Prize-winning Photographs Reveal the World of Tiny Things
Author Vishay SinghPosted on Categories Discover Magazine
Author Vishay SinghPosted on Categories Discover Magazine
Elephant Birds, Biggest Ever, Were Creatures Of The Night
Author Vishay SinghPosted on Categories Discover Magazine
Madagascar’s recently extinct elephant birds, once thought to be active during the day, were actually nocturnal, according to new research. (Credit: John Maisano for the University of Texas at Austin Jackson School of Geosciences) They were enormous, the biggest of the big, and, say authors of a new study reconstructing bird brains, the elephant birds of Madagascar were also nocturnal. The new research reveals surprising details about the animals, their habitats and their closes ...read more
RIP Kepler: NASA's Legendary Planet Hunting Space Telescope is Dead
Author Vishay SinghPosted on Categories Discover Magazine
Artist’s concept of the Kepler Space Telescope, which led the search for exoplanets over the past decade. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech) NASA’s legendary Kepler space telescope, which is responsible for the discovery of thousands of bizarre and intriguing exoplanets, has officially run out of fuel. With the telescope’s retirement comes the end of the most prolific period of planetary discovery in the entire history of astronomy — at least so far. “As NASA’s firs ...read more
NASA Tested the Parachute for its Mars 2020 Rover, Says it's go for Launch
Author Vishay SinghPosted on Categories Discover Magazine
via GIPHY When the Mars 2020 rover arrives at the Red Planet, it will need a working parachute. Fortunately, in a record-breaking test performed last month, NASA confirmed that the parachute designed to carry the rover most of the way to the Martian surface is ready to do its job. The test started with the launch of a Black Brant IX sounding rocket; less than two minutes after launch, the payload carrying the parachute separated from the rocket and began to fall back to Earth. As it passed a hei ...read more
Interplanetary Dust Clouds Orbit Earth, Hungarian Scientists Confirm
Author Vishay SinghPosted on Categories Discover Magazine
An artist’s impression of the Kordylewski cloud in the night sky (with its brightness greatly enhanced) at the time of the observations. (Credit: Gábor Horváth) A team of Hungarian astronomers and physicists may have finally confirmed two clouds of interplanetary dust orbiting Earth that were first reported in 1961. There are five points of stability in the Earth-moon system where gravitational forces keep objects in position. Scientists call these “Lagrange points,&r ...read more