Take a moment and let this one sink in. It sure seems like the photographer turned a bit to the left before snapping the right-hand image. It's the lines in the cobblestones — they're all tilted in the second image compared to the first. A second glance reveals some irregularities, though. Though the lines look tilted relative to each other, the rest of the image looks unchanged. The trucks are in the same place, we see the same patch of sky, and if you look closely, we se ...read more

The Sun recently decided to go naked for awhile, as is evident from this image acquired by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory. It lost its spots. The image is from a video posted by NASA showing the Sun going naked from Jan. 26th to Jan. 30th, when a very small, lonely spot finally turns up. In fact, NASA says that with the exception of this one spot, the Sun was naked for almost two weeks. Spotless periods like this are common as the Sun approaches the low p ...read more

I’m a scientist and my job is to look below the surface of the earth. One of the questions often asked of people working with what we call geophysical imaging is, “How deep can you see?” It’s a difficult question to answer of course, since one person’s “deep” is another person’s “shallow”, and what is deep to the archaeologist will barely scratch the surface for the planetary seismologist. For my own part, I’m a “near-surfa ...read more

SpaceX will today attempt to launch its largest rocket yet, the Falcon Heavy. An upgraded version of the Falcon 9 rocket the spaceflight company has been flying for over two years now, the latest addition to the SpaceX arsenal will be capable of lifting more payload to orbit than any rocket today. The launch is set for sometime between 1:30 and 4:00 p.m. Eastern today. The payload will is a red Tesla roadster (playing David Bowie's "Space Oddity," naturally), and the SpaceX CEO says i ...read more

Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Defense became the latest agency to adopt a burgeoning start-up boot camp pioneered by the National Science Foundation’s Errol Arkilic. In 2011, Arkilic reached out to Steve Blank, a Stanford University professor who would soon be one of Silicon Valley’s most influential innovators. “I’ve been reading your blog,” Arkilic told Blank. He had 10,000 scientists hoping to turn their research into tech startups. Blank’s m ...read more

A series of papers out today gives us further insights into the TRAPPIST-1 system discovered in 2016. The seven planets that make up the system orbit a dim red dwarf star much smaller and cooler than our own Sun. The planets' orbits are much tighter than in our solar system, and they're all closer to their home star than Mercury is to the Sun. Three of them are thought to be in the "habitable zone" where liquid water could exist. The TRAPPIST Seven The system is relatively close, only 4 ...read more

In a new study published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, a team of Spanish astronomers announced the discovery of one of the first stars to form in the Milky Way. The unevolved star, called J0815+4729, is located 7,500 light-years away in the halo of the Milky Way and likely formed just 300 million years after the Big Bang, some 13.5 billion years ago. “We know of only a few stars (which can be counted on the fingers of a hand) of this type in the halo [of the Milky W ...read more

Cheetahs evolved to become the fastest animals on land. Now scientists find that not only do swift limbs help cheetahs hunt down prey, but so too do tiny bony tubes within their skulls that help the cats keep their gazes locked on their targets. Cheetahs have been clocked sprinting at up to 61 miles per hour, speeds that help them chase fleet prey such as gazelles. Intriguingly, while cheetahs run, their heads barely move, helping them hold an incredibly still gaze on their prey while in ...read more

There's a new kid in town — in Creepycrawly Town, to be exact. But there's much more to this leggy fella than nightmarishly good looks. A pair of papers out today detail how this 100-million-year-old discovery, preserved in amber, fits into the spider evolution story...and the ways it doesn't. Known from four specimens, the ancient arachnid's formal name is Chimerarachne yingi. Its genus name, from the mythic Greek Chimera, is a nod to its unusual mix of features. The ...read more

Like most animals that thrive in cities, rats get a bad rap. We even use the word "rat" for nasty people, particularly those that go behind your back. But this study suggests that rat society may not be so bad after all. By placing rats in special cages that allow them to give food only to another rat (not themselves), these researchers found that rats will trade grooming for help with getting food. In fact, the more help they got, the more grooming they gave. Maybe it's time to update the ...read more