Science

For just the sixth time in recorded history, astronomers managed to catch a glimpse of an asteroid before it slammed into Earth. On 19 November 2022, nearly four hours before impact, the Catalina Sky Survey discovered an asteroid named 2022 WJ1 on an inbound trajectory. A network of telescopes and scientists sprang into action, accurately

As the world warms up, vast tranches of permafrost are melting, releasing material that’s been trapped in its icy grip for years. This includes a slew of microbes that have lain dormant for hundreds of millennia in some cases. To study the emerging microbes, scientists have now revived a number of these “zombie viruses” from

Many of us rely on GPS (Global Positioning System) to estimate travel times, find our way to new places, avoid traffic congestion, keep track of the kids, and generally avoid getting lost. But it’s not always the most reliable of systems, especially in built-up areas where it’s difficult to get a straight line of sight

PARIS — The European Space Agency has selected its first new astronauts in more than a decade, although long-term flight opportunities for the agency’s astronaut corps remain uncertain. At an event here immediately after a briefing on the agency’s new three-year budget Nov. 23, ESA announced a class of 17 people it selected as a

At the end of October, a Mississippi resident made a rare discovery along the drought-stricken Mississippi River – a fossilized jawbone from an American lion that roamed the area roughly 11,000 years ago, according to McClatchy News. It’s only the fourth fossil of the ancient American lion found in Mississippi, according to the news outlet.

Physicists have long struggled to explain why the Universe started out with conditions suitable for life to evolve. Why do the physical laws and constants take the very specific values that allow stars, planets, and ultimately life to develop? The expansive force of the Universe, dark energy, for example, is much weaker than theory suggests

Seventeen hundred years ago, a female spider monkey was presented as a treasured gift – and later brutally sacrificed – to strengthen ties between two major powers of pre-Hispanic America, according to a new study. The paper, published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), compared the offering by Maya elites

Is there anything good about volcanoes? They can be violent, dangerous, and unpredictable. For modern humans, volcanoes are mostly an inconvenience, sometimes an intriguing visual display, and occasionally deadly. But when there’s enough of them, and when they’re powerful and prolonged, they can kill the planet that hosts them. Modern-day Venus is a blistering hellscape.

Fast-melting glaciers are releasing staggering amounts of bacteria into rivers and streams, which could transform icy ecosystems, scientists warn. In a study of glacial runoff from 10 sites across the Northern Hemisphere, researchers have estimated that continued global warming over the next 80 years could release hundreds of thousands of tonnes of bacteria into environments

The new procurement would be the follow-on to the $94 million Launch Manifest Systems Integration contract that Parsons Corp. won in 2019 WASHINGTON — The U.S. Space Systems Command has started market research for its next procurement of payload integration services, according to a request for information published Nov. 18. The Space Force is trying

Researchers dug up two fossils belonging to ancient, flappy, and snouted arthropod relatives from what’s now a sheep field near Llandrindod Wells in Wales. At only 13 and 3 millimeters (about 0.5 and 0.1 inches), these minuscule fossils from the Ordovician period may not seem like much to look at, but their familiarity kept paleontologists

Say hello to ronnagrams and quettameters: International scientists gathered in France voted on Friday for new metric prefixes to express the world’s largest and smallest measurements, prompted by an ever-growing amount of data. It marks the first time in more than three decades that new prefixes have been added to the International System of Units

The Romans certainly knew what they were doing when it came to road-building, and new research shows that the routes they mapped out thousands of years ago are still linked to areas of prosperity today. In other words, if you live close to the Roman road network established more than 2,000 years ago, you’re more

A flash of light emitted by colliding neutron stars has once again upended our understanding of how the Universe works. Analysis of the short gamma-ray burst spat out as the two stars merged revealed that, rather than forming a black hole, as expected, the immediate product of the merger was a highly magnetized neutron star

Air pollutants kill around 7 million people every year. Much of this pollution is tiny particles suspended in the air which, when inhaled, can cause people to develop heart and lung diseases, as well as cancer. Small particles in the atmosphere also birth clouds, whether they are crystals of sea salt from the Southern Ocean

WASHINGTON — A SpaceX Dragon launching soon to the International Space Station is the last cargo version of the spacecraft the company expects to build, with one more crewed spacecraft under construction. At an Nov. 18 briefing about the upcoming SpaceX CRS-26 cargo mission to the station, NASA and SpaceX announced the launch, previously scheduled

Tardigrades are tiny, incredibly tough animals that can withstand a wide range of dangers, including many that would obliterate most other creatures known to science. Different tardigrade species have adapted to specific habitats all over the Earth, from mountains to oceans to ice sheets. Their resilience can also help them survive accidental adventures beyond the

Underneath a temple in the ancient ruined city of Taposiris Magna on the Egyptian coast, archaeologists have uncovered a vast, spectacular tunnel that experts are referring to as a “geometric miracle”. During ongoing excavations and exploration of the temple, Kathleen Martinez of the University of Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic and colleagues uncovered the

Martian moon Phobos is not long for this Universe. According to astronomers’ calculations, the potato-shaped satellite is drawing slowly, but inexorably, closer to its host planet. Eventually, within about 100 million years, the gravitational interaction between the two bodies will tear Phobos apart, giving the red planet a temporary dusty ring. According to a new

The link between habitat destruction, climate change, and the emergence of new viruses has never been more evident than during the pandemic. The arrival of SARS-CoV-2 and the spread of COVID-19 brought into sharp focus how human activities such as deforestation can bring wild animals bearing viruses closer to humans. In a new study, researchers

Higher end AirPods have the potential to act as hearing aids for adults with mild to moderate hearing loss, according to new research that put the Apple-made earbuds up against traditional hearing aids in a series of tests. The findings could transform the lives of millions of people who don’t currently make use of hearing

BREMEN, Germany — Spire Global has unveiled a new-generation satellite bus to meet demand for larger and more capable satellites. The 16U platform was announced at the Space Tech Expo Europe in Bremen, Germany, Nov. 15. It is focused on meeting demands of Earth observation and space domain awareness customers with missions that require larger

A new kind of black hole analog could tell us a thing or two about an elusive radiation theoretically emitted by the real thing. Using a chain of atoms in single-file to simulate the event horizon of a black hole, a team of physicists has observed the equivalent of what we call Hawking radiation –

Cats have a bit of a reputation for standoffishness, especially compared with dogs. But if you find your feline friend is a little hard to bond with, maybe you’re just not speaking their language. Research shows that it’s actually not so difficult. You just need to smile at them more. Not smile in the human

After two failed attempts, NASA has successfully launched its Moon-bound megarocket the Space Launch System, which will travel beyond the far side of the Moon and back – further than any other habitable spacecraft so far. The Artemis 1 mission is the first step in NASA’s plan to return to the Moon for the first

ORLANDO — Space Perspective, a company offering tourist flights into the stratosphere, is buying a ship it plans to use as an oceangoing launch platform for its balloons. The Florida-based company announced Nov. 15 it acquired a ship called MS Voyager that it is converting to serve as a launch platform for its Spaceship Neptune

The first land plants to evolve penetrating root systems, around 400 million years ago, may very well have triggered a series of mass extinctions in the ocean. The expansion of plants onto terra firma was a big moment on Earth, completely restructuring the terrestrial biosphere. According to researchers from Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) in

Everything in the Universe has gravity – and feels it too. Yet this most common of all fundamental forces is also the one that presents the biggest challenges to physicists. Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity has been remarkably successful in describing the gravity of stars and planets, but it doesn’t seem to apply perfectly

Evidence of tattoos found adorning the mummified skins of two women from an ancient town on the bank of the Nile River suggests the lower back has been a trendy tattoo spot for more than 3,000 years. One of the female mummies described by researchers in a recent paper was excavated from the site of