News about PaperPanda, Open Access, and Research
A wayward rocket stage is poised to bombard the moon on Friday (March 4), and the coming impact has earned some scientific attention. Reportedly, the Goldstone Solar System Radar near Barstow, California, is set to observe the object a few days before impact. And NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) will look for changes in the … Read more
A crescent-shaped crater in Northeast China holds the record as the largest impact crater on Earth that formed in the last 100,000 years. Prior to 2020, the only other impact crater ever discovered in China was found in Xiuyan county of the coastal province of Liaoning, according to a statement from the NASA Earth Observatory. Then, … Read more
After the first-ever explosion of an atomic bomb on July 16, 1945 near Socorro, N.M., J. Robert Oppenheimer, director of the Los Alamos Laboratory, recited a line from the Bhagavad Gita: “Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.” Less than a month later, a quarter of a million lives were lost to the … Read more
There was a time, not so long ago, when computers were so large, they occupied entire rooms. Today, some processing units can come as small as a few specks of dust. Even next to a grain of rice, these stacks of micrometer-sized chips look infinitesimal. Shrinking computer batteries to fit that size, however, has proved … Read more
The longing and wistfulness of nostalgia can make a person feel many different things. Amidst the memories, both happy and sad, you might even find a unique form of pain relief. The observation is not new. Beyond boosting wellbeing and improving physical comfort, nostalgia has previously been shown to lessen perceptions of pain. Yet … Read more
A crescent-shaped crater in Northeast China holds the record as the largest impact crater on Earth that formed in the last 100,000 years. Prior to 2020, the only other impact crater ever discovered in China was found in Xiuyan county of the coastal province of Liaoning, according to a statement from the NASA Earth Observatory. … Read more
The GOES-T satellite is ready to take its place as part of the U.S.’s most sophisticated weather and environmental observation system. The satellite, which will be operated by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) will launch on Tuesday (March 1) aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket blasting off from Cape Canaveral … Read more
Scientists got a strange sense of déjà vu when they took a close look at a mysterious series of bright flashes in a galaxy just 12 million light-years away. The flashes, known as a repeating fast radio burst (FRB), appear surprisingly similar to flashes found in the Crab Nebula. The Crab Nebula is a famous … Read more
Ceres might be spewing cryovolcanoes in yet another spot on the dwarf planet’s surface. Close-up pictures from NASA’s Dawn mission that orbited Ceres between 2015 and 2018 revealed salt deposits in a crater known as Urvara, spotted for the first time in a new study. The salt deposits may be associated with icy volcanoes, the … Read more
Most of us have heard the plaintive songs of humpback whales, or the cries of orcas chattering with their pods. But what about the strains of the spiky kina sea urchin? (It makes a hollow plopping sound.) Now, scientists want to bring the song of the kina—and thousands of other unassuming sea creatures—to other researchers … Read more