Third Falcon Heavy Launch Set for Next Week

Posted on Categories Discover Magazine

Falcon Heavy made its second launch on April 11 from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. (Credit: SpaceX) The third launch of SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket is scheduled to blast off from Kennedy Space Center late at night on June 24. Along for the ride will be 24 satellites and a slate of experiments, including new technology developed by NASA that will help guide our way to Mars. The Deep Space Atomic Clock (DSAC) is a step forward for NASA’s spacecraft guidance systems. Right n ...read more

Astronomers Discover a New Stage of Galaxy Evolution — the ‘Cold Quasar’

Posted on Categories Discover Magazine

An artist depicts the powerful quasar blowing away material immediately around it, but with the outer reaches of the galaxy still containing red dust and gas. (Credit: Michelle Vigeant) Quasars are supermassive black holes actively gobbling material from the galaxy around them. While black holes are known for pulling material in, the turbulent swirl of that whirlpool often also flings material and radiation out at high energies, enabling quasars to be seen from across the universe. They are ...read more

Study shows that Trump’s new “Affordable Clean Energy” rule will lead to more CO2 emissions, not fewer

Posted on Categories Discover Magazine

This animated spiral portrays the simulated changes in the global average monthly air temperature from 1850 through the present relative to 1850-1900, and then where they are projected to head if we do nothing to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide. (Source: Jay Alder, USGS) The Trump administration has rolled back Obama-era climate change rules in an effort to save coal-fired electric power plants in the United States. The action comes in the form of the "Affordable Clean Energy rule," wh ...read more

Life’s a Blur — But We Don’t See It That Way

Posted on Categories Discover Magazine

The lines scribbled over this famous Georges Seurat painting come from an experiment that tracked how the human eye jerks around as it takes in the details of the scene. (Credit: R. Wurtz / Daedalus 2015 / Public Domain) The image above, “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte,” was painted in 1884 by French artist Georges Seurat. The black lines crisscrossing it are not the work of a toddler wreaking havoc with a permanent marker, but that of neuroscientist Robert Wu ...read more

Himalayan Glaciers Are Losing Ice Twice as Fast Now

Posted on Categories Discover Magazine

Climate change could mean trouble for Himalayan glaciers. New research reports that they're melting twice as fast today as they were at the turn of the century. (Credit: Nik Bruining/Shutterstock) Home to Mount Everest and many more of the world’s tallest peaks, the Himalayas rise up from the Ganges River north to the Tibetan Plateau. This iconic mountain range is also home to thousands of glaciers.  These rivers of ice provide valuable fresh water to surrounding regions. But th ...read more