Flowing lava can carve or build paths very much like the riverbeds and canyons etched by water, and this probably explains at least one of the meandering channels on the surface of Mars. These results were presented on March 4, 2010 at the 41st Lunar and Planetary Science Conference by Jacob Bleacher at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. Whether channels on Mars were formed by water or by lava has been debated for years, and the outcome is thought to influence the likelihood of finding life there. Continue Reading »

Even the biggest Star Trek fan would probably have trouble understanding the technical details of the research done by Queen’s University Particle Astrophysics Professor Wolfgang Rau of Kingston, Canada.

Professor Rau is the only Canadian researcher among the group of 60 scientists involved in the Cryogenic Dark Matter Search experiment (CDMS) whose latest findings are published in the latest edition of Science. Professor Rau says the project is among the top two or three most important experiments on this subject in the world. Continue Reading »

Jets of particles streaming from black holes in far-away galaxies operate differently than previously thought, according to a study published today in Nature. The new study reveals that most of the jet’s light—gamma rays, the universe’s most energetic form of light—is created much farther from the black hole than expected and suggests a more complex shape for the jet. Continue Reading »

Two breathtaking discoveries – the first-ever image of multiple planets orbiting a star other than our own, plus separate research that directly detected a planet orbiting the star Fomalhaut – won the 2009 Newcomb Cleveland Prize of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

The Association’s oldest prize, now supported by Affymetrix, the Newcomb Cleveland Prize annually recognizes the author or authors of an outstanding paper published in the Research Articles or Reports sections of the journal Science between June and the following May. Continue Reading »

Rugged, hilly landscapes with a range of different habitat types can help maintain more stable butterfly populations and thus aid their conservation, according to new findings published today (8 February 2010) in the journal Ecology Letters.

The research, carried out by scientists from the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, Butterfly Conservation and the University of York, has implications for how we might design landscapes better to help conserve species. Continue Reading »

Sixteen days after last visiting Saturn’s largest moon, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft returns for another look-see of the cloud-shrouded moon — this time from on high. The flyby on Thursday, Jan. 28, referred to as “T-66″ in the hollowed halls of Cassini operations, places the spacecraft within 7,490 kilometers (4,654 miles) above the surface during time of closest approach. Continue Reading »

On 27th January 2010, the 25th series of experiments studying complex plasmas will start on board the international space station ISS. Physicists from the Max-Planck-Institute for extraterrestrial Physics in Garching, Germany, will use them to study fundamental structure forming processes to better understand what happens in liquids and solids.

That matter exists in three states is widely known: as solid, liquid or gas. Our Universe, however, is dominated by a fourth state of matter: plasma. This forms, if a gas is heated to very high temperatures, so that its molecules dissociate in ions and free electrons. A plasma is regarded as the most disorganised state of matter. Continue Reading »

Packed with novel devices and science instruments, Proba-2 is demonstrating technologies for future ESA missions while providing new views of our Sun.

Since its launch on 2 November, Proba-2’s numerous subsystems have been switched on one by one and their outputs checked. This commissioning process is essential before the mission’s working life can begin. Continue Reading »

A new experiment that reproduces the magnetic fields of the Earth and other planets has yielded its first significant results. The findings confirm that its unique approach has some potential to be developed as a new way of creating a power-producing plant based on nuclear fusion — the process that generates the sun’s prodigious output of energy.

Fusion has been a cherished goal of physicists and energy researchers for more than 50 years. That’s because it offers the possibility of nearly endless supplies of energy with no carbon emissions and far less radioactive waste than that produced by today’s nuclear plants, which are based on fission, the splitting of atoms (the opposite of fusion, which involves fusing two atoms together). But developing a fusion reactor that produces a net output of energy has proved to be more challenging than initially thought. Continue Reading »

Teamwork between gamma-ray and radio astronomers has produced a breakthrough in finding natural cosmic tools needed to make the first direct detections of the long-elusive gravitational waves predicted by Albert Einstein nearly a century ago. An orbiting gamma-ray telescope has pointed radio astronomers to specific locations in the sky where they can discover new millisecond pulsars. Continue Reading »