Catching the death of a comet
Catching the death of a comet.
Tag: science
A science journal for failed experiments
A new science journal for publishing the results of failed experiments.
More cracks found in the wings of the Airbus A380
Not good: More cracks found in the wings of an Airbus A380.
A meteorite that fell to Earth last July in Morocco has proven to be a rare chunk of Mars.
A meteorite that fell to Earth last July in Morocco has proven to be a rare chunk of Mars.
The hi-tech home of a British soccer star has become a threat to radio astronomy.
Who knew? The hi-tech home of a British soccer star has become a threat to radio astronomy.
Drilling in Antarctica
Drilling down to Lake Vostok has resumed in Antarctica.
This week, a Russian team drilling into Lake Vostok in the center of the Antarctic continent is likely to break through the ice to water. It will be the first time that a subglacial lake has been breached. These modern-day explorers hope to discover whether Vostok, which at 5000 km 3 is the third largest lake on the planet, is teeming with hidden, cold-loving life that could have evolved separately from the rest of the world for hundreds of thousands of years….
After drilling 3720 meters last February, time ran out for the team and the project was stymied just 29.5 meters from its destination as winter set in. Over the summer, they modified their drill bits and now the team is back at work with plenty of time to spare. They had left the large hole filled with antifreeze, so it was ready and waiting for them. It will remain open for years to come, Priscu says, potentially allowing other teams to sample the waters in the future.
Skyscrapers As Spaceships
As we spend more of our lives in cyberspace, we come to expect its primary characteristics (convenience, efficiency, abundance) to define our off-screen lives as well. And supertall, mixed-used skyscrapers are currently the most potent physical approximations of the virtual world we have. They’re environments designed for maximum convenience and efficiency, with elevators functioning like hypertext, taking you almost instantly from one mode of existence to the next. Push a button and you’re at work. Push another button, you’re at home.
There’s a lot more. Read the whole thing.
Listening online to the sounds at the ocean floor
A class of fourth-grade students have renamed NASA’s two Grail lunar probes “Ebb” and “Flow”.
A class of fourth-grade students have renamed NASA’s two Grail lunar probes “Ebb” and “Flow”.
Some of Darwin’s fossil samples have been rediscovered, hidden in plain sight at the British Geological Survey.
Some of Darwin’s fossil samples have been rediscovered, hidden in plain sight at the British Geological Survey.
Scientists have found that the structure of Titan’s atmosphere appears to change daily and seasonally, much like the Earth’s.
Scientists have found that the structure of Titan’s atmosphere appears to change daily and seasonally, much like the Earth’s.
“The most interesting point is that their model shows the presence of two different boundaries, the lower one caused by the daily heating and cooling of the surface – and varying in height during the day – and the higher one caused by the seasonal change in global air circulation,” commented Paulo Penteado from the Institute of Astronomy, Geophysics and Atmospheric Science at the University of São Paulo in Brazil. According to [Benjamin Charnay from the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) in Paris], this link between the lower atmosphere’s layers and the moon’s daily and seasonal cycle has never been seen on another moon or planet besides the Earth.
One caveat: the results are based upon a computer climate model. Though this model was tweaked based on actual data, that data remains slim and incomplete.
Volunteers wanted to search for exoplanets
Want to find your very own exoplanet? Volunteers wanted!