It’s a bird… it’s a plane… it’s a super star cluster! NASA’s Chandra X-ray telescope has imaged a star cluster that is “super” in every way. Westerlund 1 is super big, super massive, super young, super close – and it’s creating stars at a super fast rate. Westerlund 1 is about 13,000 light-years away from … Read more
The sun unleashed a flurry of radiation-filled explosions in May. When they crashed into Earth’s magnetic bubble, the world was treated to iridescent displays of the northern and southern lights. But our planet was not the only one in the line of solar fire. A few days after Earth’s light appeared, another series of explosions … Read more
Some would say that there is no sweeter image than that of a young mother embracing her infant toddler. Today, I’d like to share with you an even sweeter photo: a young mother cradling 30 to 40 of her babies, who are still eggs, in her clammy, clam-covered arms. To make it even more beautiful, … Read more
Overlaid on an image from NASA’s Mars Odyssey orbiter, this map shows the path of Persistence between January 21 and June 11. The white dots show where the rover stopped after completing a pass near the Neretva Vallis river channel. The pale blue line shows the path of the rover inside the channel. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University … Read more
Researchers will no longer have to choose between studying a single human brain as a patchwork of fragmented images or a distant, pixelated view of large structures. A new imaging platform developed by a US team instead seamlessly combines the finer details of brain cells, their connections and contents, with maps of entire networks of … Read more
Astronomers observed a giant asteroid impact in Beta Pictoris, using data from the Webb and Spitzer telescopes. The event, which occurred 20 years ago, provides new insights into early planetary formation in this young star system. (Artist’s concept.) Credit: NASA The new observations shed light on the unstable processes that form star systems like our … Read more
Summary: Researchers discovered that a specific area of the brain, the mediodorsal thalamus, can provoke feelings of paranoia. Comparing data from monkey and human studies, they found that lesions in this brain region led to disordered behavior and increased perceptions of environmental instability. The study provides a new framework for understanding human cognition through cross-species … Read more
Managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory through the launch, the Webb Medium Infrared Instrument also detected jets of gas streaming into space from the twin stars. Scientists recently got a big surprise from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope when they turned the observatory toward a cluster of young stars called WL 20. The region has … Read more
NASA has plans to return astronauts to the lunar surface in the near future. Next year, four astronauts will orbit the moon. “We don’t need to go back to the moon just for the moon. We’re going back to learn new things. So we can go to Mars and beyond,” said Administrator Bill Nelson. The … Read more
Researchers at the University of Copenhagen have used aerial photographs from 1937 to analyze the stability and growth of the East Antarctic ice sheet, finding that despite some signs of weakening, the ice has remained largely stable for almost a century, boosting predictions of further ice growth. sea level. Credit: Norwegian Polar Institute in Tromsø … Read more