‘Oumuamua, the first-known interstellar interloper, is seen venting gas and dust in this artist’s concept. (Credit: ESA/Hubble, NASA, ESO, M. Kornmesser)
Back in 2017, astronomers discovered the first interstellar object, 'Oumuamua, as it swung through our solar system. And, just a few weeks ago, scientists spotted a second one paying us a visit, called C/2019 Q4 (Borisov).
Now astronomers are saying they could soon be discovering many new interstellar comets. A new telescope ...read more
Portions of this blog post are excerpted from the accompanying podcast episode and from notes shared between the SciStarter team and Kobi Gal’s research team.
Smart Project Recommendations on SciStarter
With thousands of projects listed on SciStarter, a main challenge can be finding the right project, one that really suits your needs and your interests. After meeting at a workshop on the Open Science of Learning hosting by CRI, Kobi Gal, a leading expert in human-centered artific ...read more
https://youtu.be/Y1HpsJaNfIY
Hurricane Lorenzo, howling in the North Atlantic on the evening of Saturday September 28, 2019 and into Sunday the 29th, as seen by the GOES-16 weather satellite. (Note: The video cycles through several times. Source: CIRA/RAMMB)
On Thursday, Sept. 26, the National Hurricane Center described Hurricane Lorenzo as "one of the largest and most powerful hurricanes of record for the central tropical Atlantic, with the only comparable hurricane [near there] in recent ...read more
The National Weather Service is warning that "a significant, very early-season winter storm will enter the Northern Rockies Saturday. A host of potentially dangerous impacts will result from this type of early winter storm."
Historic snow and a heat wave? That's what a downright loopy jet stream pattern is bringing to large parts of the United States.
Parts of the Northern Rockies are bracing for what the National Weather Service in Missoula, MT is describing as an "historic winter storm ...read more
Thanks to human-caused warming, an area of ice three times the size of Texas went missing this year
https://youtu.be/3aS-4JB88b4
Arctic sea ice shriveled so much during this summer's now-finished melt season that it has reached the second lowest extent on record.
A sensitive indicator of human-caused warming, the low extent of the region's floating lid of ice effectively tied with 2007 and 2016 for second place in satellite records extending back 40 years, according to the National S ...read more
What's so great about hanging your head out of a car window? (Credit: Shutterstock)
If happiness were a picture, there’s a pretty good chance it would be a dog with its head sticking out of a car window.
It seems few pups can resist a breeze running through their fur and their ears flapping in the wind as their owner cruises into the sunset. And based on those wind-whipped grins, dogs seem to wholeheartedly enjoy this simple pleasure.
But you have to admit, seeing a dog zoo ...read more
A rendering of data from the study. The blue shading shows the estimated protocluster extent and the smaller boxes show images of the galaxies they observed in the protocluster. (Credit: NAOJ/Harikane et. al.)
Galaxies and dark matter stretch throughout our universe as a vast cosmic web. They cluster together in some areas and leave empty voids in others.
But how early in the universe's history the clusters began to form is still unknown. Now, researchers have found the most distant and ...read more
The newly discovered planet, named GJ 3512 b, is half the mass of Jupiter. Researchers think its tiny red dwarf host not only likely harbors an additional massive planet, but also ejected another in the past. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)
Astronomers have discovered a gigantic planet orbiting a puny star some 30 light-years away. And according to current theories, the planet shouldn’t exist. Dubbed GJ 3512 b, the gas giant is at least half the mass of Jupiter. But it orbits a red dwarf sta ...read more
Leafcutter ants carry vegetation to their nests. The species farm fungi for sustenance. (Credit: Ivan Kuzmin/Shuttestock
In 2017, a woman in Nevada died from a fairly common bacterial infection, Klebsiella pneumoniae. Her death wasn't the product of medical oversight or inattention; rather, it came despite it. Her infection proved resistant to every antibiotic drug doctors threw against it, NPR reports. They ultimately exhausted 26 different drugs — the bacteria was resistant to every s ...read more
(Credit: Alliance Images/Shutterstock)
For many, stress is an all-too familiar emotion. It can come from daily challenges, like juggling work and child care, or major life events, like getting divorced or losing a loved one. We all experience this stress differently — some people can’t sleep, others stress eat, and still others develop debilitating anxiety.
But our bodies may be responding to stress on a deeper level. Chronic stress and anxiety could disrupt how our cells produ ...read more
