Cassini's Big Sky: The View from the Center of Our Solar System

Cassini's Big Sky: The View from the Center of Our Solar System

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Nov 20, 2009 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (12) | comments 1

(PhysOrg.com) -- When NASA's Cassini spacecraft began orbiting Saturn five years ago, a dozen highly-tuned science instruments set to work surveying, sniffing, analyzing and scrutinizing the Saturnian system.


Mystery of the Solar Tsunami -- Solved

Mystery of the Solar Tsunami -- Solved (w/ Video)

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Nov 19, 2009 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (23) | comments 8

(PhysOrg.com) -- Sometimes you really can believe your eyes. That's what NASA's Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO) is telling researchers about a controversial phenomenon on the sun known as ...


After mastodons and mammoths, a transformed landscape

After mastodons and mammoths, a transformed landscape

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Nov 19, 2009 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (11) | comments 1

(PhysOrg.com) -- Roughly 15,000 years ago, at the end of the last ice age, North America's vast assemblage of large animals -- including such iconic creatures as mammoths, mastodons, camels, horses, ground ...


Mysteriously warm times in Antarctica

Mysteriously warm times in Antarctica

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Nov 18, 2009 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (20) | comments 27

(PhysOrg.com) -- A new study of Antarctica's past climate reveals that temperatures during the warm periods between ice ages (interglacials) may have been higher than previously thought. The latest analysis ...


Baffling boxy bulge

NGC 4710 galaxy: Baffling boxy bulge (w/ Video)

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Nov 18, 2009 | popularity 4.4 / 5 (13) | comments 0

(PhysOrg.com) -- Just as many people are surprised to find themselves packing on unexplained weight around the middle, astronomers find the evolution of bulges in the centres of spiral galaxies puzzling. A ...


Ticking stellar time bomb identified

Ticking stellar time bomb identified (w/ Video)

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Nov 17, 2009 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (9) | comments 0

(PhysOrg.com) -- "One of the major problems in modern astrophysics is the fact that we still do not know exactly what kinds of stellar system explode as a Type Ia supernova," says Patrick Woudt, from the University ...


Close-up movie shows hidden details in the birth of super-suns

Close-up movie shows hidden details in the birth of super-suns (w/ Video)

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Nov 16, 2009 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (10) | comments 1

(PhysOrg.com) -- The constellation of Orion is a hotbed of massive star formation, most prominently in the Great Nebula that sits in Orion's sword. The glowing gas of the Nebula is powered by a group of young ...


MIT scientists pinpoint origin of dissolved arsenic in Bangladesh drinking water

Scientists pinpoint origin of dissolved arsenic in Bangladesh drinking water

Space & Earth / Environment

created Nov 15, 2009 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (20) | comments 0

Researchers in MIT's Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering believe they have pinpointed a pathway by which arsenic may be contaminating the drinking water in Bangladesh, a phenomenon that has puzzled ...


Astronauts finish another spacewalk, still no baby (AP)

Astronauts finish another spacewalk, still no baby

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created 58 minutes ago | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0

(AP) -- A spacewalking astronaut put aside the impending birth of his daughter and blazed through his first-ever venture outside the International Space Station on Saturday.


More than 18 million cubic metres of sand are set to be poured onto the new coastal band of dunes until 2011

Dutch build more dunes against rising seas

Space & Earth / Environment

created Nov 20, 2009 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (6) | comments 0

On the beach at Monster, bulldozers painstakingly turn sand dredged from the bottom of the North Sea bed into dunes in an ambitious effort to safeguard the Netherlands from flooding.


Some 6,000 families were affected by the drought in the Chaco region of Paraguay, particularly indigenous populations

El Nino intensifies Latin America drought

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Nov 20, 2009 | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 0

From a devastating food crisis in Guatemala to water cuts in Venezuela, El Nino has compounded drought damage across Latin America this year.


Hunting for Planets in the Dark

Hunting for Planets in the Dark

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Nov 19, 2009 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (3) | comments 3

A proposed space mission that aims to measure dark energy could also detect planets that current surveys are unable to find.


Astronauts get extra work done in 1st spacewalk (AP)

Astronauts get extra work done in 1st spacewalk (Update)

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Nov 19, 2009 | popularity not rated yet | comments 1

(AP) -- A pair of spacewalking astronauts, one of them a surgeon, hustled through antenna and cable work outside the International Space Station on Thursday and even whipped off an extra chore.


Paleontologists find extinction rates higher in open-ocean settings during mass extinctions

Paleontologists find extinction rates higher in open-ocean settings during mass extinctions

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Nov 19, 2009 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0

Arnie Miller, University of Cincinnati professor of paleontology in the McMicken College of Arts & Sciences, and co-author Michael Foote of the University of Chicago publish their research in the Nov. 20 issue ...


Rich Ore Deposits Linked to Ancient Atmosphere

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Nov 19, 2009 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (3) | comments 0

(PhysOrg.com) -- Much of our planet's mineral wealth was deposited billions of years ago when Earth's chemical cycles were different from today's. Using geochemical clues from rocks nearly 3 billion years old, a group of ...