Image: A thick plume of sand and dust from the Sahara Desert is seen in these satellite images blowing from the west coast of Africa across the Atlantic Ocean.

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Jun 04, 2025
The astronomical records of imperial China are some of the most comprehensive archives in the history of science, spanning over two millennia, from 221 BC to 1911 AD, and providing detailed insight into phenomena ranging from comets to the rate of rotation of the Earth. A new article in Isis: the Journal of the History of Science Society examines these records and demonstrates the pivotal part t

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Jun 04, 2025
Two NASA-developed technologies are key components of a new high-resolution sensor for observing wildfires: High Operating Temperature Barrier Infrared Detector (HOT-BIRD), developed with support from NASA's Earth Science Technology Office (ESTO), and a cutting-edge Digital Readout Integrated Circuit (DROIC), developed with funding from NASA's Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program.

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Jun 04, 2025
Roctet Lab USA has launched its 65th Electron to deploy Earth-imaging satellites for real-time space-based intelligence company BlackSky. The 'Full Stream Ahead' mission lifted-off from Rocket Lab Launch Complex 1 in Mahia, New Zealand at 11:57 am NZST (23:57 UTC on June 2nd), successfully deploying a Gen-3 satellite by BlackSky to a 470 km circular earth orbit and further expanding the co

Chicago IL (SPX) Jun 04, 2025
For the past decade, scientists have been trying to get to the bottom of what seemed like a major inconsistency in the universe. The universe expands over time, but how fast it's expanding seemed to differ depending on whether you looked early in the universe's history or the present day. If true, this would have presented a major problem to the gold-standard model that represents our best

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Jun 04, 2025
As federal funding cuts impact decades of research, scientists could turn to black holes for cheaper, natural alternatives to expensive facilities searching for dark matter and similarly elusive particles that hold clues to the universe's deepest secrets, a new Johns Hopkins study of supermassive black holes suggests. The findings could help complement multi-billion-dollar expenses and dec

Paris (AFP) June 4, 2025
Astronomers announced Wednesday they have discovered a massive planet orbiting a tiny star, a bizarre pairing that has stumped scientists. Most of the stars across the Milky Way are small red dwarfs like TOI-6894, which has only 20 percent the mass of our Sun. It had not been thought possible that such puny, weak stars could provide the conditions needed to form and host huge planets.

Chicago IL (SPX) Jun 04, 2025
If you're an animal living through a mass extinction, it's best to be one that's found a unique way to make a living. A new analysis of the species that lived or died out in the wake of the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs has revealed unexpected patterns that counter our prevailing theories of survival in the wake of mass extinctions. A team of scientists with the University of Ch

Tokyo, Japan (SPX) Jun 04, 2025
A newly discovered cluster of eleven quasars has shattered the previous record of five. Rather than being associated with a dense group of galaxies, these quasars sit on the boundary between two groups of galaxies. This structure, dubbed the "Cosmic Himalayas," cannot be explained by conventional theories, forcing astronomers to rethink the formation scenarios for quasars. Quasars are some