Richard A Lovett is a Portland, Oregon-based science writer and science fiction author. He is a frequent contributor to Cosmos.
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Measuring the mountain tap
Colorado has created an open-air laboratory from ground level to atmosphere in an attempt to comp...
As the world increasingly comes to grips with the realities of climate change, American scientists are setting up a f...
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Plucky Mars rover’s perseverance rewarded
Perseverance’s sample success triggers interplanetary relay race.
NASA’s Perseverance rover on Mars has at last found a rock that’s a hard place. After an initial failed attempt la...
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How close did the Nazis come to building an atomic bomb?
It could have changed the outcome of World War II. Now scientists are using modern technology in ...
Nearly eight decades ago, when Allied forces and Nazi Germany were locked in mortal combat in World War II, American ...
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How to determine if ‘Nazi uranium’ is real or fake
Pinpointing the provenance of uranium cubes linked to German WWII nuclear program.
Scientists looking for ways to determine the sources of illicit nuclear materials have applied a method better known ...
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The uncomfortable balance between biodiversity and carbon capture
We need to solve both critical problems, but win-win solutions are few and far between.
Two of the most pressing environmental problems of the 21st Century – climate change and biodiversity loss – are even...
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Listen up: the sound of science
Can how we speak reflect changes in our mental health? Can ambient sound bring order to loved one...
This article first appeared in Cosmos Weekly on 2 July 2021. For more stories like this, subscribe to Cosmos Weekly. ...
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Listen up: the sound of science
Can how we speak reflect changes in our mental health? Can ambient sound bring order to loved one...
Worried about an aging relative with dementia, or a friend suffering from mental illness? New help may be on its way ...
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Return to the Forgotten Planet
Could Venus have once supported life? Four planned missions should go a long way towards finding ...
With scientists increasingly excited about the possibility that Venus might once have had an ocean capable of support...
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Kepler 52 and Kepler 968: Young exoplanet siblings
The exoplanets Kepler 52 and Kepler 968 are really part of a bigger system.
Two exoplanet systems - Kepler 52 and Kepler 968 - that have been drifting across the galaxy for hundreds of millions...
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Sonic deception: stealth moths
If you evolve to live in the dark, it’s handy if you develop some predator-evasion attributes.
Forget stealth military jets. Moths were there first. But rather than dodging enemy radar, they’re playing a differen...
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Really big black holes
What are some of the largest known black holes in our universe?
Dying stars can form black holes up to five times larger than once thought possible, scientists have discovered. B...
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Motivating mighty mitochondria
Here’s good news if you’ve gotten a little lazy: you’ll draw health benefits almost instantly fro...
Health researchers have long known you don’t have to train like an Olympian to stave off obesity, diabetes, and the o...
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Cleaning up the greenhouse
Getting to zero emissions is one thing – what are we going to do with what’s already in the atmos...
To stave off dangerous levels of global warming in the next 80 years, scientists warn, it won’t be enough just to red...
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Earthquake early warning? There’s an app for that…
Forget going high-tech to give citizens warning of an earthquake: mobile phones and a decent inte...
An app that converts smartphones into makeshift seismometers and could save lives by providing early warning of earth...
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Ingenuity: mission extended
So successful is tiny Mars helicopter Ingenuity that NASA’s decided to extend its mission.
NASA’s Ingenuity Mars helicopter worked so well on its initial test flights that NASA has decided to extend its missi...
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How did Perseverance make oxygen on Mars?
MOXIE converts carbon dioxide from the atmosphere with electrochemistry.
Two days after NASA scientists proved it’s possible to fly a helicopter in the thin Martian atmosphere, another team ...
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Ingenuity rules (and flies)
Brief hover demonstrates that controlled flight is possible in thin Martian atmosphere.
After an eight-day delay due to a software glitch, NASA’s Ingenuity Mars helicopter has had its Wright Brothers momen...
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Perseverance has found a place to deploy Ingenuity
NASA’s rover has found its Kitty Hawk.
Kitty Hawk is the place where, in 1903, the Wright brothers found a suitable field of level ground from which to make...
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Ocean worlds in the solar system
Earth isn’t the only planet with liquid oceans – we examine some others.
Once upon a time, the only world known to have an ocean of water was Earth. Now, planetary scientists think there are...
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Mars and Moon geology: past, present and future
Mars landers and Moon rocks star at this year’s LPSC.
One month after it landed on Mars and beamed back its first “I made it” messages, NASA’s Perseverance rover is limber...
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Rover’s eye view
NASA releases thrilling film of Perseverance landing.
In a staggering series of images that allow viewers to relive landing day from a new perspective, NASA’s Perseverance...
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Perseverance pays off
NASA rover successfully down in Jezero Crater on Mars.
NASA's perseverance rover- It started with the type of chatter you might hear from someone setting up a complex sound...
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Himalayan disaster explained
Researchers believe fatal flash flood caused by landslide, not glacial lake outburst.
A devastating flood last week on the upper reaches of the Rishi Ganga River, in India’s northern state of Uttarakhand...
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Moon work
Humans’ looming return to the lunar surface has set scientists thinking.
With NASA gearing up for a possible return to the Moon as soon as 2024 (and other countries not far behind), scientis...
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Asteroid reward
Is this most valuable five grams on the planet?
There’s nothing quite as pleasurable as exceeding expectations. Japanese scientists have peeked inside the sample cap...
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AAS #237: five things we learned
Here are the key take-outs from the 237th meeting of the American Astronomical Society.
Each January, the American Astronomical Society (AAS) conducts a meeting widely hailed as the “Superbowl of astronomy...
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Milliseconds measure galactic gravity
Data from pulsars widens knowledge of dark matter and gravitational waves.
Scientists measuring tiny changes in the arrival times of signals from millisecond pulsars have found a new way to me...
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Icy asteroids?
Novel study of meteorites raises a swag of Earth-origin questions.
Stony meteorites known as carbonaceous chondrites show signs of liquid water no more than a million years ago, scient...
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The lure of lithium gets serious
Power demand means we need new sources.
Scientists and engineers seeking to power the alternative-energy future are scrambling to find new sources of lithium...
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What our clouds might tell us about Venus
Aerobiology, microorganisms and prospects of life.
Researchers in the emerging field of aerobiology are using microorganisms swept up in the Earth’s atmosphere to probe...
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Fire and rain and the smoke that lingers
Scientists highlight the impact of huge pyrocumulonimbus clouds.
Wildfire-driven thunderstorms, such as those created in Australia a year ago, produce lingering impacts that may affe...
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How COVID-19 looks from above
Satellites show ‘dramatic’ changes during lockdown.
Scientists studying satellite images of the Earth have identified changes linked to COVID-19 lockdowns that may shed ...
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Deep inside the galaxy
New Gaia data release looks back and forward
Scientists working with brand-new data from the European Space Agency’s Gaia space telescope have mapped the precise ...
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Glaciers may answer a Martian mystery
New study offers new theory on faint young Sun paradox.
Rather than flowing across its surface during a warm, wet phase early in its history, the water that carved the river...
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A new way of making oxygen on Mars
Breakthrough process is about more than Perseverance.
In a discovery that may someday help astronauts on Mars, scientists have found a new way of making oxygen under Marti...
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Shining light on the Sun’s source of power
New class of neutrinos ends a chapter of physics.
Scientists working with $AU60 million instrument in Italy have found a new class of neutrinos coming from the Sun tha...
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Astronomers detect rare kilonova explosion
They’re fast, furious, unusual and truly impressive.
Astronomers studying short-lived gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) have detected a rare kilonova explosion in which two neutron...
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Tracing the origins of fast radio bursts
Two teams spot first event in the Milky Way.
Radio astronomers monitoring the sky for unusual events have found a fast radio burst (FRB) in the constellation Vulp...
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Unusual centaur emitting gas and dust
Recent arrival will provide clues to Solar System history.
Astronomers and planetary scientists studying a little-known group of icy bodies called centaurs have found one that ...
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White Dwarf: What is it with all that dust?
Scientists solve another mystery about white dwarfs.
Scientists studying how comets and asteroids break up and vaporize if they get too close to their suns have resolved ...
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Bits of big asteroid found on small one
NASA’s Bennu sampling mission may be a twofer.
Scientists poring over images from the asteroid 101955 Bennu, now being orbited by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft, have...
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Cheers as spacecraft tags asteroid
OSIRIS-REx touches down for a sample of Bennu.
In a brief moment that its principal scientist Dante Lauretta described as “transcendental”, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacec...
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Poised and ready for a date with Bennu
OSIRIS-REx has hopes, dreams and contingency plans.
The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is poised to make a daring landing on asteroid 101955 Bennu, briefly touching down in a tin...
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How frosty ice forms on Pluto’s mountains
Forget what you know about snowfall on Earth.
Frosty deposits of methane ice on the mountaintops of Pluto form by a process very different from that by which snow ...
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The complex history of asteroid Bennu
OSIRIS-REx sends back enough data for six studies.
The more scientists learn about near-Earth asteroid Bennu, now being orbited by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft, the mor...
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The dynamic world of Titan’s lakes
Study shows they can stratify like those on Earth.
Lakes on Saturn’s giant moon Titan can stratify and overturn, scientists say, much like lakes on Earth. They may also...
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Icy Mars lakes
Briny lakes found under the Martian ice cap.
Scientists using ground-penetrating radar have discovered a cluster of lakes beneath the Martian south polar ice cap....
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Welcome, all, to Solar Cycle 25
Experts expect it will be a lot like the last one.
Solar Cycle 24 has officially ended, solar physicists say, and Solar Cycle 25 is expected to be another mild one, wit...
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Venus keeps teasing us about life
Phosphine gas has been detected in its atmosphere.
Scientists studying the atmosphere of Venus have found traces of a rare chemical that on Earth can only be produced b...
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What spaceflight does to body and brain
Two new studies look at the impact on astronauts.
Two new studies have analysed the impact of space travel on humans – and one could be of benefit here on Earth. US...
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Grains of dust revise Solar System history
Scientists study the chemical composition of meteorites.
Asteroids that formed far out in the Solar System appear to contain dust grains that themselves condensed from the in...
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The curious case of the wet meteorites
Scientists find rocky clues to why Earth has the water it has.
Scientists studying a rare type of meteorite have discovered that much of Earth’s water may have formed when our plan...
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How can satellites and telescopes co-exist?
Astronomers discuss life with a growth industry.
Astronomers worried about having their observations affected by the bright trails of satellites streaking through the...
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Did Sun have an early binary companion?
New hypothesis talks of the Oort Cloud and Planet Nine.
In the early days of the Solar System, the Sun may have had a companion star, scientists say, making it part of a bin...
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Bayesian statistics and the hunt for ET
Astrobiologists ponder what finding a sign might mean.
One of the goals of the next generation of giant telescopes, now rapidly nearing completion, is to scour the nearby h...
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Dawn’s close-up look at an active Ceres
Occator crater a source of quite some excitement.
When NASA’s Dawn spacecraft arrived at Ceres in 2015, scientists were expecting to find a relic from the early days o...
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Limited climate impact from fighting COVID-19
Study sees potential in behaviour change, however.
COVID-19 has caused people to greatly cut back on travel, thereby reducing the amount of carbon dioxide and other pla...
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When Mars was like Canada
Analysis suggests early landscape was icy, not warm.
Ancient river channels on Mars may have formed beneath thick ice sheets, scientists say. It’s an important find, b...
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Mars is the place (in space) to be
Three missions, three countries, one destination.
Mars is about to become crowded. When the spacecraft carrying NASA’s Perseverance rover safely launched from Cape Can...
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Bacteria from millions of years ago
They’ve been hiding beneath the South Pacific Gyre.
Scientists studying sediments from the Pacific Ocean east of New Zealand have found bacteria that appear to have surv...
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Volcanoes are still active on Venus
New 3D model shows the planet is churning inside.
For decades, scientists thought the planet Venus was geologically dead. But it turns out it still has plenty of life:...
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Campfires on the Sun
New up-close images reveal some remarkable features.
Scientists studying the first images returned from a new European Space Agency spacecraft have found a remarkable arr...
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Can AI predict future of planetary systems?
SPOCK algorithm does a year’s work in just minutes.
As the number of known exoplanets mounts to more than 4000, astronomers are finding that more and more lie in full-fl...
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Why we love black holes
Big discoveries ramp up excitement and expectations.
In the pantheon of astronomical objects, black holes are among the most amazing. Not only do they swallow large am...
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Planet or not, Pluto started out hot
That’s when its ocean began forming, scientists suggest.
Pluto appears to have formed quickly and with such heat that from birth it had a large ocean beneath a layer of insul...
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Perseverance is just about ready to launch
Even COVID-19 can’t delay NASA’s return to Mars.
In the first step in an 11-year international collaboration to bring Mars rocks and soil samples back to Earth, NASA ...
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Things you can tell from Fermi bubbles
Two teams track a massive galactic explosion.
Faint clouds of gas tens of thousands of light-years above the disc of the Milky Way galaxy are revealing evidence of...
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Did Mars have rings? Will it again?
Moons tell a complicated family story.
Scientists studying the orbits of Mars’ moons have found evidence the Red Planet may once have had rings — and may so...
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As satellites ramp up, so do concerns
Astronomical observations and asteroid detection at risk.
The upcoming launches of large “constellations” of satellites, including 1600 expected to be orbited by the end of th...
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70 million years ago, days were shorter
Fossil exposes how Moon’s distancing is making days longer.
Scientists studying growth bands in a fossil mollusc that lived shortly before the dinosaurs went extinct have determ...
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Molten iron rains down on exoplanet
Planets beyond our Solar System are full of surprises.
Scientists have found signs of rain on a Jupiter-sized exoplanet 391 light years away. But it’s not ordinary rain...
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What’s below the far side of the Moon?
Chang’E-4 sends back some data from down deep.
Scientists using data from China’s Chang’E-4 mission are peering beneath the surface of the Moon with unprecedented c...
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Mars more seismically active than the Moon
InSight has detected hundreds of earthquakes in just 10 months.
NASA’s InSight Mars lander, which touched down in the Elysium Planitia region of Mars on 26 November 2018, has now de...
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Looking at the sea, then the sky
NASA picking the brains of oceanographers in its search for oceans.
NASA is reaching out to oceanographers for help in figuring out how to determine if extraterrestrial oceans are suffi...
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How planetary building blocks were constructed
Arrokoth reveals exciting new information.
Scientists mulling over data returned by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft from a distant worldlet known as Arrokoth hav...
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New clues to the age of Mars
Meteorites, mantle and modelling hint at a different timeline.
Martian meteorites have revealed that the Red Planet may have formed several million years later in the Solar System’...
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Catching frame dragging in action
20-year study verifies Einstein’s prediction of general relativity.
Scientists studying tiny changes in a pulsar’s signal have proven that massive rotating objects drag surrounding spac...
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Inouye’s moment of truth
Telescope produces the goods with this close-up of the Sun.
America’s new Daniel K Inouye Solar Telescope has produced the most detailed solar images ever taken, showing structu...
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So long Spitzer, thanks for all the information
NASA retires an ‘incredible, unique facility’ after 16 years.
NASA’s aging Spitzer Space Telescope, which has been using infrared light to study the cosmos for more than 16 years,...
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Refrigeration chemicals drive Arctic warming
Montreal Protocol an unsung hero of climate change.
Chemicals used in refrigerators and freezers may have been responsible for half of Arctic climate change in the past ...
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Oceans tell us about the end of the dinosaurs?
An asteroid did do the deed then volcanism shaped life in its aftermath.
Scientists studying ocean cores have found new clues as to whether it was indeed an asteroid strike that killed off t...
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Increasing concerns about crowded space
Astronomers even talking about an ‘existential threat’.
Space scientists have long known that the cloud of manmade objects circling the Earth pose a risk to space launches a...
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New findings and hopes for a halcyon era
Astronomers celebrate dawn of a new decade.
Last week, while most of us were still trying to remember to write 2020 rather than 2019 on our documents, 3600 astro...
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The Hubble Constant is constantly perplexing
Astronomers suggest an entirely different way of measuring it.
Astronomers looking at ghostly images of the light from distant quasars have deepened one of the biggest mysteries in...
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We’re going to see a lot more of V Sagittae
Astronomers are excited by a tiny binary star.
A faint star named V Sagittae is poised to become the astronomical object of the century. But don’t hold your breat...
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Wandering black holes leave galactic cores
They’re in a class of their own, astronomers discover.
Rather than staying sedately in the cores of their host galaxies, it seems supermassive black holes may also roam the...
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Water common but scarce in exoplanets
Astronomers study patterns in extra-terrestrial worlds.
Exoplanet atmospheres appear to be unexpectedly low in water vapour scientists say, suggesting these planets may not ...
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A rather different storm on Jupiter
Juno finds things have changed at the south pole.
The new storm can be seen at the lower right of this infrared image of Jupiter's south pole taken by Juno's Jovian In...
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The Congo is deep, as well as long
And it’s a great place to study convergent evolution.
A few years ago, Melanie Stiassny, an ichthyologist at the American Museum of Natural History, plucked a pale, blind,...
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OSIRIS-Rex marks its spot
NASA decides exactly where on Bennu the sample-seeking mission will land.
And the nominations are: the four possible landing sites that made the short list.CREDIT: NASABy Richard A LovettNASA...
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Was Earth’s oxygenation a gradual process?
Modelling suggests a string of major events wasn’t necessary.
By Richard A LovettEarth’s oxygen comes from plants and other photosynthetic organisms. Scientists have long known th...
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To really recover, maybe hold the ice
A cold-water bath shouldn’t be the first choice post-workout.
Cold-water baths – often called ice baths even though the water isn’t always that cold – are a popular post-workout r...
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When storms become stormquakes
Geophysicists link wild weather to seismic waves.
Hurricane Bill, then at Category 4, over the Dominican Republic on 19 August 2009.Jeff Schmaltz, NASA, MODIS Rapid Re...
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Now that’s an active asteroid
OSIRIS-Rex catches Bennu throwing rocks around.
View of Bennu ejecting particles from its surface on 6 Jan 2019, created by combining two images taken by the navigat...
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Playing ukulele in the key of 3D
Early attempt to print an instrument falls short of the real thing.
A 3-D ukulele (left) and a standard modern instrument. Xiaoyu NiuBy Richard A LovettSome musicians are traditionalist...
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First results from close to the Sun
Parker Solar Probe data paint a complex picture.
By Richard A LovettThe first results from NASA’s sun-diving Parker Solar Probe are in, and already they are revealing...
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Magnets and shock absorbers as medical kit
Engineers testing innovative way to staunch blood flow.
Traumatic injuries are the leading killer of people under 40; 30-40% of the deaths come from blood loss.Westend61 / G...
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Still in its spot
Jupiter’s famous storm not on the way out yet, expert suggests.
By Richard A LovettRumours that Jupiter’s Great Red Spot is dying may be premature.The giant storm – larger than the ...
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‘Ice fossils’ from the desert
Algerian meteorite offers new insights into early asteroid formation.
By Richard A. LovettScientists studying an 82-gram meteorite discovered in the mountains of southern Algeria in 1990 ...
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First full map of Titan assembled
Now it’s time to find out more about ‘the Earth of the outer Solar System’.
By Richard A. LovettScientists working with data from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft have assembled the first planet-wide ...
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Using sound waves to target tumours
Researchers trial a clever new way to deliver cancer drugs.
Scientists looking to improve the next generation of cancer treatments have developed a way of using ultrasound to de...
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Voyager’s impact is 1 + 2
Scientists working to understand the nature of a boundary in space.
By Richard A LovettIt has now been confirmed that on 5 November 2018, after a 41-year cruise through the Solar System...
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Small black hole or giant neutron star?
Discovery touches on two of the key questions in astrophysics.
Astronomers have found an object that is either a new class of black hole or the largest-known neutron star, circling...
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Cosmic rays could have produced Titan’s dunes
New study challenges conventional wisdom.
Sprawling fields of dark-coloured sand dunes on Saturn’s giant moon Titan may have been produced by eons of irradiati...
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Star gas reveals clues about planet formation
It could be the source of their atmospheres.
Gas flows in a star system 330 light-years away, scientists say, may reveal how giant, Jupiter-type planets acquire t...
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Beware of a solar storm, scientists warn
They could be more regular than thought.
Solar blow-ups like the Carrington Event, a 1859 solar storm long believed to be the largest in the history of modern...
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New insights into habitability of Venus
Study finds lava flow didn’t contain water.
A lava flow on Venus once believed to have been formed under wet conditions early in the planet’s history was actuall...
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Juno: A near-death experience
NASA finds a way to save the solar-powered aircraft from certain doom.
For two years, NASA’s Jupiter-orbiting Juno spacecraft has been facing a mortal problem. When it arrived at the giant...
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Traffic-light system can predict repeat earthquakes
Detecting the size of aftershocks could help manage them. Richard A Lovett reports.
Earthquake researchers believe they have found a “traffic-light” style warning system that can determine if a big ear...
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Move over Jupiter – Saturn has more moons
A Twitter campaign is calling for help to name them.
Move aside Jupiter. Saturn now has the largest number of known moons of any planet in the Solar System. On 7 October...
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Curiosity finds ancient salty lakes on Mars
It could provide insights into impact of climate change.
NASA’s Curiosity rover has found salt-rich sediments indicating that Gale Crater, which it has been exploring on Mars...
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Gas emissions discovered from interstellar comet
This will help scientists work out what it’s made of.
Astronomers have detected gas emissions from a comet streaking into our Solar System from interstellar space. The co...
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The cosmic web exists
Viewing gas billions of light years away confirms it.
Faintly glowing wisps of gas surrounding galaxies 12 billion light-years away have given astronomers their first chan...
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Drilling down: scientists update estimates of Earth’s carbon reservoirs
A 10-year study finds that it’s massive, compared to carbon above ground. Richard A Lovett reports.
Important as carbon is to the earth’s biosphere – and to its climate via carbon dioxide gas – only a tiny fraction of...
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Nuclear war between India and Pakistan would be a planetary catastrophe
Modelling highlights the disastrous threat of nuclear proliferation in unstable countries. Richar...
In 1983, at the height of the Cold War, a team spearheaded by Carl Sagan horrified the world by calculating that a fu...
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History of Andromeda’s galactic cannibalism
Findings could shed light on the fate of the Milky Way.
In a cosmic detective story of interstellar proportions, astronomers sifting through faint signatures in the halo of ...
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Recovery from last mass extinction
Good news is they stabilised after 1.8 million years.
Marine fossils reveal that it took millions of years for ecosystems to recover from the extinction caused by the aste...
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A long time ago in 12 galaxies far, far away…
The most distant known cluster of galaxies discovered.
Astronomers peering at the most distant parts of the Universe have found the earliest known cluster of galaxies, form...
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Big planet, tiny star
Part of the quest to find supermassive black hole origins.
Astronomers studying nearby stars have found a giant Jupiter-like planet circling a tiny red dwarf star 31 light year...
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How many interstellar comets are out there?
Two sightings in two years suggest there could be lots more.
For the second time in two years, astronomers have spotted an interstellar interloper heading into our Solar System. ...
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Descent on the dark side of the moon is revealed
Chinese scientists have worked out where Chang’e-4 landed.
Earlier this year, on 3 January, China’s Chang’e-4 (CE-4) spacecraft made an historic first by touching down safely o...
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Planet K2-18b is like Earth, but not
The significance of finding water in an atmosphere 110 light-years away.
Astronomers have detected water vapour in the atmosphere of a rocky planet orbiting in the habitable zone of a star (...
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Enormous bubbles near centre of Milky Way
Telescopes capture aftermath of a high-energy event.
Astronomers using radio telescopes in South Africa have discovered a pair of enormous bubbles of high-energy electron...
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The rocks below a famous crater
Geologists examine what unfolded after that asteroid hit.
Scientists drilling into the heart of the Chicxulub impact crater in the Gulf of Mexico have discovered 130 metres of...
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The case for ‘managed retreat’ in the face of climate change
It needn’t be as drastic as it sounds, as Richard A Lovett reports.
As climate change mounts and communities come under increasing pressure from fires, floods, heat and sea level rise, ...
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There’s plenty of room, but no atmosphere
Exoplanet still has a few things to offer, however.
Scientists using a pair of NASA space telescopes have had their first opportunity to peep at the atmosphere of a rock...
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Take that, Jupiter
A giant impact gave the planet a fuzzy core.
Sometime near the dawn of the Solar System, Jupiter appears to have been clobbered by a Neptune-sized planet, in an i...
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Superdeep diamonds have a story to tell
Brazilian rocks may be older than anything on the Earth’s surface.
Tiny imperfections in Brazilian diamonds have revealed a pocket of the Earth’s primordial past, deep in its interior....
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Can switchgrass make better biofuels?
It ticks a lot of boxes, but we need to know more.
Scientists in the US are turning microscopes on grasses in order to take a whack at global warming. The goal is to ...
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Wildfire smoke ‘supports nuclear winter theory’
Plume from intense Canadian fires kept rising.
Scientists studying wildfire-triggered thunderstorms have confirmed an important element of a nuclear winter theory c...
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Ryugu samples bound for Australia
Hayabusa 2 has made its second collection from the asteroid.
The Japanese space agency’s Hayabusa 2 spacecraft has collected the second of two samples from near-Earth asteroid 16...
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China is going to get hot
Global warming will bring thousands of deaths each year.
Two months ago, climate scientists studying US cities found that global warming could produce killer heat waves causi...
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That age-old Moon age discussion
We know how old it is, but is it?
A study just published in Nature Geoscience confirms a prior study suggesting that the Moon age may be 100 million ye...
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LightSail away
Successful deployment realises a 40-year dream.
A small non-profit organisation has achieved a space-travel feat dreamed about for more than 40 years: proving that i...
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Warming ‘unmatched in the past 2000 years’
Events are happening globally and simultaneously.
Climate-change sceptics sometimes argue that there is no cause for concern from global warming because in the past 20...
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China ready to bring back more Moon rocks
Plans to leave behind a permanent robotic research station.
Fifty years ago, when Apollo 11 blasted off from the Moon for its return to Earth, Moon-walkers Neil Armstrong and Bu...
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Apollo missions impact looking at the Moon
Thanks to Neil, Buzz and the others, we know a lot more about what they stepped on.
The Apollo Moon landings, the first of which occurred 50 years ago tomorrow (Australian time), were not just “one gia...
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Is it time to create artificial blizzards in Antarctica?
It could save the ice sheet, researchers suggest, but not without great cost and risk. Richard A ...
In a plan that sounds more like science fiction than something you’d expect in a major scientific journal, researcher...
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Going caving before going to Mars
NASA puts a test rover through its paces in earthly California.
Scientists looking for ways to search for life on Mars – or to explore safe abodes for long-term bases on the Moon – ...
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Two FRBs nailed in a week
Australian and US astronomers took different approaches.
In less than a week as June became July, two teams of radio astronomers – one in Australia, the other in the US – ann...
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Going to space probably won’t give you cancer, research suggests
But there are quite a few issues to consider. Richard A Lovett reports.
A new study of 418 former astronauts and cosmonauts has found that the time they spent in space doesn’t appear to car...
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Astrobiologists still have eyes for Enceladus
Small it may be, but it excites those looking for life out there.
Although NASA’s new Dragonfly mission to Titan will be the first return to the Saturn system to follow up on the disc...
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Earth 2.0: same same, but better
Astrobiologists are thinking beyond just finding a near twin.
One of the holy grails in the search for extraterrestrial life is to find what astrobiologists call Earth 2.0 – an ex...
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Looking for signs of life on Titan
Cheers erupt as plans for the Dragonfly rover are unveiled.
NASA is returning to Saturn’s moon Titan, this time with a flying, drone-like rover called Dragonfly. In the process...
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Looking for extraterrestrial life
The search for ET is getting more sophisticated.
Astronomers looking for signs of extraterrestrial intelligence are ramping up a host of new methods far more sophisti...
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Planets in multiple-star systems are habitable?
Maybe, but don’t expect life to be easy – or even stable.
In a finding that’s great news for fans of Luke Skywalker’s fictional home planet Tatooine, scientists say planets in...
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There may be a few planets covered in water
The question remains as to whether they are habitable.
Planets covered entirely with water – sometimes to depths of hundreds of kilometres or more – may be more common than...
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Scientists put comet mission on fast track
Bold plan to intercept a comet as it approaches the sun given high priority. Richard A Lovett rep...
Scientists at the European Space Agency (ESA) are working on a new “fast” mission to make the first flyby of a pristi...
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Crowdfunded lightsail mission readies for take-off
Science fiction set to become fact as Bill Nye’s solar spacecraft takes to the air. Richard A Lov...
A US-based non-profit organisation led by science educator Bill Nye is poised to launch a crowd-funded space mission ...
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New sunspot cycle promises to be mild
Link between space weather and El Niño comes under the spotlight.
The sun is nearing the low point of its current sunspot cycle and should start to see an increase in activity again i...
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New class of quasars and the fate of our galaxy
Astronomers looking for the blue ones make a key discovery.
Astronomers peering back in time by studying galaxies so far away that their light has been travelling for more than ...
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The past and promise of Cassini’s legacy
Almost two years after it ended, NASA’s most successful probe is still proving answers, and gener...
Twenty-one months ago, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft ended its mission with a fiery dive into Saturn’s atmosphere. For th...
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Dark matter: when two massive things met
Can the shape of a galaxy point to the nature of dark matter?
Millions of years, ago, astronomers say, a ball of dark matter with the mass of about five million suns appears to ha...
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Study raises concern for sun ‘superflare’
Research finds it’s not just young stars that behave explosively.
Astronomers monitoring data from thousands of distant stars have come to an unnerving conclusion: every 2000 to 3000 ...
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ET ‘habitable zone’ much smaller than thought
Many exoplanets likely have toxic atmospheres, limiting possibilities.
A large number of extrasolar planets that otherwise lie in a star’s “habitable zone” may have poisonous atmospheres, ...
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A myth about a WWII invasion
Astronomy provides the missing details.
In an effort to blend history and science, a team of astronomers has used celestial mechanics to correct a long-stand...
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Warming will cause thousands of deaths in US cities
Modelling shows that failing Paris targets will have large and lethal consequences. Richard A Lov...
The human impacts of global climate change aren’t just about rising sea levels, storms, droughts, and floods. If pres...
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Humans have a metabolic ceiling
Endurance ability is more about food than fitness.
The ultimate limits to human endurance-race performance, scientists say, may not be determined simply by strength and...
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Australia and US lead weakening of national parks
Two million kilometres opened up to industry – and that’s not including marine sanctuaries.
Since the first national parks were created in the nineteenth century, nearly 15% of the Earth’s land surface has bee...
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Evidence of ammonia found on Pluto
NASA data suggests find suggests a possible life-friendly ocean.
Scientists studying data from NASA’s New Horizons space mission have found evidence of ammonia on the surface of Plut...
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Pluto’s insulated underground ocean
Research suggests subsurface sea has been around billions of years.
The base of Pluto’s crust, scientists say, may contain a layer of an exotic form of ice known as gas hydrate, insulat...
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Zapping moon dust produces water
Experiment suggests a possible resource for colonisers.
Laboratory researchers have found a way to liberate water from moon dust, a result that may someday be used to supply...
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Concerns about electric car alert systems
EV engine might be silent, but an EV traffic jam could be deafening.
Scientists are sounding the alarm about potential hazards associated with tones, whirs, beeps, or other sonic-alert s...
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Coal burning blamed for monsoon weakening
Asian rain system deceasing despite global warming driving theoretical increase. Richard A Lovett...
In the past 80 years, the summer monsoon in north-central China has been steadily weakening, scientists say — a probl...
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Cell phones to detect the location of snipers
Using mobile phones to detect shooter distance and direction.
Military researchers are closing in on using cell phones to detect the location of snipers from a single shot. The t...
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Bland, no moons, no craters, no atmosphere
Ultima Thule looks dull, but that’s what make it exciting.
In the first published results from the New Horizons spacecraft’s New Year’s Day 2019 flyby of an object officially c...
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Researchers probe the acoustics of screams
Researchers work to define a primal human vocalisation.
Hollywood's most famous scream: Janet Leigh in the shower scene from Psycho. Credit: Bettman/GettyImages When peop...
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Old gear shows Moon is tectonically active
Apollo-era instruments reveal frequent and powerful quakes.
Scientists pouring over decades-old data from seismometers left on the moon by Apollo astronauts have concluded that ...
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Ride-share companies create, not reduce, traffic congestion
Study finds cars-for-hire business model does nothing to reduce private vehicle use or ownership....
In a blow to the image of ride-hailing services such as Uber and Lyft as solutions to traffic congestion, researchers...
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Asteroid incoming, Bruce Willis little help
NASA organises war-gaming on Armageddon scenario.
Deadly asteroid strikes have long been a staple of science fiction. But last week, NASA used an international confere...
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Biggest danger of an asteroid strike? Lawyers
Blasting away at incoming space rock raises risks of nuclear war.
Governments and space agencies seeking to protect the Earth by changing the courses of a potentially hazardous astero...
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Scientists gear up for asteroid near-miss
A one-in-a-millennium close encounter due in 2029.
Scientists are gearing up for a near miss by the largest asteroid to pass close to the Earth in recent history. The ...
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Earth hit by 17 meteors a day
TUS conference talks about the when and the where.
Every year, the Earth is hit by about 6100 meteors large enough to reach the ground, or about 17 every day, research ...
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A next-gen speech synthesiser
The synthesiser could decode brain neural impulses.
Scientists hoping to construct the next generation of speech synthesisers for the vocally impaired have learned to de...
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Disney princess inspires dark matter detector
Using supercooled water, a nifty approach.
Elsa, from Disney's Frozen, an unlikely inspiration for dark matter detection. Credit: CTRPhotos/Getty Images Scie...
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The sands of time are soaked in urine
Soil salts provides estimates for the beginnings of farming.
Scientists sifting through dirt from a 10,000-year-old archaeological site in central Turkey are seeking a rare treas...
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Grid unlock: simple fixes, better modelling are keys to reliable energy supply
Two presentations at a recent conference point to a more efficient, less expensive power supply. ...
Everyone who’s ever been inconvenienced by a tree limb falling across a power line or a drunk driver colliding with a...
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Now let’s find a pair of black holes
Researchers plan to turn the galaxy into a giant detector.
Last week, scientists studying black holes reported that they’d managed to turn the entire Earth into a giant virtual...
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Protests positive tipping points in climate change
Consumer action as a potential driver for planet-saving strategies.
Often, the news relating to climate change is unrelentingly bleak. The world appears to be hurtling toward a climate-...
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Black hole the size of the solar system
Einstein again proved correct in world-first image across 55 million light-years.
Scientists using radio telescopes scattered across the globe have created the first-ever direct image capturing the b...
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Methane on Mars: opposite results in studies just days apart
Different instruments bring contradictory findings in search for possible bio-signature. Richard ...
In the latest chapter of the now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t-story of the quest for methane on Mars, two teams of scient...
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Beetle juice anti-freeze?
Beetle proteins could revolutionise everything.
Beetles adapted to life at temperatures as low as minus-40 or minus-50 degrees Celsius may hold clues to everything f...
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Springs may flow on Mars every year
Two studies suggest vast underground water reserves rising periodically to the surface. Richard A...
As recently as a billion years ago, scientists say, rivers on Mars were substantially larger than rivers on Earth, po...
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Saturn: bright clumps and a moon like ravioli
Two studies add to the intrigue of Saturn’s rings. Richard A Lovett reports.
A series of flybys by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft in the months before its final plunge into Saturn have revealed five ...
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After 50 years, Apollo’s moon rocks still have much to give
Some samples brought back by the moon-landing missions have yet to be opened. Richard A Lovett re...
The world may be fast approaching the fiftieth anniversary of Apollo 11’s 1969 flight to the moon, but the samples br...
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Scientists seek to send a drone to Saturn’s moon, Titan
There are plans to visit the complex-looking satellite, arriving in 2034. Richard A Lovett reports.
A travel poster, imagining vacations to Saturn's moon, Titan.MARK GARLICK/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY/Getty ImagesScientist...
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Asteroid Bennu is flinging rocks into space
OSIRIS-Rex’s target turns out to be very rare, and very active, posing problems for the mission. ...
Asteroid 101955 Bennu, which NASA’s OSIRIS-REx sample-return mission has been orbiting since 31 December 2018, keeps ...
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Ryugu latest: asteroid is a partially dehydrated ‘pile of rubble’
Japanese researchers publish three studies on the object of Hayabusa2’s attention. Richard A Love...
A one-kilometre-wide asteroid known as 162173 Ryugu, currently being mapped by Japan’s Hayabusa2 spacecraft, looks li...
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Hydropower generates more CO2 than it saves
Whole system analysis finds hydro dams damage downstream ecosystems.
In a blow to the image of hydropower as a source of green energy, scientists have found that damming rivers can indir...
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Next-gen Mars rover may use wheels as feet
Prototype design can ‘walk’ up steep and slippery slopes. Richard A Lovett reports.
Robotics engineers are creating new designs for autonomous extraterrestrial rovers that can roll, step, and scuff the...
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A terrible constancy: the physics of wars
Surprising similarities to armed conflicts of all sizes.
Ever since Chinese general Sun Tzu penned The Art of War, some 2500 years ago, military experts have known there are ...
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Is there life on Mars? Let’s assess the evidence
Since the nineteenth century, the question has been asked.
In 1877, Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli turned his 21.8-centimetre telescope – one of the finest of the tim...
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In the Kuiper Belt, a baffling lack of small craters
Pictures from Pluto and its moon raise questions about the ring of rocks and planetisimals ringin...
Scientists studying photos snapped by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft on its 2015 flyby of Pluto and its giant moon Ch...
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Did volcanoes help kill the dinosaurs?
Separate studies arrive at different results.
Scientists studying lava formations in western India are casting increasing doubt on how important a 66-million-year-...
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Flashes of inspiration: scientists look to moon impacts to better understand near-Earth objects
Rocks hitting the moon have excited attention for at least 1000 years. Richard A Lovett reports.
Scientists are using bursts of light on the moon in an effort to get a better handle on the risk space rocks pose to ...
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Energy and agony: the last-ditch efforts to save Opportunity
In the end, the tough little rover, gravely injured, could not be resuscitated. Richard A Lovett ...
Casting a long shadow in death, the Opportunity rover.NASALike doctors in an emergency ward, NASA scientists tried a ...
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Ultima Thule latest: less Star Wars, more Star Trek
Images from New Horizons reveal unexpected aspects of the Kuiper Belt object. Richard A Lovett re...
Ultima Thule, filmed by New Horizons from 9000 kilometres away. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laborato...
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Dark flight and debris: lessons from the end of China’s space station
When Tiangong-1 crashed into the ocean last year, lots of scientists were watching. Richard A Lov...
Scientists studying the demise of China’s Tiangong-1 space station are uncovering information that can help them unde...
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Using asteroid science to track space debris
It’s about the environment as well as safety. Richard A. Lovett reports.
Scientists trying to track the cloud of space debris that threatens to make it ever more risky to launch and maintain...
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Craters, bulgy mounds and a collar
Richard A. Lovett takes a good look at the latest view of Ultima Thule.
When NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft returned its first images from its New Year’s Eve flyby of Kuiper Belt object Ult...
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US government shutdown threatens lasting space science impact
95% of NASA employees are unable to work, many fearing long-term consequences. Richard A Lovett r...
Last week hundreds of space scientists and astronomers were barred from attending major conferences and ordered to ce...
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NASA’s Ultima Thule mission evokes snowmen, Star Wars and Nazis
Much of the hard data on the Kuiper Belt object is still to arrive, but the mythology is already ...
NASAIn the hours before NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft sped past a distant object known as Ultima Thule, scientists w...
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Bennu and Ryugu: a tale of two asteroids
Comparing and contrasting two worldlets is already proving valuable – and may kickstart the space...
Successful Japanese and US space missions have given space scientists a unique opportunity to study two near-Earth as...
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Shingles in space? Research probes immune system risks to astronauts
Scientists around the world are striving to understand the health risks of space travel. Richard ...
In new research that delivers a blow to hopes of finding safe ways to send humans back to the moon or on to Mars, sci...
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On Neptune’s distant moon, the frost moves
Spring on Triton lasts 40 years, but it’s far from dull. Richard A Lovett reports.
Scientists using a small telescope in Southern California are detecting seasonal changes on Neptune’s giant moon Trit...
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Martian brines might sustain life, study finds
Higher-than-expected oxygen levels could support microbes and more complex organisms – maybe. Ric...
Martian groundwater could contain enough oxygen to support aerobic life, including simple animals such as sponges, sc...
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Astronomers cautiously claim the first ‘exomoon’
Data suggests a moon the size of Neptune orbiting a planet 8,000 light years away. Richard A Love...
Scientists using data from the Hubble Space Telescope have found what appears to be a gigantic moon circling a planet...
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Jupiter and Titan findings underpin troubling news about Earth methane emissions
New modelling suggests estimates for methane’s role in global warming are on the low side. Richar...
Scientists seeking to refine our understanding of global climate change have found that methane is a significantly st...
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Key molecular building blocks may have come from space
Phosphorus, critical for DNA and other biological processes, originated in exploding stars, scien...
A key molecular building block for self-replicating organisms may have originated in deep space, scientists say. Phos...
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To Ultima Thule! What NASA’s New Horizons has planned for the holiday season
A rendezvous with a tiny distant rock has mission scientists biting their knuckles. Richard A Lov...
NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft is closing in on its second encounter with an alien world — a little one nicknamed Ult...
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Darkness looms for NASA’s Dawn
Pioneering asteroid visiting craft is running on fumes and about to shut down. Richard A Lovett r...
Sometime soon, NASA’s Dawn spacecraft, which has been exploring the Asteroid Belt since 2007, will run out of fuel, b...
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NASA’s Lucy in the sky with Trojans
The agency prepares to launch a mission to investigate swarms of asteroids orbiting with Jupiter....
Even as one NASA mission is readying to rendezvous with a near-Earth asteroid this December, another is preparing to ...
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Water worlds are abundant in the universe, researchers say
With so many oceanic planets, “life could be a universal phenomenon”. Richard A Lovett reports.
Ocean worlds that would put the Kevin Costner’s 1995 movie Waterworld to shame may be a dime a dozen elsewhere in the...
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Hot in the city
Detailed mapping reveals an unexpected picture of temperatures in major urban areas. Richard A Lo...
Anyone who lives in a big city knows that on hot days some areas are less unpleasant than others. But an American re...
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When NASA met Bennu
Asteroid-sampling spacecraft gets first glimpse of its target, and the excitement notches up. Ric...
Eyes across a crowded solar system: OSIRIS-Rex spots Bennu (circled) for the first time.NASA / Goddard / University o...
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The Parker Probe: what happens next
NASA has launched the fastest vehicle in history – and it’s in for a wild ride. Richard A Lovett ...
NASA’s latest space mission, the Parker Solar Probe, roared off Cape Canaveral at 3:31 US eastern daylight time on Su...
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Homo erectus were lazy folk
Research suggests ancient ancestors couldn’t be bothered.
Ancient human ancestors known as Homo erectus may have been both intellectually and physically lazy, scientists say —...
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Tiny tunnels in gemstones found to be caused by microbes
Garnet discovery may prompt changes to search protocols for life on Mars. Richard A Lovett reports.
Microscopic tunnels in garnet crystals from Thailand appear to have been created by microorganisms boring into the ro...
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Domestic violence may increase family size
Amazon study links partner violence to more births.
A study in the journal Nature Human Behaviour finds that women in a remote Amazon Basin culture who are brutalised by...
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Droughts meant the end for the Maya
Mexico’s great pre-Columbian civilisation was doomed by lack of rain. Richard A Lovett reports.
The Maya civilisation, which dominated southern Mexico for hundreds of years, appears to have been brought to its kne...
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Mars may be safe from terra-ism
The red planet may never be a green and pleasant land. Richard A Lovett reports.
Colonists hoping to terraform Mars for human settlement may face an obstacle, scientists say: not enough carbon dioxi...
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Dark ribbon around Jupiter reveals magnetic mystery
A painstaking search through historical photos has revealed an unexplained shadowy belt around Ju...
Planetary scientists studying images of Jupiter taken from some of the Earth’s largest telescopes have discovered a m...
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Signs of hidden lake found beneath Martian ice caps
A Mars orbiter has detected radar reflections from what appears to be a 20-kilometre-wide lake of...
Scientists using ground-penetrating radar from an orbiting spacecraft have discovered what appears to be a 20-kilomet...
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Is Triton an ocean world?
Scientists are reevaluating what we know about Neptune’s moon Triton, and sketching plans for a f...
When NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft flew by Neptune’s Pluto-sized moon Triton in 1989, it saw a number of strange featur...
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Juno’s new Jupiter
The goddess-inspired spacecraft is unveiling new breadths and depths of the planet’s innermost se...
In ancient Roman mythology, Jupiter, the king of the gods, had the ability to hide behind a veil of clouds. Only his ...
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Probing the mystery of Pluto’s glaciers
Glaciers seen on the dwarf planet appear to violate physics, prompting a search for explanation. ...
When the first photos came back from NASA’s New Horizons flyby of Pluto in July 2015, one of the biggest surprises wa...
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Planet Nine search finds 12 new Jovian moons
New discoveries include an oddball and the most distant known object in the solar system. Richard...
Valetudo, the Roman goddess of health and hygiene. Now also a small moon travelling in the wrong direction.NLM / Scie...
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The mathematics of flu
Different cities have different influenza seasons.
As Australia braces for what is expected to be an unusually bad flu season, an American researcher has discovered tha...
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Maths and apps promise help for sleepless nights
Fitness tracker data represents a bonanza for sleep researchers.
Researchers concerned about disruptions in the body’s day/night cycle, often called its circadian rhythm, are increas...
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Human aesthetics obstructs tech efficiency
Letting computers work out design often results in incomprehensible forms – and that’s exactly wh...
Computer-assisted advances in optics, photonics, and related sciences are producing new designs so different from any...
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Jupiter’s aurorae put the Earth’s to shame
Images from Juno surprise planetary scientists with unexpected results. Richard A Lovett reports.
Planetary scientists studying the upper atmosphere of Jupiter have discovered unexpected details in bright spots in i...
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Large molecules show Enceladus “clearly is habitable for life”
New findings support, but do not prove, the idea that life may exist on Saturn’s icy moon. Richar...
Large organic molecules are spewing into space from the depths of Saturn’s icy moon Enceladus, scientists say. Exactl...
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Twist in the tail: ‘Oumuamua was a comet, not an asteroid
Calculations show solar system visitor was made of ice, not rock, and definitely wasn’t piloted b...
‘Oumuamua, humanity’s first known interstellar visitor, may have been a comet, not an asteroid, scientists say. That...
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Rare good news: bedrock rise may slow ice melt
GPS data suggests that geological movement might prevent the collapse of the West Antarctic Ice S...
In what appears to be rare good news for sea level rise, bedrock underneath parts of West Antarctica is rising at a r...
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Einstein’s general relativity confirmed
Measurements of warping spacetime bolster case.
In 1919, British astronomer Sir Arthur Eddington traveled to the West African island of Príncipe to take measurements...
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White House takes action on asteroid threats
Major report, announcement, forms policy for detecting and deflecting near-Earth objects, but Don...
The US Government has announced a 10-year project to increase its readiness for preparing for and preventing catastro...
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Day rate: winds accelerate the rotation of Venus
The planet’s dense atmosphere and steep mountains combine to affect the planet’s speed. Richard A...
Strong winds blowing across the tops of mountains on Venus appear to be causing that planet’s rotation rate to speed ...
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Giant Mars dust storm – is it all over for red rover?
NASA’s Opportunity rover is in indefinite shutdown, but researchers are cautiously confident it w...
A giant dust storm has turned day to night over much of Mars, threatening the Opportunity rover and forcing it to shu...
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Hawking’s microbot vision for Alpha Centauri edges closer
Tiny bots and solar sails could travel 4.3 light years in just a quarter-century. Richard A Lovet...
When humans finally venture into interstellar space, the place we are most likely to go first is the sun’s closest ne...
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Drilling into Curiosity’s finds
Richard A Lovett unearths more details of the discovery of organic molecules and seasonal methane...
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover has hit new scientific pay dirt, unearthing “conclusive” evidence of organic molecules — ...
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Dust to dust: the mystery of Tabby’s star deepens
It’s been dubbed the most mysterious star in the universe, and the latest research does nothing t...
Astronomers using small telescopes around the world are unearthing clues to an enigma once dubbed “the most mysteriou...
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Juno gets a new lease of life, and New Horizons wakes up
NASA beefs up and boosts two of its most successful missions. Richard A Lovett reports.
Two NASA space missions are gearing up for the next phases of their exploration of the outer solar system.One, the Ju...
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“Planet Nine” not needed to explain outer object orbits, researcher claims
New hypothesis also potentially explains mechanics of dino-killing asteroid. Richard A Lovett rep...
Scientists studying the most distant known objects in the solar system have found that their orbits can be explained ...
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Dark matter may carry electrical charge
Results from Western Australia may prompt a radical rethink of the properties of the elusive subs...
Scientists studying the “cosmic dawn” — a time when the first stars ignited in the early universe — have found eviden...
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Insights into tetrapod and lizard evolution
Two papers provide exciting answers to very old questions.
Palaeontologists using high-tech methods more commonly associated with medical or crime-scene labs are prying ever-mo...
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Despite how it looks, Hawaii’s volcanic eruption is small potatoes
The images are spectacular, but Kilauea won’t kill anyone, or become a notable eruption. Richard ...
If you knew there was, say, a 0.5% risk that your dream home would burn up in any given year, would you still build i...
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Planets in the Goldilocks zone may be snowballs
Modelling suggests life potential is determined by more than simply distance from a star. Richard...
Earthlike planets circling other stars may be prone to wild climate fluctuations that could make them uninhabitable, ...
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Oldest stars ever seen give clue to the end of Big Bang dark age
Stars that shone just 250 million years after the universe began take astronomy closer to its Hol...
Scientists studying a galaxy more than 13 billion light years away have found stars that formed when the universe was...
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Reducing bubbles help swimmers make a splash
Sports training hack and way to avoid shark attack.
Humans are noisy swimmers. But just how much noise do we make thrashing around in the water, and is there enough of i...
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Real-life cloaking devices one step closer
Proof-of-concept for sound-confounding tech unveiled.
In science fiction, cloaking devices are designed to keep people from seeing things such as Klingon starships or Harr...
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Photosynthesis sounds may help save reefs
Ecosystem health is reflected in the noises made by its plants.
Marine scientists using underwater microphones have managed to eavesdrop on the sound of photosynthesis. The process...
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Eavesdropping on a twister
One scientist believes low-frequency vibrations are the key to a better early warning system for ...
Each spring hundreds of tornadoes rip across the American heartland — so many that a belt from Texas to southern Cana...
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Your next holiday might cost the Earth
New modelling finds tourism accounts for a big slice of global greenhouse gas emissions. Richard ...
Holidays are for relaxing, adventuring, or pampering yourself. But they can also be large contributors to global clim...
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Meteorite find boosts hopes for moon water
A mineral in a moon rock means ice is just below the surface. Richard A Lovett reports.
A rare mineral in a Saharan meteorite points to the presence of significant amounts of ice not far beneath the moon’s...
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Firing rocks from a cannon hints at how water reached Earth
Experiments take the question of water arrival on planets one step nearer to answering. Richard A...
By firing marble-sized rocks from a giant cannon, scientists have found a way in which the infant Earth might have re...
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Diamonds from the heart of a lost planet
Long predicted, scientists believe they now have proof that the solar system once contained extra...
Diamonds in a meteorite recovered from Sudan’s Nubian Desert have revealed traces of a lost planet, possibly as large...
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“Nuclear geyser” may be origin of life
Conditions for life may have been a natural nuclear reactor.
Life may not have originated in the primordial soup of an ancient pond, according to scientists, but rather in a “nuc...
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Evidence mounts for habitability of Venus-like worlds
Climate models show exoplanets like Venus could hold oceans under the right conditions. Richard A...
Venus-like exoplanets might not be super-heated hothouses, say scientists. Evidence is mounting that even Venus itsel...
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Solar superstorms may have helped set stage for life
Huge solar storms that bombarded the early Earth with radiation could have kept the planet warm a...
Nasa Gigantic solar storms may have helped strip unwanted gases from the Earth’s atmosphere, while helping to se...
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Hacking the mind for extreme performance
Athletes must master the space between the ears.
Projected to take as many as 11 gold medals in Rio, the Australian swim team managed just three and was reduced to wa...
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Venus may have hosted life, researchers say
The planet was once cool enough to have liquid water.
The planet Venus may once have been hospitable to life, scientists say — possibly even more so than the early Earth. ...
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Found: a galaxy devoid of dark matter
Containing millions of stars, the find has astrophysicists searching for an explanation.
In a study published in the journal Nature, scientists have found a galaxy that appears to contain no dark matter — t...
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Pluto’s mountains may have slid along a kilometre a day
Research suggests a mountain range moved on top of nitrogen ice. Richard A Lovett reports.
Giant mountains of ice up to 5000 metres tall may have broken off the rim of Pluto’s Sputnik Planitia and “sledded” 1...
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Earth microbes could contaminate space samples, researchers say
Fungi found growing in a supposedly sterile NASA lab raises concerns about the integrity of mater...
Scientists studying “clean” labs in which extraterrestrial objects ranging from meteorites to Moon rocks are stored h...
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Evidence suggests Toba volcanic winter was less lethal than thought
Researchers find at least one human population thrived during a 1000-year volcanic winter. Richar...
Scientists studying two archaeological sites near the extreme southern point of South Africa have discovered that ear...
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Complex organic compounds from dying stars could be life precursors
Lab experiments reveal carbon-based molecules are a by-product of red giants. Richard A. Lovett r...
Laboratory experiments designed to recreate conditions around carbon-rich red giant stars have revealed that startlin...
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Hurricanes over shallow water bring more bad news
The wind was bad, but Hurricane Harvey’s effects on water were potentially even more disastrous. ...
When Hurricane Harvey roared off the Gulf of Mexico to pummel Houston, Texas, on 25 August 2017, it looked like a pec...
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Prevalence and danger of little known tsunami type revealed
Researchers are finding many destructive wave events are caused by storms, not quakes. Richard A ...
On 4 July 2003, beachgoers at Warren Dunes State Park, in the US state of Michigan, were enjoying America’s Independe...
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Robots offer new ways to study sea life
Scuba diving biologists may become an endangered species.
Researchers seeking new ways to explore the ocean have developed an underwater “robotic plankton” inexpensive enough ...
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Drugs and plastics threatening ocean and human health
Sedatives and diabetes meds among the unwanted toxins being flushed into the seas. Richard A Love...
In a series of presentations at the recent 2018 Ocean Science Meeting organised by the American Geophysical Union in ...
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Do massive dark matter “nuggets” lurk in our galaxy?
On the numbers, there’s nothing to stop dark matter condensing into solids 100 million times bigg...
If dark matter particles can cool down sufficiently, they could coalesce into dark planets many times larger than the...
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Ancient stars clue to dark matter speed
Learning about dark matter by studying the oldest stars.
Physicists wanting to learn about dark matter may need to look no further than the motions of the most ancient stars ...
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Galaxy rotations raise doubts on dark matter
Satellite galaxies orbit in a single plane, contrary to standard model predictions. Richard A Lov...
An odd distribution in the orbits of small “satellite” galaxies circling a larger galaxy called Centaurus A is making...
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Mini Ice Age caused by global warming
Isotope analysis reveals detailed pattern of ancient weather event.
Geologists studying boulders left behind by the melting of ancient Canadian ice sheets are confirming a theory that a...
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The seas of Titan communicate with each other
Measuring liquid seas and lakes on Saturn’s moon to an accuracy of just 30 centimetres reveals su...
Drawing on data taken by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft as recently as five months before its final plunge into Saturn’s a...
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Very early galaxies are mature, not turbulent
Imaging galaxies from 13 billion years ago reveals surprising results. Richard A Lovett reports.
Scientists using light from far-distant galaxies as a way of peering back to when the universe was young have detecte...
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Astronomers spinning out over comet rotation
Researchers observe dramatic changes of speed in a comet’s spin, and find lessons for future NASA...
A comet known as 41P/Tuttle-Giacobini-Kresák (or 41P, for short) has astounded planetary scientists by changing its r...
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Iron-rich stars keep planets close to home
US conference hears star iron content predicts orbital size for exoplanets. Richard A Lovett repo...
Small differences in the amount of iron in a star may herald substantial differences in the type of planetary systems...
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Use new telescopes to scout for ET tech, astrobiologists tell NASA
Searching for signs of alien civilisations may answer urgent questions about our own. Richard A L...
Astrobiologists are calling on NASA to use what geologists are learning about a new era sometimes called the “Anthrop...
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Unlike Hollywood, the universe is full of big stars
Research finds massive star numbers have been underestimated – affecting calculations for black h...
Giant stars hundreds of times more massive than the sun may have been much more common in the early universe than pre...
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Plate tectonics: the hidden key to life on Earth
Earth’s constantly moving crust helps keep the climate habitable. If circumstances had been only ...
“Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us.” Carl Sagan was moved to lyricism by the pale blue dot ...
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Wet Mars “doomed from the start”
Basalts on the Red Planet sucked away much of the planet’s early ocean, according to new research...
Scientists have long known that Mars once had water, probably filling an ocean in its northern hemisphere. But today,...
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Art meets astronomy: the JunoCam experiment
A camera on NASA’s Juno craft is a attracting a lot of attention from amateur astronomers and art...
A unique citizen-science project associated with NASA’s Jupiter-orbiting Juno mission has produced dazzling images of...
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Scientists cautiously back Trump’s moon plan
A surprise White House announcement caught experts on the hop, but many see its potential. Richar...
In a White House announcement early last week, US President Donald Trump startled space scientists by issuing a direc...
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Citizen sciences and jet power combine to study eclipse
Several projects extract new details and confirm old models in multi-pronged investigation. Richa...
The total eclipse of the sun on 21 August 2017 lasted less than three minutes for observers on the ground. But eclips...
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NASA’s Juno finds surprise radiation on Jupiter
Geophysical conference hears of new findings about the atmosphere and the roots of the Great Red ...
Scientists using data from NASA’s Juno mission have found zones of unexpected radiation on Jupiter and have been able...
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New Tongan island offers clues to water on Mars
Geophysicist conference hears of similarities between Pacific Ocean island and Martian volcanic f...
The Earth’s newest island is a geological treasure trove that may, among other things, hold clues to questions about ...
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Solar flare puzzle solution?
New theory may explain how stars release bursts of energy.
Giant sheets of plasma bursting into pieces may help produce high-energy magnetic reconnections that set off the enor...
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Where will the next wave of space exploration take us?
One epic period of space exploration has come to an end. Richard A. Lovett looks forward to the n...
The past few years have been a halcyon era for space exploration. In the span of little more than a decade, NASA’s Ne...
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Slowing down the stars
Astronomers probe why stars still form so long after the Big Bang. Richard A Lovett reports.
Astronomers studying a spiral galaxy in the constellation Fornax have found a clue not only to why stars are still fo...
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Radical dark matter theory prompts robust rebuttals
The idea that dark energy and dark matter aren’t needed to explain the properties of the universe...
In 1887, physicists Alfred Michelson and Edward Morley set up an array of prisms and mirrors in an elegant attempt to...
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Measuring the heat beneath the ice
NASA team combines data to uncover temperatures deep underground in Antarctica. Richard A Lovett ...
Scientists studying magnetic signatures in Antarctic rocks are peering beneath the frozen continent’s ice sheets to m...
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Dying star blows aluminium, silicon into space
Research adds clues to how old stars supply the building blocks for new planets. Richard A Lovett...
Astronomers using a giant telescope array on high in the Chilean desert are mapping how solar winds blowing off a dyi...
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Probing the mysteries of the Cosmic Snake
It sounds like a creation myth, but the Cosmic Snake is more like a trick of the light. Richard A...
In a study, the subject matter of which sounds like a topic for a New Age journal, astronomers using the Hubble Space...
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Galaxy produces ‘molecular forests’
New imaging reveals a surprising array of chemicals in massive clouds surrounding new-born stars....
A team of Japanese radio astronomers using a giant radio telescope in Chile has found a startling array of molecules ...
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GPS satellites “the largest dark matter detector ever built”
Physicists pull the global positioning system into the search for the universe’s elusive missing ...
In an effort to solve one of modern physics’ deepest mysteries, scientists have found a way to use GPS satellites as ...
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Visitor from outside the solar system passed us at high speed this week
The scramble is on to learn about a high speed mysterious object before it fades from view. Richa...
A cosmic interloper — perhaps a comet, perhaps an asteroid — hurtled through the solar system last week, stunning ast...
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Fermi’s Paradox finished? Perhaps ET is abundant and we just can’t see it
NASA’s Pluto chief suggests aliens may thrive in subsurface oceans – but be blind to the universe...
Life may be abundant and unseen on planets with subsurface oceans, according to NASA’s Pluto chief.Victor Habbich Vis...
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New evidence for the mysterious Planet Nine
Kooky orbits on the outskirts of the solar system point to the existence of a large undiscovered ...
Scientists studying eight of the most distant known objects in the solar system have concluded that many of them woul...
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Warm weather and wet snow may have doomed Scott of the Antarctic
New climate modelling reveals clues to the explorer’s fate – and to the future of the ice sheet. ...
A new model that allows scientists to reconstruct Antarctic weather from more than 100 years ago has revealed atmosph...
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“Astounding”: the Moon once had an atmosphere
New study finds that not once, but twice, volcanic eruptions left the Moon blanketed by gases for...
Three to four billion years ago, the giant volcanic eruptions that created the Man in the Moon also gave the Moon an ...
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Water found near Martian equator
In a surprising outcome, re-analysing old data finds ice where none was thought to survive, repor...
Scientists taking a new look at old data from NASA’s Mars Odyssey spacecraft, which has been orbiting Mars since 2001...
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Zircons: How tiny crystals open a window into the early history of Earth
Sandgrain-sized zirconium crystals offer scientists time capsules from more than 4 billion years ...
Zirconium is the eighteenth most common element in the Earth’s crust – more common than such well-known substances as...
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How thick is a continent? Seismic waves and diamonds hold clues
Seismologists studying the reflection of seismic waves inside the Earth have measured the thickne...
Seismologists studying the reflections of seismic waves from the thickest parts the Earth’s lithosphere (the layer th...
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What science can learn from a total solar eclipse
160 seconds is a long time in heliophysics
On August 21, when the first total eclipse of the Sun to hit the continental United States in 38 years cuts a swath o...
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Black hole collision reveals clues to early cosmos
A new observation of colliding black holes by LIGO confirms that the era of gravitational-wave as...
Colliding black holes first spiral in towards each other, throwing off ripples in spacetime as they do.R. Hurt / Calt...
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Cassini survives first dive beneath Saturn’s rings
The NASA spacecraft has sent back images from its closest approach ever to the gas giant’s atmosp...
A raw image from Cassini’s dive showing a vortex at Saturn’s North Pole.all images NASA/JPL {%recommended 4917%}NASA’...
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Cassini mission’s final performance a fiery plunge to Saturn
NASA has revealed plans to send the Cassini spacecraft into a death spiral,allowing it to capture...
An artist’s impression of Cassini breaking up in Saturn’s atmosphere.NASA/JPLNASA’s 20-year-old Cassini mission is ab...
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Solar jet stream promises better flare forecasting
The earth’s jet stream has a major influence on weather. Now, it seems like the sun has one, too....
This NASA Solar and Heliospheric Administration (SOHO) image shows a solar flare erupting from a giant sunspot.NASA/G...
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Solving the mysteries of the dino-killing crater
Chicxulub provides clues that might help understand life on Mars.
Scientists drilling into the floor of the Chicxulub impact crater in the Gulf of Mexico are working to increase our u...
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NASA, ESA aim to ram asteroid
A joint mission by NASA and ESA is set to smack into an asteroid in a rehearsal for saving the Ea...
Artist's impression of the binary asteroid Didymos, the ESA satellite watching, the NASA satellite heading in for imp...
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Rosetta makes startling ice discovery on comet
67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko’s close encounter with the sun is giving investigators much to study. R...
Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko continues to intrigue and surprise researchers.Maurizio de Angelis/Science Photo Libr...
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Ancient Earth leaves a fading signature
Rare-earth isotopes are providing clues to the nature of the Earth’s first crust. Richard A Lovet...
Granite such as this along the eastern shores of the Hudson Bay reveal remnants of the Earth's crust.Rick CarlsonScie...
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“Time crystals” latest quantum weirdness
Scientists have fashioned crystals that defy laws of physics.
Two American teams of scientists have independently created the world’s first “time crystals”, but don’t order up a t...
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Humans have created at least 208 new types of mineral
Large numbers of long-lasting new minerals created by human activities may provide an eduring geo...
Scientists have discovered that humans are adding to our planet’s catalogue of mineral types at a rate never before s...
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Australian rocks suggest early Earth may not have had plate tectonics
Evidence from a remote part of Australia has re-energised debate about the role of plate tectonic...
The outer layer of modern Earth is a collection of interlocking rigid plates, as seen in this illustration. These pla...
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Dwarf star hosts seven possibly habitable planets
All bunched in close together, orbiting a tiny star, a newly discovered cluster of rocky planets ...
The TRAPPIST-1 star, an ultra-cool dwarf, has seven Earth-size planets orbiting it. NASA/JPL-Caltech Just when we w...
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Dwarf planet Ceres is flush with water
… but probably as ice crystals and hydrated minerals, new data from the Dawn spacecraft suggest. ...
Comparison of hydrogen content on asteroids Vesta (left) and Ceres (right). On Ceres, hydrogen is concentrated near t...
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Jupiter’s ammonia plumes run deep, Juno finds
With each flyby, the NASA spacecraft tells us more about our solar system’s biggest planet. But i...
Artist's concept of the Juno spacecraft orbiting Jupiter. It made its third flyby on Sunday 11 December, skirting 4,1...
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Rosetta spied shifting dunes on Comet 67P – so how did they form?
Gas whooshing along the surface combined with very low gravity kicked up moving ripples in the co...
Evidence of dune-like structures in the surface dust of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.ESA / Rosetta / MPS for OSIRI...
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Blood spatter models reconstruct crime scenes
Current calculations don’t take resistance & gravity into account.
Forensic teams reconstruct a crime scene using, among other cues, patterns of blood sprayed on walls and furniture. N...
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The quest for the two-hour marathon
Crossing the finish line in two hours would make history.
Runners compete in the men’s marathon at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro on August 21. Eliud Kipchoge of Ken...
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Bizarre bubbles
Sinking air, floating steel and soapy behemoths.
In ordinary life, if we see an air bubble in a fluid, we expect it to rise.But in a paper presented this week at the ...
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Why cat tongues make great hairbrushes
A 3-D printed plastic brush inspired by their raspy spines hooked snags and tangles out with ease...
A 3-D printed brush based on a cat tongue was like a 'heat-seeking missile for snags'.Erika Matsuo / EyeEm / Getty Im...
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Deadly molasses flood surge
A sticky tidal wave that moved faster than Usain Bolt.
When Americans grumble about events taking place too sluggishly, they often complain they’re moving slower than molas...
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Juno in safe mode after engine malfunction
Glitch means the probe is still in its 53-day loop, but NASA scientists and engineers say it’s no...
An artist's impression of the Juno spacecraft making one of its close passes over Jupiter. We'll have to wait until a...
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New Horizons hints at Plutonian clouds and dynamic Eris
The NASA probe just keeps on giving, with more intriguing insights into the outer solar system – ...
New Horizons is set to fly past 2014 MU69 – a Kuiper belt object currently about 1.6 billion kilometres beyond Pluto ...
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Comet-chaser Rosetta ends its mission with a soft thud
After two years keeping Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko company, the European Space Agency’s miss...
An artist's impression of Rosetta shortly before its collision with Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.ESA / ATG mediala...
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Hubble spots water plumes spurting from Jupiter moon Europa
As the moon moved around its gas giant host, the Hubble Space Telescope captured images of what l...
Suspected plumes of water vapour erupting at the 7 o’clock position of Jupiter’s moon Europa.NASA / ESA / W. Sparks (...
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NASA’s bold plan to capture an asteroid rock
Slinging a boulder into lunar orbit will let astronauts take samples and practice skills needed o...
An artist's impression of an Orion spacecraft docking with the robotic asteroid redirect vehicle for astronauts to ta...
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‘We conquered Jupiter’: Juno successfully slots into orbit
Everything hinged on a 35-minute engine burn, but NASA’s spacecraft arrived safely and manoeuvred...
Nearly five years and 2.8 billion kilometres later, NASA's Juno probe is orbiting the biggest planet in our solar sys...
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Juno’s risky rendezvous with Jupiter
If the spacecraft’s rocket doesn’t fire at the right time, its 2.8-billion-kilometre journey will...
As Juno approached its gas giant destination, the Hubble Space Telescope snapped this combined optical and ultraviole...
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Transgender runners at no advantage
Trans female athletes in the Olympics? Only a matter of time.
A year after gender reassignment surgery, trans women have no edge over the rest of the field. Credit: MIKE POWELL / ...
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Humidity could be the killer with climate change
Conditions so severe that the human body can no longer cool itself could make some parts of the w...
A road sign at Marble Bar in Western Australia celebrates the town's brutal climate. But heat may not be the dangerou...
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Watching a baby planet’s birth
Planetary scientists have spotted an infant gas giant hatching from a cloud. Richard A. Lovett re...
The first glimpse of a new baby is a happy event. Just ask the astronomers who spotted a Jupiter-like baby planet – t...
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Maths confirms Pluto’s not a planet
A new formula seeks to define a planet. As Rick Lovett reports, 99% of the exoplanets found so fa...
Images of Pluto taken by New Horizons have awakened affection for the distant body. But should sentiment determine wh...
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Beyond Pluto – New Horizons’ next target
The space probe is now heading to a far more distant Kuiper Belt Object. By Richard A. Lovett.
An artist's rendition of Kuiper Belt Object 2014 MU69 which New Horizons will visit in January 2019. – NASA, ESA, Sw...
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Pluto’s atmosphere, icecaps and other surprises
The dwarf planet is a weird cross between icy Antarctica and smoggy Los Angeles. By Richard A Lov...
New Horizons wowed us with images of giant mountains and glaciers made of frozen gases on Pluto. Now its snapshots ha...
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Pluto: an enigma in close-up
Discovering more about the size, surface and geology of Pluto and its moons hasn’t lessened the m...
Only a month ago, Pluto was one of the most mysterious objects in the Solar System — so remote scientists weren’t eve...
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The end of space exploration?
Plutonium powers New Horizons' study of Pluto but our stocks are running low. Richard A. Love...
NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft will fly close to Pluto this week. On the way it will take hundreds of observations be...
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Wild ride for Pluto and its moons
Shifting gravitational forces around Pluto and Charon created the solar system's oddest orbit...
This composite image from the Hubble Space Telescope shows Pluto and its largest moon, Charon, at the centre. Pluto’s...
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Knocking on Pluto’s door
After nine long years in space, the New Horizons spacecraft will soon fly past Pluto. Richard A. ...
When I was in primary school my parents gave me a book called All About Famous Science Expeditions. I devoured the ta...
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The search for planets beyond Pluto
Some scientists are convinced more planets exist in our Solar System. By Richard A. Lovett.
Artist's concept of the New Horizons spacecraft during its planned encounter with Pluto and its largest moon, Charon....
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How satellites can help prevent illness
Forecast places on Earth vulnerable to outbreak of disease.
We listen to satellite warnings about the likely movement of cyclones and storms. When danger comes, ships and aeropl...
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Shrinking rivers threaten Australia’s super shrimps
Giant river prawns from northern Australia face threats from dams to climate change. Richard A. L...
Daly River is home to Macrobrachium spinipes, a giant freshwater prawn. – Amy Kimber A town of 454 people, Daly Rive...
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Man-made earthquakes cause seismic rumblings
Human activities like mining and fracking can cause temblors.
Sparks, Oklahoma, isn’t a place where you would expect a big earthquake. It’s prairie country, smack-dab in the middl...
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