Astronomers have discovered an unusual carbon-based molecule – isopropyl cyanide – in the gaseous star-forming region Sagittarius B2. The discovery, made using the ALMA radio telescope array, suggests that the complex molecules needed for life may have their origins in interstellar space. The astronomers, from Cornell University, the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy, and […]
To provide better freedom of movement for astronauts, MIT scientists are designing a skintight spacesuit that uses shape-memory alloys to effectively shrink-wrap the suit around the astronaut’s body. The development of the second-skin spacesuit could see the end of the conventional, bulky, gas-pressurized suit. Dava Newman, a professor of aeronautics and astronautics at MIT, explained […]
After a 10 year journey, the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Rosetta spacecraft has rendezvoused with the 2.5 mile-wide comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in the region of space between Mars and Jupiter. Rushing towards the inner solar system at around 30,000 miles per hour, the strangely shaped comet is presenting Rosetta’s controllers with some enormous challenges in establishing […]
Harvard-Smithsonian scientists speculate that little green men may not be “green” at all, and finding them might be a simple matter of looking for industrial pollution in the atmospheres of exoplanets. The remote analysis of distant planets for signs of pollution is discussed in the latest issue of The Astrophysical Journal and the scientists who […]
The slopes of a giant Martian volcano, once covered in glacial ice, may have been home to one of the most recent habitable environments yet identified on Mars, according to new research led by Brown University geologists. Nearly twice as tall as Mount Everest, Arsia Mons (pictured) is the third tallest volcano on Mars and […]
Scientists conducting a series of experiments on the International Space Station say that some micro-organisms can survive for long periods exposed to the hostile environment of outer space. The findings, published in theAstrobiology Journal, lend weight to the concept of panspermia, where life on Earth emerged from bacterial colonies transported on comets and asteroids. The […]
Astrophysicists have discovered an entire star cluster that has been ejected from the galaxy known as M87 at more than two million miles per hour. The newly discovered cluster, which astronomers named HVGC-1, will now travel forever through intergalactic space. “Astronomers have found runaway starsbefore, but this is the first time we’ve found a runaway […]
Discovered using NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) and Spitzer Space Telescopes, a brown dwarf star only 7.2 light years distant appears to be the coldest of its kind – as chilly as Earth’s North Pole. “It is very exciting to discover a new neighbor of our solar system that is so close,” said Kevin […]
The two images at top reveal debris disks around young stars uncovered in archival images taken by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. The illustration beneath each image depicts the orientation of the debris disks.Using a new image processing technique, astronomers combing through data from the Hubble Space Telescope have identified five planetary disks around young stars […]
Niacin, or vitamin B3, could have been delivered to Earth by carbon-rich meteorites, say NASA researchers, whose findings support a theory that the emergence of life on Earth may have been assisted by a supply of key molecules created in space and brought to Earth by comet and meteor impacts. “Vitamin B3, also called nicotinic […]
