Space may be the final frontier, but we can’t go far on rocket fuel. Now, two scientists are working on a device that may one day make the \.
Scientists have scarcely begun studying pristine material from asteroid Bennu brought back to Earth by the OSIRIS-REx mission, but have already found several surprises.
This image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows a globular cluster called NGC 1651. Like another recent globular cluster image, NGC 1,651 is about 162,000 light-years away in the largest and brightest of the Milky Way’s satellite galaxies, the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC).
The snake robot, dubbed Exobiology Extant Life Surveyor (EELS), will one day plunge into the subsurface oceans of Enceladus.
What do margaritas, vinegar, and ant stings have in common? They contain chemical ingredients that NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has identified surrounding two young protostars known as IRAS 2A and IRAS 23385. Although planets are not yet forming around those stars, these and other molecules detected there by Webb represent key ingredients for making potentially habitable worlds.
An international team of astronomers used Webb’s MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) to identify a variety of icy compounds made up of complex organic molecules like ethanol (alcohol) and likely acetic acid (an ingredient in vinegar). This work builds on previous Webb detections of diverse ices in a cold, dark molecular cloud.
What is the origin of complex organic molecules (COMs)?
New James Webb Space Telescope measurements suggest that problems with Universal expansion rates may be caused by something else entirely.
How the Red Planet acquired its two moons, Phobos and Deimos, is unknown – they could have formed after something collided with the planet, or started out as asteroids – but now there is a hint of a cometary origin.
Building on experiments during October’s partial solar eclipse in the U.S, NASA has a once-in-400 years opportunity to study how an eclipse affects Earth’s atmosphere.
A study from the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) which combines laboratory chemistry with astrophysics, has shown for the first time that grains of dust formed by carbon and hydrogen in a highly disordered state, known as HAC, can take part in the formation of fullerenes, carbon molecules which are of key importance for the development of life in the universe, and with potential applications in nanotechnology. The results are published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.
The world of science is full of important constants such as pi and the Hubble Constant, which reveals the universe’s expansion. Edwin Hubble linked red shift to distance, estimating the Hubble Constant at 500km/s/mpc, now revised to 65km/s/mpc.
