One of the greatest puzzles in astronomy, and one of the most difficult to solve, concerns the formation and evolution of galaxies. What did the first ones look like? How did they get so massive? A tiny galaxy just 20 million light-years away could be one piece of the puzzle. A critical difference between the …
Apollo 17 Commander Eugene Cernan is covered in moon dust after the mission’s second moonwalk. On December 14, 1972, Cernan took his last steps on the moon and no one has returned since. NASA/JSC hide caption toggle caption NASA/JSC Apollo 17 Commander Eugene Cernan is covered in moon dust after the mission’s second moonwalk. On …
50 years after the last Apollo astronauts went to the moon, NASA is finally coming back Read More »
A new study from the University of Chicago and the University of Washington explains for the first time why the Southern Hemisphere is stormier than the Northern Hemisphere. Above: An extratropical cyclone off the coast of Australia in 2012. Credit: NASA For centuries, sailors who sailed the world knew where the most fearsome storms lay …
The southern hemisphere is stormier than the north, and we finally know why Read More »
An artist’s impression of SKA-Low antenna arrays.Credit: DISR After 30 years of planning and negotiations, construction begins this week on the Square Kilometer Array (SKA), the largest radio astronomy observatory in the world. The giant instrument – which will be built at sprawling sites in Australia and Africa – will collect radio signals from celestial …
Most galaxies are built around huge black holes. While many of them are relatively docile, like the one at the center of our Milky Way, some are ferocious – gobbling up surrounding material and releasing huge, extremely bright jets of high-energy particles far out into space. WATCH THE VIDEO: First look at the monster black …
The mystery surrounding huge black holes finally solved Read More »
Despite water conservation regulations prohibiting daytime watering, irrigation sprinklers spray water onto a lawn of degraded soil, July 12, 2022, during California’s historic drought. Photo: Robyn Beck/AFP via Getty Images The Colorado River is drying up. This day has come since the agreement to share its waters was reached exactly 100 years ago, signified most …
Is the American West finally ready to kill the lawn? Read More »
Credit: Shutterstock Everyone saw the lightning and marveled at its power. But despite its frequency – around 8.6 million lightning strikes occur worldwide every day – why lightning proceeds in a series of stages from the thundercloud to the ground below has remained a mystery. There are a few textbooks on lightning, but none have …
Why does lightning zigzag? Finally an answer to the mystery Read More »
Mussel spat collection on Te Oneroa-a-Tōhe/Ninety Mile Beach is a regular occurrence, with spat going to most mussel farms in the country. It’s a $380 million a year industry. But most mussels from New Zealand aquaculture farms come from spat collected at Te Oneroa-a-Tōhe/Ninety Mile Beach, which in turn came from other sites in Northland, …
Origin of Ninety Mile Beach Mussel Spat Finally Revealed Read More »
Researchers at Rice University have developed a method to predict how crystals form based on their internal chemistry, even when the crystal lacks symmetry. This depiction of a silver nitrate crystal has eight edges, none of which match the others. The Rice team’s algorithm was still able to predict its shape. Credit: Luqing Wang/Rice University …
For something that emits no light that we can detect, black holes love to blanket themselves in radiation. In fact, some of the brightest light in the Universe comes from supermassive black holes. Well, not really black holes themselves; it is the material that surrounds them as they actively suck up large amounts of matter …
We Finally Know How Black Holes Produce the Brightest Light in the Universe Read More »
