Written by: Michael Schirber
Albert Einstein was famous for many things, but his greatest brainchild is the theory of relativity. It forever changed our understanding of space and time.
What is relativity? Succinctly put, it is the notion that the laws of physics are the same everywhere. We here on Earth obey the same laws of [...]
Written by: Seth Shostak of the SETI Institute
Source: Space.com
Incredibly, it’s been only a bit more than a century since Oliver Heaviside consolidated the work of several 19th century physicists into the four compact mathematical formulations known as Maxwell’s Equations. You may gleefully recall them from sophomore physics.
Aside from their display by the rabidly nerdy on [...]
The infamous 2007 WD5 asteroid was once predicted to have a 3 in 1 chance of smashing into the planet Mars causing a real treat for astonomers on Earth. Then as time elapsed, better figures came in, the space scientists began hedging their bets. Then just two weeks ago it was proclaimed that [...]
Here’s a glimpse of the first images astronomers have been able to get from an asteroid that will miss our planet by the narrow margin of 334,000 miles (537,500 kilometers), at 3:33PM ET time today (JAN. 29). That is like a hairs-breath in space measurments, just a tad more distant than our Moon is [...]
100,000 Year Old Skull Unearthed in China
January 24, 2008 || Category: Science News | Leave a Comment
A human skull fossil, nearly intact (16 separate pieces in total, plus the forehead), and at least 100,000 years old has been dug up in China in a near miss find.
Archaeologists working in digs in the Chinese province of Henan were getting ready to close shop in the town of Xuchang after two years of [...]
Is it a human-like statue, a woman from Mars or just a trick of Mars sunlight and shadows on the outcroppings? You decide. Here is your first look at an image spotted in a recent NASA photo from the Red Planet sent by the Spirit Rover.
And they say only amateur UFO enthusiasts take [...]
Written by: Charles Q. Choi — Special to SPACE.com
Antimatter, which annihilates matter upon contact, seems to be rare in the universe. Still, for decades, scientists had clues that a vast cloud of antimatter lurked in space, but they did not know where it came from.
The mysterious source of this antimatter has now been [...]
NASA and JPL have now been determined that asteroid 2007 WD5 will indeed miss Mars scathing by the Red Planet at nearly 3000 miles away, which in space distance is like walking across the street.
The latest bit of data has dropped the chances from 4% to less than 0.01% and will deny astronomical observers a [...]
Source: Fox SciTech News
LOS ANGELES — The chance of a football field-sized asteroid plowing into Mars next month has been increased to 4 percent, scientists said Friday after analyzing archival data.
Though still a long shot, some researchers are hoping for a cosmic smash.
“I think it’ll be cool,” said Don Yeomans, who heads the [...]
Source CNN
Mars could be in for an asteroid hit
If the asteroid strikes Mars, it will probably hit near the equator close to where the rover Opportunity is exploring.
A newly discovered hunk of space rock has a 1 in 75 chance of slamming into the Red Planet on January 30, scientists said Thursday.
“These odds are extremely [...]
“SETI is probably the most important quest of our time, and it amazes me that governments and corporations are not supporting it sufficiently.” — Arthur C. Clarke
SETI@home is a nonprofit educational and research organization that relies significantly on donations to continue operations.
The SETI@home team has achieved much progress in the past year. [...]
Michael Okuda, a long time scenic art director for many Star Trek series over the years, writer and creator of several popular Star Trek technical manuals and one of the main organizers for this year’s huge Trek auction which garnered millions of dollars in bids has moved up the real science food chain and has [...]
Source: CNN Technology
New observations from NASA’s long-running Voyager 2 spacecraft show the solar system is asymmetrical, likely from disturbances in the interstellar magnetic field, scientists reported Monday.
Voyager 2 sailed near the edge of the solar system this past summer following its twin, Voyager 1, in 2004.
The discovery came after the 30-year-old unmanned probe sailed near [...]
Written by: SPACE.com Staff
Missing Matter Caught in Tangled Cosmic Webs
Cosmologists are always complaining about their inability to find the dark matter in the universe, invisible stuff that’s supposedly more prevalent than regular matter. They don’t even know what it is, so of course they can’t see it.
Meantime, a whole bunch of normal matter is [...]
Bringing HD to the “Final Frontier” DirectTV offers to install HD in the newest International Space Station (ISS) Module
Congratulating NASA its most recent completion of a successful shuttle mission to the International Space Station (ISS) and the recent unveiling of a new living space aboard the orbital laboratory, DIRECTV is offering the ISS a complete [...]
Source NASA/Yahoo News
NASA called off today’s launch of space shuttle Atlantis after detecting problems with fuel gauges in the shuttle’s external tank.
Officials will try again Friday to launch the shuttle, NASA said.
Two of the four sensors in the shuttle’s liquid hydrogen tank indicated that the tank was dry, even though there was fuel inside. Three [...]
China is now officially a main player in the international race back to the Moon. And, to show just how serious they are to stay in the race for the long haul, the country displayed its first Moon images captured by the Chang 1 lunar probe it launched just last month.
Chang 1 is currently [...]
Written by: Samuel K. Sloan (FarPoint Media Executive News Director)
In humankind’s constant search for life beyond our own planet by the use of spacefarying probes launched from Earth’s atmosphere, SETI’s mutil-billion dollar arrays listening to every sound coming from the cosmos, lunar probes, International Space Station experiments in orbit around us and those two hard-working [...]
Written by: Robert Roy Britt (Senior Science Writer for Space.com)
A comet that has delighted backyard astronomers in recent weeks after an unexpected eruption has now grown larger than the sun.
The sun remains by far the most massive object in the solar system, with an extended influence of particles that reaches all the planets. But the [...]
Written by: Andrea Thompson (LiveScience Staff Writer)
Scientists Stop Light in ‘Trapped Rainbow’ — Theoretical scheme uses metamaterials to bring light to a stop.
Scientists have worked out how to bring beams of light to a screeching halt inside a material that would separate the light into its constituent colors, creating a rainbow—a trapped rainbow.
To bring light [...]
SCI-FI to SCI-FACT: World’s Most Important Experiments
November 11, 2007 || Category: Science News | 3 Comments
Written by: Emilio D’alise (SoSF Staff Journalist)
The 6 most important experiments in the world (excerpted from Discover Magazine – December 2007), and what they mean to the world of Science Fiction.
1) The Blue Brain Project
An ongoing project aimed at reverse engineering the function of mammalian brains. The project is named for IBM’s contribution of [...]
Is Yellowstone a Ticking Time Bomb With a Short Fuse?
November 9, 2007 || Category: Science News | 5 Comments
Source: Fox Science News
WASHINGTON — Yellowstone National Park, once the site of a giant volcano, has begun swelling up, possibly because molten rock is accumulating beneath the surface, scientists report.
But, “there is no evidence of an imminent volcanic eruption,” said Robert B. Smith, a professor of geophysics at the University of Utah.
Many giant volcanic [...]
Source: Fox News
HOUSTON — Space shuttle Discovery and its crew returned to Earth on Wednesday and concluded a 15-day space station build-and-repair mission that was among the most challenging — and heroic — in shuttle history.
The space shuttle touched down just after 1 p.m., after safely crossing the continent in the first coast-to-coast re-entry since [...]
Source: Space.com
Written by: Ker Than
Scientists announced on Tuesday the discovery of a fifth planet in a distant star system that that now looks like a “cousin” to our own.
Known as 55 Cancri, the sun-like star harbors the most number of planets ever discovered outside our solar system.
“We now know that our sun [...]
King Tutankhamun, the young boy Pharoah of ancient Egypt and one-time ruler of most of the civilized Western and Middle Eastern world, was finally revealed for all to see. The ancient mask and linens have been removed and now we can see what the young ruler of the ancient world looked like. [...]
HOUSTON, Texas (CNN) — Astronauts stepped outside the international space station Saturday morning to fix a ripped solar wing in one of the most difficult and dangerous spacewalking repairs ever attempted.
1 of 2 NASA officials and the astronauts in orbit have worked day and night to plan every detail of the momentous repair mission. [...]
Sending the space race into full throttle, China announced it will launch its first lunar probe this week, an official told gathered press officials today. The launch will take place sometime between Wednesday and Friday of this week, depending on a variety of factors.
A few weeks ago Japan sent its own lunar orbitor into [...]
Source:
The switch has been thrown on a telescope specifically designed to seek out alien life.
Funded by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, the finished array will have 350 six-metre antennas and will be one of the world’s largest.
The Allen Telescope Array (ATA) will be able to sweep more than one million star systems for radio [...]
Written by: Jeanna Bryner (LiveScience Staff Writer)
A paleontologist has discovered a giant footprint most likely left by a towering tyrannosaur as it pounded the Earth 65 million years ago. The footprint, which measures about 2.5 feet (74 centimeters) in length, was found in rocks in Montana’s Hell Creek Formation, a well-known site for [...]
“Star Trek”/”Heroes” actor and powerful human rights advocate George Takei has been immortalized in the heavens with his name permanently affixed to an asteroid between Mars and Jupiter.
Last week the Committee on Small Body Nomenclature of the International Astronomical Union approved the name “7307 Takei” for the asteroid previously labeled “1994 GT9.” The Takei reference [...]
