Follow Rosetta's final Earth boost
ESA's comet chaser Rosetta will swing by Earth for the last time on 13 November to pick up energy and begin the final leg of its 10-year journey to comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. ESA's European Space Operations Centre will host a media briefing on that day. view more (2009-11-05)
Fermi telescope caps its first year with a glimpse of space-time
During its first year of operations, NASA's Fermi Gamma Ray Space Telescope mapped the extreme sky with unprecedented resolution and sensitivity. view more (2009-10-29)
Gamma-ray photon race ends in dead heat; Einstein wins this round
Racing across the universe for the last 7.3 billion years, two gamma-ray photons arrived at NASA's orbiting Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope within nine-tenths of a second of one another. view more (2009-10-29)
West Antarctic ice sheet may not be losing ice as fast as once thought
New ground measurements made by the West Antarctic GPS Network (WAGN) project, composed of researchers from The University of Texas at Austin, The Ohio State University, and The University of Memphis, suggest the rate of ice loss of the West Antarctic ice sheet has been slightly overestimated. view more (2009-10-20)
Peering under the ice of a collapsing polar coast
Starting this month, a giant NASA DC-8 aircraft loaded with geophysical instruments and scientists will buzz at low level over the coasts of West Antarctica, where ice sheets are collapsing at a pace far beyond what scientists expected a few years ago. view more (2009-10-08)
Key process for space outpost proved on 'vomit comet' ride
Flying high over the Gulf of Mexico, researchers from NASA and Case Western Reserve University found a key to unlocking oxygen from the surface of the moon. view more (2009-09-25)
Magnetic Fields Play Larger Role in Star Formation than Previously Thought
he simple picture of star formation calls for giant clouds of gas and dust to collapse inward due to gravity, growing denser and hotter until igniting nuclear fusion. In reality, forces other than gravity also influence the birth of stars. New research shows that cosmic magnetic fields play a more important role in star formation than previously... view more... (2009-09-10)
Precise Radio-Telescope Measurements Advance Frontier Gravitational Physics
Scientists using a continent-wide array of radio telescopes have made an extremely precise measurement of the curvature of space caused by the Sun's gravity, and their technique promises a major contribution to a frontier area of basic physics. view more (2009-09-02)
Vanquishing infinity
Quantum mechanics and Einstein's theory of general relativity are both extremely accurate theories of how the universe works, but all attempts to combine the two into a unified theory have ended in failure. view more (2009-08-18)
Satellites unlock secret to northern India's vanishing water
Using NASA satellite data, scientists have found that groundwater levels in northern India have been declining by as much as one foot per year over the past decade. Researchers concluded the loss is almost entirely due to human activity. view more (2009-08-13)
Exploring the standard model of physics without the high-energy collider
Scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in the US, have performed sophisticated laser measurements to detect the subtle effects of one of nature's most elusive forces - the "weak interaction". view more (2009-08-11)
Experiments show 'artificial gravity' can prevent muscle loss in space
When the Apollo 11 crew got back from the moon, 40 years ago this week, they showed no ill effects from seven days spent in weightlessness. view more (2009-07-23)
Study: Bath time falls injure thousands of children annually
A new national study finds kids are being hurt in bathtubs and showers at a surprising rate. view more (2009-07-13)
Living Fossils Hold Record of 'Supermassive' Kick
The tight cluster of stars surrounding a supermassive black hole after it has been violently kicked out of a galaxy represents a new kind of astronomical object and a fossil record of the kick. view more (2009-07-10)
University of Hawaii at Manoa astronomers discover pair of solar systems in the making
Two University of Hawai'i at Mānoa astronomers have found a binary star-disk system in which each star is surrounded by the kind of dust disk that is frequently the precursor of a planetary system. view more (2009-07-01)
New definition could further limit habitable zones around distant suns
As astronomers gaze toward nearby planetary systems in search of life, they are focusing their attention on each system's habitable zone, where heat radiated from the star is just right to keep a planet's water in liquid form. view more (2009-06-11)
Scientists create metal that pumps liquid uphill
In nature, trees pull vast amounts of water from their roots up to their leaves hundreds of feet above the ground through capillary action, but now scientists at the University of Rochester have created a simple slab of metal that lifts liquid using the same principle-but does so at a speed that would make nature envious. view more (2009-06-03)
Star crust 10 billion times stronger than steel, IU physicist finds
Research by a theoretical physicist at Indiana University shows that the crusts of neutron stars are 10 billion times stronger than steel or any other of the earth's strongest metal alloys. view more (2009-05-07)
Study plunges standard theory of cosmology into crisis
As modern cosmologists rely more and more on the ominous "dark matter" to explain otherwise inexplicable observations, much effort has gone into the detection of this mysterious substance in the last two decades, yet no direct proof could be found that it actually exists. view more (2009-05-06)
Discovered after 40 years: Moon dust hazard influenced by Sun's elevation
In the 1960s and 1970s, the Apollo Moon Program struggled with a minuscule, yet formidable enemy: sticky lunar dust. Four decades later, a new study reveals that forces compelling lunar dust to cling to surfaces -- ruining scientific experiments and endangering astronauts' health --change during the lunar day with the elevation of the sun. view more (2009-04-20)
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