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ScienceSpace
All Hail Juno, Our Record-Breaking Solar-Powered missary to Jupiter
Juno broke the interplanetary distance record for solar-powered spacecraft on Wednesday morning. The Jupiter explorer is close to half a billion miles from the Sun, setting a new standard for using solar power for deep space exploration. The spacecraft crossed the record-breaking 493 million miles from the Sun at 2pm ET on Wednesday. This is … Continued
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ScienceAnimals
These Frogs Do Awkward Dance Numbers to Find a Mate
Brazilian torrent frogs live near running water, which makes communication difficult. So the frogs have developed a broad repertoire of behaviors to tempt a mate and scare off rivals, according to Brazilian researchers at the Universidade Estadual Paulista, who just published their findings in PLOS One. The most common behaviors include loud mating calls in … Continued
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ScienceSpace
An Army of Mini Satellites Will Scour Asia for Natural Disasters From Space
Natural disasters seem to be more plentiful and powerful than ever. But an alliance of Asian countries and universities is coming to the rescue. The plan is to launch a flock of small satellites to help monitor destruction as it unfolds on Earth, providing emergency responders with critical information faster than ever. Japan’s Hokkaido and … Continued
By Bryan Lufkin -
ScienceSpace
Peer Up Inside This Rocket Launch Tower
It’s a long way up inside this tower, but not as far as its contents can reach. This is the Esrange launch tower in Sweden, and it’s used to loft suborbital rockets 170 miles into space. Unlike open launch pads that are often used to launch rockets, this tower allows the contents to be kept … Continued
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ScienceSpace
Saturn Reigns as the Undisputed King of its Moons
Wow. Saturn is a beautiful planet, a ringed giant of gas and ice, but this really puts its size in perspective. Look at it towering over that tiny moon! Saturn is the second-largest planet in our Solar System behind Jupiter, but it’s easy to forget just how big it is when we mostly admire photos … Continued
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ScienceSpace
There’s Something Surprising Lurking in Ceres’ Mysterious Bright Spots
Dwarf planet Ceres’ bright spots are perhaps the strangest of all its features. Now we’re finally in a low-enough altitude to get an unprecedented close-up look—and what we’re seeing may only have deepened the mystery. NASA’s Dawn spacecraft swung into its lowest orbit yet—a cool cruising height of 240 miles and started snapping pictures of … Continued
By Ria Misra -
ScienceSpace
The Last, Desperate Attempt to Contact the Philae Lander Has Probably Failed
Philae, the brave little comet lander that captured our hearts last year, has probably fallen silent for good. After a final, desperate effort to contact the spacecraft over the weekend didn’t pan out, the German Aerospace Agency (DLR) reports that the chances of ever speaking to the probe again are slim—and they’re growing slimmer every … Continued
By Maddie Stone -
ScienceSpace
The Next Generation of Space Rovers Could Be Squishy Blobs With Bladders
“Soft,” “amorphous,” and “bladder” aren’t words usually associated with robots. But NASA’s changing that with new plans to make space rovers physically softer, which could make them way better at exploring distant, rocky lands. Last week, NASA was awarded a patent for a new, “amorphous robot [that] includes a compartmented bladder containing fluid.” A valve … Continued
By Bryan Lufkin -
ScienceAnimals
This Celebrity-Studded Instagram Petting Zoo Is a Disaster Waiting to Happen
Instagram’s most famous animal rescue foundation is beloved by celebrities and millions of fans, and completely and utterly terrifying. Scrolling through the Black Jaguar-White Tiger™ feed is like seeing the beginning of Grizzly Man play out on social media. On this season of Keeping Up With the Kardashians, Khloe Kardashian and Kendall Jenner visit the … Continued
By Kate Knibbs -
SciencePhysics
New Super-Compressible Materials Deform Like Mechanisms at Molecular Scale
When you compress most materials, you squash their atoms or molecules up against each other, shortening the bonds between them. But a new kind ultra-compressible material acts like a set of gears and springs that shrink in size. Researchers from the Molecular Materials Group at the University of Sydney have created a series of new … Continued
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SciencePhysics
This New Incandescent Bulb Uses Nano Mirrors to Match LED Bulb Efficiency
Energy-saving bulbs may have some competition in the shape of an ageing technology. Scientists have developed a new kind of incandescent light bulb that uses modern science to ramp up its efficiency, almost matching that of commercial LED bulbs. Incandescent light bulbs are intrinsically inefficient. They work by pumping electricity through a thin tungsten filament, … Continued
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ScienceSpace
These Are NASA’s ‘Spiders’ on Mars
David Bowie will live on in space, but his lyrics are present in physical form within our Solar System, too. These geological features are what NASA refers to as spiders, and they can be found on the surface of Mars. This image, acquired by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA’s Mars … Continued
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ScienceSpace
SpaceX’s Older Falcon 9 Looks Good for This Weekend’s Launch
Well, isn’t that nice! SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket performed admirably in its test today, keeping it on-track to launch the Jason-3 oceanographic satellite on Sunday. SpaceX is using up existing stock of its old Falcon 9 rocket in its upcoming launch out of California. In preparation, it ran a full-duration static fire test at its … Continued
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ScienceSpace
This is the Space Rock Tribute to the Late, Great David Bowie
David Bowie will live on forever in the outer reaches of our solar system. Since last year, a rock in the main asteroid belt has borne his name—a fitting tribute to the mad, crazy, and wonderful artist. Soft, squishy humans are depressingly short-lived, brief flares of creativity in the vast entropy of our universe. Yet … Continued
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SciencePhysics
This Kinetic Sculpture Was Inspired by the Flocking of a Murmuration
Murmurations are large flocks of birds, most notably starlings, that zip through the sky at high speeds without ever breaking formation. And those formations can be pretty spectacular. Small wonder they’ve inspired the design of a striking kinetic structure: the Murmuration Chandelier. It’s the creation of designers Richard Harvey and Keivor John, who built it … Continued
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ScienceSpace
Researchers are Launching a Final, Desperate Effort to Contact Rosetta’s Dead Comet Lander
High above us, perched precariously on the cold surface of a comet, there sits one of the most technologically-advanced and singular machines humanity ever sent to hurtle up into space and stick its unlikely landing. And now that it’s there, it’s totally ignoring all our attempts to talk to it. Since landing on Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko … Continued
By Ria Misra -
SciencePhysics
Sandia’s New Thor Accelerator Will Wield a Mighty Hammer
Sandia National Laboratories is building a shiny new accelerator to study how materials behave at extreme pressures. And they’ve named the new machine after Thor, Norse god of thunder, wielder of the mighty hammer Mjolnir, and member of Marvel’s beloved Avengers. For years, Sandia has been known for its infamous Z-pinch machine, a powerful electrical … Continued
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ScienceAnimals
This Bison Was Struck by Lightning and Emerged Ugly But Alive
If you’re ever in Neal Smith National Wildlife Refuge, keep an eye out for the ugliest bison alive. That’s not an insult. Taking a direct hit from a lightning bolt and staying alive is something to be proud of. Sparky first caught the eye of Fish and Wildlife officials in 2013, when Karen Viste-Sparkman saw … Continued
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ScienceSpace
NASA’s New Photos Bring Pluto’s Surface Into Sharp Focus
Combining data from two instruments on board the New Horizons spacecraft, NASA scientists have produced a detailed composite image of Pluto’s Viking Terra region. NASA has also released a photo of the Sputnik Planum region which it says is the sharpest view yet of the Plutonian surface. To make this image of Viking Terra, scientists … Continued
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ScienceSpace
The First Age Map of the Galaxy Could Reveal Our Cosmic Origins
The Milky Way may have 13.6 billion years under its belt, but its stars range from newborns to ancients. Astronomers mapped how old the stars are, creating the first-ever age map of our galaxy—and this map could give us clues about how life in the Milky Way started. The map, unveiled today at the 227th … Continued
By Maddie Stone