming the world’s main source of