Right-Front Wheel Rotations

Spirit Rover: Right-Front Wheel Rotations

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Dec 18, 2009 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (5) | comments 0

(PhysOrg.com) -- Spirit's right-front wheel, which had stopped operating in March 2006, revolved with apparently normal motion during the first three of four driving segments on Sol 2117 (Wednesday, Dec. 16) ...


Caltech scientists discover fog on Titan

Scientists discover fog on Titan

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Dec 18, 2009 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (11) | comments 2

Saturn's largest moon, Titan, looks to be the only place in the solar system—aside from our home planet, Earth—with copious quantities of liquid (largely, liquid methane and ethane) sitting on its surface. ...


Calif. space tourism firm launches S. Korea deal

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Dec 18, 2009 | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 0

(AP) -- A California company developing a rocket plane for space tourism announced Thursday that it has an agreement with a nonprofit group in South Korea to conduct launches in that nation.


How water forms where Earth-like planets are born

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Dec 17, 2009 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (10) | comments 1

(PhysOrg.com) -- In a study that helps to explain the origins of water on Earth, University of Michigan astronomers have found that water vapor can form spontaneously in habitable zones of solar systems, and that it develops ...


Glint of Sunlight Confirms Liquid in Northern Lake District of Titan

Glint of Sunlight Confirms Liquid in Northern Lake District of Titan

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Dec 17, 2009 | popularity 5 / 5 (14) | comments 0

(PhysOrg.com) -- NASA's Cassini Spacecraft has captured the first flash of sunlight reflected off a lake on Saturn's moon Titan, confirming the presence of liquid on the part of the moon dotted with many large, ...


Soil Microorganisms? Role Cited as a Missing Factor in Climate Change Equation

Space & Earth / Environment

created Dec 17, 2009 | popularity 3.4 / 5 (7) | comments 0

(PhysOrg.com) -- Those seeking to understand and predict climate change can now use an additional tool to calculate carbon dioxide exchanges on land, according to a scientific journal article co-authored by a University of ...


ROV Jason images the discovery of the deepest explosive eruption on the sea floor (w/ Video)

Oceanographers image the discovery of the deepest explosive eruption on the sea floor (w/ Video)

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Dec 17, 2009 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (9) | comments 1

Oceanographers using the remotely operated vehicle (ROV) Jason discovered and recorded the first video and still images of a deep-sea volcano actively erupting molten lava on the seafloor.


Computer simulation strengthens link between climate change and release of subsea methane

Computer simulation strengthens link between climate change and release of subsea methane

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Dec 17, 2009 | popularity 4.1 / 5 (23) | comments 57

(PhysOrg.com) -- A first-of-its-kind computer simulation that mirrors real-world observations of methane bubbling up from a seabed in the Arctic Ocean provides further evidence that warming oceans may unleash ...


Colliding auroras produce an explosion of light

Colliding auroras produce an explosion of light

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Dec 17, 2009 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (8) | comments 0

(PhysOrg.com) -- A network of cameras deployed around the Arctic in support of NASA's THEMIS mission has made a startling discovery about the Northern Lights. Sometimes, vast curtains of aurora borealis collide, ...


The volume of garbage dumped in landfills every year in Japan has shrunk to roughly one third of 1990 levels

Japan mines toxic e-waste for precious materials

Space & Earth / Environment

created Dec 17, 2009 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (7) | comments 0

Seeking to turn an environmental problem into an economic opportunity, high-tech companies in resource-poor Japan are mining mountains of toxic e-waste for precious materials.


NASA aims to send astronauts back to the moon by 2020, and then perhaps to Mars and other destinations

Top US lawmaker skeptical of new space funding

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Dec 17, 2009 | popularity 4.2 / 5 (6) | comments 4

Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she was personally skeptical of manned space missions and warned that NASA's future funding could depend on whether it was likely to create jobs.


Merapi volcano

Pre-eruption earthquakes offer clues to volcano forecasters

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Dec 16, 2009 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (3) | comments 1

Like an angry dog, a volcano growls before it bites, shaking the ground and getting "noisy" before erupting. This activity gives scientists an opportunity to study the tumult beneath a volcano and may help ...


Hubble Finds Smallest Kuiper Belt Object Ever Seen

Hubble Finds Smallest Kuiper Belt Object Ever Seen

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Dec 16, 2009 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (20) | comments 8

(PhysOrg.com) -- NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has discovered the smallest object ever seen in visible light in the Kuiper Belt, a vast ring of icy debris that is encircling the outer rim of the solar system ...


Fault weaknesses, the center cannot hold for some geologic faults

Fault weaknesses, the center cannot hold for some geologic faults

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Dec 16, 2009 | popularity 5 / 5 (4) | comments 0

Some geologic faults that appear strong and stable, slip and slide like weak faults. Now an international team of researchers has laboratory evidence showing why some faults that "should not" slip are weaker ...


Arctic ice

Study: Earth's polar ice sheets vulnerable to even moderate global warming

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Dec 16, 2009 | popularity 2.8 / 5 (46) | comments 40

A new analysis of the geological record of the Earth's sea level, carried out by scientists at Princeton and Harvard universities and published in the Dec. 16 issue of Nature, employs a novel statistical approa ...