Astronomers in Japan, using an X-ray detector on the International Space Station, and at Penn State University, using NASA’s Swift space observatory, are announcing the discovery of an object newly emitting X-rays, which previously had been hidd…
Water ice on asteroids may be more common than expected, according to a new study that will be presented today at the world’s largest gathering of planetary scientists.
Two teams of researchers who made national headlines in April for showing …
The National Research Council (NRC) has strongly recommended the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) as one of NASA’s next two major space missions, to start in 2016 in collaboration with the European Space Agency (ESA). LISA will study the un…
The discovery of a faint trail of stars in the nearby Andromeda galaxy offers new evidence that large spiral galaxies have grown by gobbling up smaller satellite galaxies. Andromeda (also known as M31) is the nearest large galaxy to our own Milky Way and is very similar to it in appearance. Studying Andromeda gives astronomers an external perspective on a galaxy much like our own–it’s like looking at a bigger sibling of our galaxy.
Indian and British researchers say they have successfully isolated microorganisms living in the upper atmosphere, as high as 40 km up. Whether the organisms originate on Earth or are “seeding” the planet from passing comets is the subject of some debate. “Contamination is always a possibility in such studies but the ‘internal logic’ of the findings points strongly to the organisms being isolated in space, at a height of 41km,” said one of the lead researchers. “Of course the results would have been more readily accepted and lauded by critics had we isolated novel organisms, or ones with NASA written on them! “