Today’s science stories run the gamut of the strange and the weird, with several black holes, the effects of space on astronaut blood cells, and how alligator mating dances added to solar science.
The science that dictates our planet is the exact same physics that affects our entire universe. Trying to understand everything around us is just as simple as taking into account all the forces and factors that interact to make everything we see.
Defying expectations, an ultramassive galaxy and many of its cluster companions had already formed most of their stars and become inactive only two billion years after the beginning of the Universe
A research team studying the Poás volcano in Costa Rica, a potential analog for early Mars conditions, finds microbes surviving in extremely harsh conditions. Plus, table-top matter-antimatter experiments, an exoplanet’s complex atmosphere, and how snails and squirrels can help us understand space.
NASA’s Curiosity rover has discovered carbon isotopes on Mars which (on Earth) are usually caused by the degradation of biological methane, leading scientists to examine other potential reasons for the molecules.
With the successful launch of the JWST, the focus turns to the complicated process of unfurling the sunshield and unfolding the mirror. We’ll look at just where NASA is in the process and how much farther we have to go before first light.
New models of sublimating nitrogen show that the process creates enough heat to drive the formation and texture of the polygons in Sputnik Planitia.
Using the ESO’s VLTI, scientists have obtained the deepest and sharpest images of Sagittarius A*. They tracked the orbits of stars and were able to more precisely measure the mass of the black hole.
Analysis of coccoliths An analysis of over 9 million samples of coccoliths whose ages span several million years has led scientists to conclude that changes in Earth’s orbit may have influenced changes in the size and shape of the microscopic algae.
Scientists have measured the composition of the hot Jupiter exoplanet WASP-77Ab as the first step in creating a catalog of exoplanetary atmospheres.