Telescopes at Lowell Observatory in Arizona captured this image of galaxies on May 25, their images marred by the reflected light from more than 25 Starlink satellites as they passed overhead. (Credit: Victoria Girgis/Lowell Observatory)
Elon Musk’s company SpaceX launched 60 small satellites on May 23 as the beginning of the company's Starlink program. They're the vanguard of a planned 12,000-satellite-strong constellation that Musk intends to serve as the infrastructure for a cheap gl ...read more
The South Pole-Aitken basin shows up clearly as low-lying blue in a topographical map of the moon, with the newly discovered mass located underneath the dotted line. (Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center/University of Arizona)
Buried under the largest, oldest crater on the moon,
scientists have discovered an enormous mass of dense material, possibly the
remains of the asteroid that formed the crater some 4 billion years ago.
Astronomers led by Peter B. James from Baylor University di ...read more
A Knysna Turaco (Tauraco corythaix) in South Africa. (Credit: Daniel J. Field)
Many of the birds we see only in the tropics today once lived as far north as Canada and Russia. A warmer climate millions of years ago gave them free reign over more northern habitats, before gradual climatic shifts pushed them southwards, a new study shows.
Now, the climate is
changing again, but birds may not be able to adapt fast enough this time
around.
"We've illustrated the extent to which suitabl ...read more
Heavy rains and flooding through the winter and spring have left fields across the Midwest too wet to plant. (Credit: Matauw/Shutterstock)
Every spring, farmers across the
Midwest take to the fields to plant their crops. Here, corn and soybeans will reign
supreme over tens of millions of acres, as soon as conditions are right to
plant. Not too wet, not too dry – just right.
But the U.S. had an exceptionally wet winter this year. And it kept raining in the spring. April turned to May, ...read more
New research into the genetic backstory of ancient French grapevines reveals that some varieties cultivated today haven't changed for centuries. (Credit: Victor Grigas/Wikimedia Commons)
Consider this the next time you toast a friend and wish them long life: The wine swishing around your glass may have come from grapevines with very long-lived lineages indeed. Researchers analyzing genetic material from ancient grape seeds turned up evidence of varieties almost unchanged for nearly 2,000 yea ...read more
Coming Soon! “The Field Guide to Citizen Science,” from the experts at SciStarter , published by Timber Press.
Citizen science is the public involvement in the discovery of new scientific knowledge. A citizen science project can involve one person or millions of people collaborating towards a common goal. The citizen science movement is approachable and inclusive, making it an excellent option for people looking for ways to get involved and make a differenc ...read more
Scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography are working with Antarctic tour operators like Hurtigruten to enable vacationers to serve as citizen scientists with the FjordPhyto citizen science project. Travelers collect samples of phytoplankton from Antarctic fjords in an effort to understand the base of the food web, helping scientists learn how one of the most fertile ocean regions in the world may be changing.
Human Impact in Remote Areas
You would think that the most remote c ...read more
This iconic shot from the 1902 film A Trip to the Moon shows the fabled Man in the Moon embedded with a massive, bullet-like spacecraft that was launched from Earth by a giant cannon. (Credit: drmvm1/Flickr)
It’s been 50 years since humans first landed on the Moon. But for how long have we rehearsed those first steps in our imaginations? This we do know: We’ve been telling each other tales about our Moon-landing dreams for nearly 2,000 years.
The earliest known written story ab ...read more
(Credit: Manekina Serafima/Shutterstock)
Worldwide, people drink over 65 billion gallons of alcohol each year. The United States’ share, if divided equally across the adult population, would amount to about two and a half gallons of pure alcohol per person, annually. And this thirst seems to be universal: Fermented beverages have been found in nearly every society, as far back as archaeologists can detect their existence.
That’s the idea behind the “drunken monkey&rdquo ...read more
Two galaxy clusters, Abell 0399 and Abell 0401, are merging about 1 billion light-years from Earth. This image shows the clusters' cores (red) in X-ray-light. The two are linked by a thin filament (yellow and blue), which glows faintly in microwaves and radio waves. (Credit: DSS and Pan-STARRS1 (optical), XMM-Newton (X-rays), PLANCK satellite (yparameter), F. Govoni, M. Murgia, INAF)
Galaxy clusters are a great place to peer in on the physics that govern our universe. Not only are these cosm ...read more
