Science Rocket

09/08/2020

Astronomers have discovered a mysterious stream of ancient stars at the distant edges of the galaxy: a strange stellar breed so unlike any we've seen before, they may very well be the last of their kind.

09/08/2020

NASA's Perseverance rover is about to lift off for Mars to explore the Red Planet's possibilities for life. The powerful machine is expected to roam the surface scanning rocks and other features, to cache the most promising samples to return to Earth in a few years, and to deploy a test helicopter. Here's what to expect as Perseverance gets ready for Mars.

Here are all the major milestones of the Mars 2020 mission to the Red Planet, from launch to landing.

07/08/2020

A faint fuzzy glow around the first black hole image last year baffled astronomers. Now we know what it contains – and it’s more bizarre than we ever imagined

Read more: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24732930-700-black-holes-are-hiding-movies-of-the-universe-in-their-glowing-rings/

A faint fuzzy glow around the first black hole image last year baffled astronomers. Now we know what it contains – and it’s more bizarre than we ever imagined

05/08/2020

For the first time, a telescope has captured a family portrait of another solar system with not just one, but two planets posing directly for the cameras while orbiting a star like our sun.

03/08/2020

Mountain gorillas that live in oversized groups may have to limit the number of strong social relationships they form, new research suggests. Scientists have identified up to seven types of relationship between the animals – ranging from close mother-offspring ties to “weak” associations.

By better understanding these social relationships, we can better understand how diseases would spread through these social groups.

01/08/2020

A species of mouse lemur believed to be new to science has been found in the tropical forests of northeastern Madagascar.

30/07/2020

The researchers have showed that quantum tunneling is not instantaneous—at least, in one way of thinking about the phenomenon—despite recent headlines that have suggested otherwise. “This is a beautiful experiment,” says Igor Litvinyuk of Griffith University in Australia, who works on quantum tunneling but was not part of this demonstration. “Just to do it is a heroic effort.”

A new experiment tracks the transit time of particles burrowing through barriers, revealing previously unknown details of a deeply counterintuitive phenomenon

30/07/2020

This is an experience of gravity that’s only a fraction of the gravity we feel on Earth

Gravity is a force that brings objects together. But when those objects get far away, the force feels small. It feels like microgravity.

30/07/2020

Scientists have developed a new method to find black holes in the outer solar system, and along with it, determine once-and-for-all the true nature of the hypothesized Planet Nine.

30/07/2020

As Robert Phillips neared his 90th birthday, the former diamond cutter decided to return a priceless piece of history to the United Kingdom: a 91-centimeter-long cylinder of rock from the heart of Stonehenge. Now, archaeologists working with the so-called Phillips core have all but conclusively shown that the famed monument’s largest building blocks came from a forest about 25 kilometers away, confirming a long-standing hypothesis.

Rock core drilled out more than 50 years ago points to birthplace of monument’s giant stones

30/07/2020

A key calculation for dating is the Hubble's constant, named after Edwin Hubble who first calculated the universe's expansion rate in 1929. Another recent technique uses observations of leftover radiation from the Big Bang. It maps bumps and wiggles in spacetime -- the cosmic microwave background, or CMB -- and reflects conditions in the early universe as set by Hubble's constant.

Using known distances of 50 galaxies from Earth to refine calculations in Hubble's constant, astronomers estimates the age of the universe at 12.6 billion years.

30/07/2020

A spot in East Antarctica could be an ideal place for an optical observatory, researchers say

The highest point in East Antarctica could be an ideal place for an optical telescope, a new study finds.