News about PaperPanda, Open Access, and Research
From the outside, humans are pleasingly symmetrical, with arms, legs, and eyes that have matching right and left sides. But inside, it’s a different story: our heart is on the left; our liver is on the right. Lungs and kidneys are also asymmetric. Now researchers have pinned down a gene that helps developing organs find … Read more
By David Robson Dario Mitidieri/Getty Images “WHILE there is infection in disease and sorrow, there is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good-humour.” So wrote Charles Dickens in A Christmas Carol. He was in London in the 1840s, but these words ring true in any time or place. Laughter is one … Read more
NASA’s most expensive telescope ever is in space at last. The $10 billion James Webb Space Telescope, an instrument expected to revolutionize astronomy by gathering light from the atmospheres of alien worlds and the universe’s first galaxies, launched at 7:20 a.m. Eastern Time on a sultry Christmas morning from Europe’s spaceport in French Guiana. Some … Read more
After numerous delays, the biggest space telescope ever has blasted off on Christmas Day, and will begin its science mission in mid 2022 Space 25 December 2021 By Leah Crane The James Webb Space Telescope sits atop an Ariane 5 rocket on the launchpad in French Guiana on 23 December P PIRON/ESA/CNES/Arianespace The James Webb … Read more
The cheers were as loud as the stakes were high. At 7:20 A.M. (ET), the rocket carrying the largest, most ambitious space telescope in history cleared the launchpad in French Guiana, and the members of mission control at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore roared their relief. The suspense is not quite over. Half … Read more
It’s launch day for NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope and after months of delays, the mission is lifting off on Christmas Day (Dec. 25) in what may be the biggest gift astronomy has ever seen. The Webb space telescope is scheduled to lift off from the Guiana Space Center in Kourou, French Guiana, at 7:20 … Read more
Astronauts on the International Space Station shared a festive message for people on Earth as they prepare to spend the holidays in orbit. Expedition 66 crew members, including NASA astronauts Raja Chari, Thomas Marshburn, Kayla Barron, and Mark Vande Hei, ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer, and Roscosmos cosmonauts Anton Shkaplerov and Pyotr Dubrov, will be celebrating … Read more
The rocket that will finally launch NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope today (Dec. 25) has begun fueling for liftoff. About four hours before the planned Christmas morning launch, the Ariane 5 rocket began filling up with 175 tons of propellant; 150 tons of liquid oxygen and 25 tons of liquid hydrogen are now flowing into … Read more
The forthcoming launch of the James Webb Space Telescope offers unprecedented new opportunities for astronomers. It’s also a timely opportunity to reflect on what previous generations of telescopes have shown us. Astronomers rarely use their telescopes to simply take pictures. The pictures in astrophysics are usually generated by a process of scientific inference and … Read more
A new type of weather condition has been observed, existing primarily in one particular part of the world: compact, slow-moving, moisture-rich pools. Researchers are calling these ‘atmospheric lakes’. This unique type of storm occurs over the western Indian Ocean and moves towards Africa. Unlike most storms – created by a vortex – the lakes … Read more