Science / 18

This is what space smells like

July 01, 2020

The smell of the perfume has been verified by the astronauts themselves. "Through sheer determination, grit, a lot of luck, and a couple of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, we got it out". The extraterrestrial explorers have described the odour of space as the smell of seared steak, welding fumes, hot metal, rum, raspberries and a little like gunpowder too.

Eclipse of the moon July 4, will be visible throughout U.S.

July 01, 2020

According to WCNC , it's when the moon passes through Earth's outer shadow, called the penumbra. A penumbral lunar eclipse will occur during the evening hours on Saturday, which will be visible throughout the continental United States. Usually, the occurrence of an eclipse is observed in pair, either a solar eclipse is followed by a Lunar Eclipse or vice versa. Mainly clear conditions will also lead to uninterrupted viewing in parts of Texas, the Midwest and the Canadian Prairies.

Aquariid Meteor Shower Tonight

July 01, 2020

Last week, the Lyrid meteor shower reached its peak, treating stargazers to up to 20 meteors shooting through the sky per hour. The Eta Aquariid meteor shower is set to dazzle stargazers in early May and if you're looking to catch the celestial show, here's the best time to see it.

Golden State Killer Pleads Guilty to 13 Murders, Over 50 Rapes

July 01, 2020

He will serve 11 consecutive terms of life without parole, with 15 concurrent life sentences and additional time for weapons charges, Holliday said. In the first case, Deangelo pleaded guilty in the 1975 shooting death of Visalia resident Claude Snelling, 45, who was killed as he tried to protect his daughter from being kidnapped by an unknown man who had broken into the family's home.

Saharan Dust Could Impact Kansas

June 30, 2020

He added: "Conditions are unsafe in many Caribbean islands". In recent years, a Saharan air layer has not traveled as far west. It's all to do with the Saharan Air Layer, a layer of baking hot and dry air in the atmosphere that travels around 10 to 25 meters per second (33 to 82 feet) above the cooler surface air of the Atlantic Ocean.

Spacewalking astronaut loses mirror, newest space junk

June 30, 2020

U.S. Commander Chris Cassidy said the mirror floated away at about 0.3 meters per second. The lost item posed no risk to either the spacewalk or the station, according to NASA. The new batteries provide an improved and more efficient power capacity for operations. They have four more to plug in before the job is complete. According to Mission Control, the mirror went detached from the spacesuit of Cassidy.

NASA releases epic 10-year timelapse of Sun

June 30, 2020

Standing guard in an inclined geosynchronous orbit in space around Earth, it has massed over 20 million gigabytes of data over the last ten years and enabled countless discoveries about the intricate workings of our 4.6 billion-year-old star and how it influences the entire solar system.

Astronomers discover two super-Earths orbitting a star 11 light-years away

June 30, 2020

This indicates that the two super-Earth move quickly, even much faster than mercury . The discovery was made by an worldwide team, including those from the University of Hertfordshire, Open University and Queen Mary University of London.

First Warning Forecast: Tracking summertime heat and storms

June 30, 2020

Today will be hot, humid, and breezy with Heat Index values between 100-104! Partly cloudy, warm and slightly more humid tomorrow night, with lows right around 70 degrees. Rain will be limited for the week ahead with the bulk of the storm chances occurring at night including a slight chance the next couple nights. There are signs of storms during this time according to one model however because the storms will be very isolated and the other model keeps the area will keep it out of the 8 day ...

Coronavirus found in sewerage collected months before first reported case

June 30, 2020

The discovery of virus genome presence so early in Spain, if confirmed, would imply the disease may have appeared much earlier than the scientific community thought. Then they ran tests on samples taken between January 2018 and December 2019, and found the presence of the virus genome in one collected on March 12, 2019.

NASA releases stunning 10-year time-lapse of the Sun

June 29, 2020

This video has been seen greater than 16 lakh occasions to this point. During that time, the SDO has captured high-resolution images every 0.75 seconds, resulting in 425 million images of the Sun. "The images where the Sun is off-center were observed when SDO was calibrating its instruments", NASA explained. Firstly, the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) is a battery of four telescopes created to photograph the Sun's surface and atmosphere.

Full moon to light up the night sky on Fourth of July

June 29, 2020

The Lunar Eclipse that will occur in July will be Penumbral Lunar Eclipse which when the Moon passes through Earth's penumbra which causes a subtle dimming of the lunar surface. For this eclipse, only a small portion of the moon will cross into the penumbra, making it harder to see. This cosmic event is of three kinds: total, partial, and penumbral.

Kansas State football players warn of boycott after Floyd tweet

June 29, 2020

Multiple Kansas State football players have released a joint statement saying they won't practice, play or meet until their "demands are heard and actions taken ". Kansas State spokesman Jeff Morris said America First Students is now not registered on the campus. Kellis Robinett covers Kansas State athletics for The Wichita Eagle and The Kansas City Star.

Take a coronavirus break and check out tonight's supermoon

June 29, 2020

The " Super Pink Moon ", which occurs when there's a full moon and the Earth is closer to the moon than usual, should be at its peak illumination tonight at 10:35 p.m EDT. Weather across the United States is packed with clouds at the moment, and you'll need clear skies if you have any hope of basking in the Moon's glory.

NASA unveils 10 years of solar activity in stunning time lapse video

June 28, 2020

NASA has celebrated the 10-year anniversary of its Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) by releasing a stunning time-lapse video showing the evolution of the Sun's atmosphere over that period. For the goal of the time-lapse, NASA compiled a photo of the Sun taken every hour down to a 60-minute video. The video shows the rise and fall in an activity that occurs as part of the Sun's 11-year solar cycle and notable events, like transiting planets and eruptions.

Amazon launches $2bn fund to invest in climate change mitigation

June 28, 2020

And he said: "We believe that the actions we need to take to achieve our zero emissions target can help to deliver a stronger, cleaner, more sustainable and more resilient economy after this pandemic - and already there are over 460,000 United Kingdom jobs in low-carbon businesses and their supply chains".

SpaceX to launch 57 more Starlink satellites this evening

June 28, 2020

SpaceX, owned by Elon Musk, is preparing to fire another Falcon 9 this evening from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, after several consecutive launches for Starlink and the U.S. This week, SpaceX will be deploying two Earth observation microsatellites made by BlackSky Global in space, along with its own 57 Starlink satellites.

LIGO and Virgo find a mystery object in the "mass gap"

June 28, 2020

The gravitational-wave patterns revealed that the smaller object was 2.6 times as massive as our sun. And that's where the classification problem arises. As the two black holes tumbled into each other, they tore into and kicked up material in the disk, generating a piercing flare that lasted for roughly a month.

Authorities report 447 aftershocks following 7.5 degree quake that shook Mexican states

June 28, 2020

The epicentre was near Crucecita, in the southeastern state of Oaxaca, but the shock wave was felt as far away as Mexico City, some 700 km distant, where it sent frightened residents rushing into the streets. "It was strong, very strong", she said. Mexico's Pacific coast is located along the seismically active "Ring of Fire", an area of fault lines that encircles the Pacific Ocean.

NASA offering $35,000 prize money for best `lunar loo` design

June 27, 2020

There is also a separate Junior category aimed at children under 18. Because of this, the toilets will have to work in microgravity and lunar gravity which is one-sixth of Earth's gravity. The astronauts will be eating and drinking, and subsequently urinating and defecating in microgravity and lunar gravity, said the U.S. space agency.

Super-earths discovered orbiting nearby red dwarf #113625

June 27, 2020

However, their masses are much lower compared to icy mammoth planets of our solar system such as Neptune and Uranus. The newly discovered super-Earths could be rocky worlds, and lie close to the " habitable zone " of this red dwarf star - i.e.

NASA shares stunning time-lapse video of the Sun! Watch

June 27, 2020

SDO, who has been looking at the sun and capturing its movement, has led NASA scientists to compile together every recording to produce a time-lapse video. However, despite the SDO keeping its eye pointed toward the Sun, it did miss a few moments. While an instrument failure resulted in a longer blackout in 2016.

United Kingdom told to put green issues at heart of post-pandemic recovery

June 27, 2020

Electricity: Networks should be strengthened to assistance electrification of transportation and heating. Climate Action Tracker, a collaboration between German-based Climate Analytics and the New Climate Institute, measures government action against a globally agreed aim to limit warming to safe levels.

Mexico natural disaster: Powerful 7.7 M quake kills 6, tsunami inform issued

June 27, 2020

Mexico's oil refinery in Salina Cruz, some 143 km from La Crucecita, briefly suspended operations as a precaution, and restarted once more. Civil protection coordinator David Leon said that more than 20 hospitals were damaged in the country, Deutsche Presse reported.

NASA Scientists Think There Could Be Life On One Of Jupiter's Moons

June 26, 2020

The full findings of the study were presented at the 2020 Goldschmidt geochemistry conference , which is being held virtually from June 21-26. The ocean on Europa , which is one of the largest moons in our solar system, may have formed after water-bearing minerals broke down.

New planetary system discovered just 32 light years away

June 26, 2020

Mercury - the closest planet to the Sun - orbits our star every 88 days. A young, Neptune-size planet has been found orbiting nearby star AU Microscopii , 31.9 light-years away from Earth. Not only is the detection of exoplanets hard in these systems, but they are also very rare because a system's period of planetary formation is relatively short compared to the life of a star, the authors wrote.

Facebook to notify when you share old news

June 26, 2020

Facebook announced Thursday that it would introduce a notification screen warning users if they try to share content that's more than 90 days old. Hegeman said Facebook's research has found "that the timeliness of an article is an important piece of context that helps people decide what to read, trust and share" and that some news organizations have complained that sharing of older stories purported to be current news "can misconstrue the state of current events".

Seattle's National Hockey League and WNBA arena to be called Climate Pledge Arena

June 26, 2020

But instead of being called Amazon Arena or some such corporate extrapolation, the new facility will be called Climate Pledge Arena and is billing itself as the first zero-carbon certified arena in the world. The greenest ice in the world using rainwater, refrigerants with zero greenhouse gas emissions and electric Zambonis. It was just a matter of when and where.

New Tropical Depression Forms Over Eastern Pacific

June 25, 2020

The storm's maximum sustained winds were near 45 miles per hour (75 kph) but weakening is expected during the next day or two as Dolly moves over colder waters, the Hurricane Center said. From here the storm will move northeast and quickly run into waters too cold to support further development. The weak tropical storm made landfall near Tamiahua in eastern Mexico on June 20, 2016.

Gravitational waves reveal lightest black hole ever observed

June 25, 2020

The cosmic merger described in the study, an event dubbed GW190814, resulted in a final black hole about 25 times the mass of the sun (some of the merged mass was converted to a blast of energy in the form of gravitational waves ). In between the two is a "mass gap" where, for uncertain reasons, no compact objects seemed to form. How will researchers ever know if the mystery object was a neutron star or a black hole? Specifically, they can work out the mass of each object in the collision ...

Dust from Sahara Desert about to blanket parts of US

June 25, 2020

The hot, dry and often dusty air moves off the west coast of Africa and over the Atlantic Ocean. The Weather Channel stated the plume is noted for its thickness over the Caribbean Sea. It's even visible from the International Space Station. The latest forecast from the U.S. National Weather Service shows the plume then spinning eastward, spending several days over states including Alabama and Georgia, then weakening and moving back out to the Atlantic Ocean by the middle of the week.

'Mystery object' in space may be smallest black hole

June 24, 2020

The Australian National University (ANU), which participated in the research , explained that the "cataclysmic event" was detected on August 14, 2019, by gravitational-wave discovery machines in the US and Italy. When new gravitational waves are detected, an alert is sent to astronomers world-wide, triggering dozens of ground- and space-based telescopes to start searching for a fireball ignited by the collision.

Saharan dust plume to impact conditions in Kansas City over weekend

June 24, 2020

What's unique about it this year? The plume of dust should hold together and travel north Friday, Saturday and Sunday, impacting conditions in Kansas City. The dust significantly lowering visibility and reducing air quality. Expect a bit more haziness to the sky, and of course vibrant sunrise and sunsets.

Pluto’s icy crust may be hiding ocean

June 24, 2020

This heat could have been enough to melt ice and form a subsurface ocean. It is generally assumed that Pluto, the far-flung dwarf planet with a giant heart emblazoned on one side, came together as lots of cold material accreted into a huge icy ball.

Virgin Galactic signs agreement with NASA

June 24, 2020

As part of its agreement with the Johnson Space Center , the space tourism company will identify entities keen to buy private missions and develop training packages, as well as aid in transportation, on-orbit and ground resources. "W$3 e are proud to share that insight in helping to grow another market for the new space economy". Virgin Galactic is best known for its plans for sub-orbital space tourism flights, in which people will be taken to the edge of space on its SpaceShipTwo spacecraft.

Mexico quake kills at least five and causes panic

June 24, 2020

While the facades of some buildings suffered damage, there were no reports of fallen structures, she said. The dead included a worker from state oil company Pemex, who fell from a height. Two weeks later, a second powerful quake struck near Mexico City , bringing down dozens of buildings and killing hundreds. Because oceanic crust is relatively dense, when the Pacific Ocean floor encounters the lighter continental crust of the Mexican landmass, the ocean floor is subducted beneath the ...

NASA Will Help Virgin Galactic Design Its Private Space Missions

June 23, 2020

The stock has surged almost 45% so far in 2020, largely due to optimism about demand for private space travel , even though it continues to lose money . "RFI will be released next week". Across a range of programs and destinations, NASA is catalyzing innovation and leading the way toward a positive future in space.

Hubble Captures Stunning Images of Dying Stars Gone Haywire

June 22, 2020

When viewed from afar, the stars , belching out gas and material with energy, produce patterns, and Hubble captured them in all their glory. In addition, the two nebulae have some rather interesting features: they are bipolar, have lobed shapes flowing from a tighter core that point towards some intricate engagements that once took place in the nucleus of those glowing clouds .

First egg ever found in Antarctica may come from extinct sea lizard

June 21, 2020

The fossil, which looks like a deflated American football, was kept in a Chilean museum and was nicknamed The Thing . According to the researchers, the millions year old fossil egg, measuring 29 cm by 20 cm (8 inches by 11 inches), is the second-largest egg in the world.

Virus already in Italy by December, waste water study finds

June 19, 2020

The first non-imported case of COVID-19 in Italy was diagnosed in the small town of Codogno, in the Lombardy region, in late February. The ISS said the results confirmed the "strategic importance" of sewage water as an early detection tool because it can signal the virus's presence before cases are clinically confirmed.

'Ring Of Fire' Solar Eclipse Will Be Visible This Week, Report

June 19, 2020

The annular solar eclipse on June 21 will start off as a partial eclipse at 9:15am IST and will attain its maximum form at 12:10p IST. The longest day of it is a mid-year solstice when the Earth's tilt towards the Sun is at its most noteworthy.

SpaceX plans to build floating spaceports for Moon, Mars missions

June 19, 2020

The launch of SpaceX's Falcon 9 booster rocket, carrying its Crew Dragon capsule, meant that the United States regained the ability to launch astronauts into space, following the cancellation of NASA's space shuttle program in 2011. The SpaceX's Mars-colonizing missions may not launch from terra firma . "But you could get within a few miles of the spaceport in a boat", he said in another tweet.

'Ring of fire' eclipse to darken 1st day of summer

June 19, 2020

On Dec. 14, the moon will once again pass directly between the Earth and the sun , but this time, it will create a total solar eclipse. During a total solar eclipse, the Moon fully blocks the Sun, with the people on Earth unable to see it and there being complete darkness.

Our galaxy may have 36 active communicating intelligent civilizations

June 19, 2020

The new study relates to Fermi's paradox , a longstanding conundrum of astronomy that asks how there can be a lack of evidence of extraterrestrial civilizations when the probability of other life is so high in the universe. New estimations came out by the University of British Columbia suggests that there may be as many as one Earth-like planets for every five Sun-like stars in the Milky Way Galaxy .

Fossils from Mongolia, Argentina show some dinosaurs laid soft-shelled eggs

June 19, 2020

The researchers looked at fossilized eggs of two dinosaurs, Protoceratops , and Mussaurus for their study. A soft-shell fossil egg of a marine reptile found in Antarctica . The same was true for the Mussaurus specimen. It dates back to about 66 million years ago - just before the dinosaurs became extinct. "We had to come up with a brand-new proxy to be sure that what we were seeing was how the eggs were in life, and not just a result of some unusual fossilization effect".

A Green Glow Has Been Detected in the Martian Atmosphere

June 17, 2020

Night glow stems from the interaction of sunlight with atoms and molecules in the air. The phenomenon has always been predicted to occur on other planets, but the Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) - a joint European-Russian satellite at Mars - is the first to make the observation beyond Earth.

Dozens of extraterrestrial civilizations likely exist in the universe, scientists say

June 17, 2020

Scientists also added that we would "not be surprised" by the alien life, and that it would likely be similar to humanity. However, the nearest distance to any potentially habitable planet in the Milky Way is 17,000 light-years away, which makes even communicating with them a now impossible feat.

Tom Cruise planning to shoot his next film in space

June 17, 2020

For now, there's no movie studio attached to the project, but I think a few of them will be lining up to fund it if Cruise turns up at their door with a good script and the backing of NASA. Filming was halted for a time after he hurt his ankle while shooting a rooftop-to-rooftop jump in Mission Impossible: Fallout, a film in which he also hung from a flying helicopter.

Unilever to invest ?1 billion in climate change fund over 10 years

June 17, 2020

It appears that this commitment will hold for Unilever's entire supply chain, from the sourcing of the materials it uses, up to the point of sale. Projects are likely to include landscape restoration, reforestation, carbon sequestration, wildlife protection and water preservation.

Star Wars Celebration Canceled, Set To Return In 2022

June 17, 2020

Though the world seems to finally be getting a grip on fighting the coronavirus pandemic, many festivals are still choosing to play it on the safe side and cancel this year's festivities, with this year's Star Wars Celebration now joining the list.