Astronomers have detected the presence of ammonia mixed in with the rusty colouration of Pluto’s surface. This could have fascinating implications for the icy dwarf planet, as researchers have detailed in two new studies. Firstly, that ammonia-tainted ice hints at a salty, organic-rich ocean hiding beneath Pluto’s surface – one that may contain the right
Month: May 2019
The U.S. is getting serious about returning to the Moon. NASA NASA has selected three companies to send landers to the surface of the Moon, part of its ambitious new lunar programme to land humans on the surface of the Moon by 2024. Each of the companies will develop landers that would take equipment, including
WASHINGTON — NASA announced May 31 the award of more than $250 million in contracts to three companies to deliver NASA payloads to the lunar surface by 2021. The agency said it awarded contracts to Astrobotic, Intuitive Machines and OrbitBeyond to carry up to 23 payloads to the moon on three commercial lunar lander missions
Based on this recently released snapshot of the night sky captured by NASA’s Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER), we can safely assume Superman gets no sleep at night. Just look at that thing. The sparkling dots and tangled loops are the result of nearly two years of effort to study cosmic sources of X-rays
Highveld mole-rat and Natal droptail ant Dewald Kleynhans / University of Pretoria While we humans suffer from the heat of spicy chilli on our tongue and the burn of wasabi as it shoots from our nose to brain, one species of African mole-rat doesn’t seem to feel any pain at all. As discovered in 2008
In the crop fields of Argentina, bees have been building nests for their young out of some strange materials. For the first time, scientists have found bee nests made entirely out of plastic waste. A lot of plastic in the form of packaging comes into farms, and often makes its way into the landscape. The
“What we observed today was successful test,” said Kent Rominger, Northrop Grumman’s vice president and capture lead for the OmegA launch system. WASHINGTON — Northrop Grumman on Thursday conducted a full-scale static fire test of the first stage of OmegA, the company’s new rocket it is developing for national security missions. Company officials called it
Earth is not one to sit still. For roughly 3 billion years, our planet has been perpetually recycling its ocean floor, swallowing up old oceanic crust in some areas and pouring out new seabed in others. Diamonds, it would seem, are the beautiful byproducts of all this restlessness. Tipped off by tiny traces of trapped salt,
On May 29, 1919, a solar eclipse forever altered our conception of gravity, rewrote the laws of physics and turned a 40-year-old, wild-haired scientist into a global celebrity – the very personification of scientific genius. It was a very good day for Albert Einstein. The 1919 eclipse across South America and Africa provided direct evidence
A member of search and rescue inspects a home in Trotwood, Ohio, on May 28, 2019, after powerful tornadoes ripped through the US state overnight, causing at least one fatality and widespread damage and power outages. – One fatality has been reported so far, an 81-year-old-man in Celina, Ohio, which is about a 90-minute drive
Deep below the frozen wastelands of Antarctica, scientists have discovered ancient tectonic plate structures that are having a huge impact on melting patterns around the continent’s largest ice shelf. The hidden rock, in place for hundreds of millions of years, is controlling water flow around the gigantic Ross Ice Shelf. This shelf currently acts as
WASHINGTON — NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said the administration’s request to add $1.6 billion to the agency’s 2020 budget to start work on the Artemis lunar program was not “dead on arrival” despite a lack of action on it by House appropriators. Speaking at a NASA Advisory Council meeting May 30, Bridenstine argued that the
A lab-created analogue of a black hole has provided new evidence that these mysterious space objects really do emit radiation. This evidence is indirect: physicists have shown that the analogue has a temperature, which is a necessary prerequisite for the eponymous radiation predicted by Stephen Hawking. Under general relativity, a black hole is inescapable. Its
Russian cosmonauts have brought the total spacewalking time off the International Space Station to nearly 60 days, while paying tribute to the first man to walk in space. Expedition 59 commander Oleg Kononenko was on his fifth spacewalk but colleague Alexey Ovchinin was on his very first when they stepped out of the Pirs airlock
SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Singapore, the tiny Southeast Asian city-state, is an unlikely place for a farming revolution. An employee pollinates strawberry plants at Sustenir Agriculture’s indoor farm in Singapore May 24, 2019. REUTERS/Edgar Su With tiered fish farms, vegetable plots atop office buildings and lab-grown shrimp, the island aims to beef up its own food
WASHINGTON — Inmarsat on May 30 announced an order with Airbus Defence and Space to build three satellites using a serial production method that will enable faster build times for follow-on spacecraft. The reprogrammable geostationary satellites mark the beginning of London-based Inmarsat’s seventh-generation fleet, previously referred to as Global Xpress Flex, or GX Flex. The
As far as mysteries of nature go, ball lightning is one of the more perplexing. It seems there are as many potential explanations as there are sightings, but in spite of decades of intense interest, none stand out as a clear winner. One of the weirder hypotheses claims these glowing balls are nothing more than
A Canadian man has pleaded guilty to smuggling thousands of live medicinal leeches into the country, bundled up inside a reusable grocery bag, according to the Canadian government. Ippolit Bodounov will pay a US$15,000 fine for the slimy heist, and had to turn over his nearly 5,000 leeches to authorities, Environment and Climate Change Canada
When you get close to a blazing star, you can discern a region where medium-sized planets like our own icy Neptune are scarce. Known as Hot Neptunian Deserts, these rings of intense irradiation and heat are found right across the Universe – but they may not be as inhospitable as we once thought. Like Icarus
The research vessel REV REV Ocean Kjell Inge Rokke carved out his fortune by being a ruthless corporate raider in the fishing industry. He started by purchasing a 69-foot trawler in Seattle in 1982 and selling fish off a boat before returning to Norway where he built a fleet. He now owns nearly 67% of
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