The European Space Agency's ExoMars spacecraft failed to find any traces of methane on the Red Planet during its hunt from April to August of 2018. This goes directly against recent positive reports of methane by ESA's own Mars Express spacecraft and NASA's Curiosity rover, which both saw methane in 2013.
ExoMars has a sensitive detector that can pick up just one-tenth the amount of methane that Mars Express witnessed. That leaves two options: either one set of observations ...read more
Editor's Note: This story has been updated from a previous version.
SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy will likely launch on its first commercial flight today. The rocket launch was postponed from early April due to unspecified concerns, and then postponed again just this week due to weather. But Wednesday has a clear forecast with an 80 percent probability of a launch, so odds are good the mission will proceed. The launch window opens at 6:35 p.m. EDT this evening and extends until 8:32 p.m. EDT on T ...read more
At the northern tip of the Philippine island of Luzon lays Callao Cave, an expansive, seven-chamber limestone warren. Researchers report today they have uncovered the bones of a now-extinct, previously unknown human species near the far end of the first chamber. The discovery adds to growing evidence that human evolution and dispersal out of Africa is much more complicated than scientists once thought and and reinforces the importance of Southeast Asia in the history of our species. The rese ...read more
A massive international collaboration of researchers has released the first-ever direct image of the hellish environment surrounding a supermassive black hole. As part of the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) project, the team used a global array of telescopes to probe the fiery disk of material swirling around the gargantuan black hole at the center of the galaxy M87.
The results confirm that the hot gas swirling around a black hole is traveling at nearly the speed of light, creating a chaot ...read more
On Wednesday, astronomers revealed the first image ever taken of a black hole, bringing a dramatic conclusion to a decades-long effort. The iconic image offers humanity its first glimpse at the gas and debris that swirl around its event horizon, the point beyond which material disappears forever. A favorite object of science fiction has finally been made real on screen.
Their target was a nearby galaxy dubbed M87 and its supermassive black hole, which packs the mass of six and half billio ...read more
Author Vishay SinghPosted on Categories Discover Magazine