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You’ve Got a Rare Chance to See a Huge Asteroid Fly by Earth This Week. Here’s How

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In a slow-moving universe, asteroids give us a rare chance to see things moving in real time. We have such a chance coming right up on the evening of Tuesday, January 18th, when 1.1-kilometer asteroid (7482) 1994 PC1 passes 1.23 million miles (1.98 million kilometers) from Earth.   This is about five times the distance … Read more

The best Hubble Space Telescope images of all time!

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(Image credit: NASA, ESA, and J. Tan (Chalmers University of Technology); Processing; Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America)) Prawn nebula The Hubble Space Telescope has captured a stunning view of the Prawn Nebula floating through deep space.  The Prawn Nebula, formally known as IC 4628, is an emission nebula located 6,000 light-years from Earth, in … Read more

For The First Time, Astronomers Detect Rugby-Ball Shape of a Deformed Exoplanet

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Beyond the Solar System, out there in the wider galaxy, a very strange subset of exoplanets exists. Called hot Jupiters, these are majorly clingy – hugging so close to their host stars, they’re not just intensely hot, but also likely warped by gravitational forces.   Now, for the first time, astronomers have actually detected the … Read more

Perseverance Has Run Into a Problem on Mars: Pebbles

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A small pile of pebbles is clogging up the Perseverance Mars rover’s operations.   The rover, which is collecting rock samples for eventual return to Earth, began to struggle on Dec. 29, after extracting a core from a rock the mission team nicknamed “Issole.”   According to a NASA blog, the problem occurred in the device that transfers … Read more

It’s Time for a Global Ban on Destructive Antisatellite Testing

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In November, Russia ignited an international uproar with a weapon test that launched an interceptor against a defunct military satellite. When it hit, that deliberate collision shattered the satellite into more than 1,500 trackable pieces of debris. This space debris is dangerous; it could hit and severely damage an orbiting space station, akin to the … Read more

Local Bubble: Huge gas structure that contains the solar system mapped for first time

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The solar system lies inside a structure called the Local Bubble some 1000 light years across – and a map of its surface shows it is the site of star formation Space 12 January 2022 Artist’s illustration of the Local Bubble with star formation occurring on the bubble’s surface Leah Hustak (STScI) The star-forming regions … Read more

Scientists Built The World’s Tiniest Antenna, And It’s Made Out of DNA

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Scientists have built the tiniest antenna ever made – just five nanometers in length. Unlike its much larger counterparts we’re all familiar with, this minuscule thing isn’t made to transmit radio waves, but to glean the secrets of ever-changing proteins.   The nanoantenna is made from DNA, the molecules carrying genetic instructions that are around … Read more

Genetically modified pig heart transplanted into a human for the first time

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The first transplant of a pig heart genetically modified for acceptance into human bodies raises hopes for a new solution to donor organ shortages Health 11 January 2022 By Clare Wilson Surgeons prepare genetically engineered pig heart for transplant University of Maryland School of Medicine FOR the first time, a human has been given a … Read more

Language evolution: Vai script shows how letters get simpler over time

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The characters used to write the Vai script, which was invented in Liberia in 1833, have become visually simpler over time, reflecting the evolutionary pressures acting on writing Humans 11 January 2022 By Colin Barras A character representing the syllable “bi” in Vai script Kelly et al The symbols we use to write words evolve … Read more