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It Rains Diamonds on ‘Ice Giant’ Planets

A cutaway depicts the interior of Neptune (left). In the new experiment, Kraus et al studied a plastic simulating compounds formed from methane -- a molecule with just one carbon bound to four hydrogen atoms that causes the distinct blue cast of Neptune; methane forms hydrocarbon (hydrogen and carbon) chains that respond to high pressure and temperature to form ‘diamond rain’ in the interiors of ice giants like Neptune; the authors were able to recreate similar conditions using high-powered optical lasers and watch the small diamonds form in real time with X-rays. Image credit: Greg Stewart, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory.
Aug 21, 2017 by News Staff

A new experiment at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory reveals how large diamonds may be formed from just hydrogen and carbon in the deep interior of ice giant planets such as Neptune and Uranus. A cutaway depicts the interior of Neptune (left). In the new experiment, Kraus et al studied a plastic simulating compounds formed from methane — a molecule with just one carbon bound to four hydrogen atoms that causes the distinct blue cast of Neptune;...

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This illustration depicts a 3D computer-generated image of a group of clindamycin-resistant GBS bacteria, which were arranged in chains. The artistic recreation was based upon scanning electron microscopic (SEM) imagery. If you look carefully, you’ll be able to see a number of these organisms undergoing the process of cell division along the long axis of their respective chains. Image credit: James Archer / CDC.

Study: Breast Milk Oligosaccharides Kill Group B-Streptococcus, Block Biofilm Formation

Aug 21, 2017 by News Staff

Streptococcus agalactiae (Group B-Streptococcus, or GBS) is a type of bacteria that can cause invasive infections in people of all ages. A research team...

(3122) Florence will pass safely by Earth on September 1, at a distance of about 4.4 million miles. Image credit: University of Colorado.

Asteroid Florence to Fly Safely Past Earth on September 1

Aug 21, 2017 by Enrico de Lazaro

A relatively large near-Earth asteroid will safely fly by pur planet on September 1, 2017, according to NASA. (3122) Florence will pass safely by Earth...

This new image from Hubble shows the dwarf galaxy NGC 178. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble.

Hubble Spies Dwarf Galaxy NGC 178

Aug 21, 2017 by News Staff

This image of the small galaxy NGC 178 comes courtesy of the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope’s Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2). This new image...

Aerial view of the excavation area, with Rosh Ha-Ayin in the background. Image credit: Yitzhak Marmelstein.

Israeli Archaeologists Unearth 2,700-Year-Old Water System

Aug 18, 2017 by News Staff

A team of Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) archaeologists and students has discovered an Assyrian-period water system near Rosh Ha-Ayin, a city in the...

Still life with glass bowl of fruit and vases. Roman painting from the House of Julia Felix in Pompeii, 63-79 CE.

Citrus Fruits Were Symbols of High Social Status in Ancient Rome

Aug 18, 2017 by News Staff

Citrus fruits such as citrons and lemons were clear status symbols for the ancient Roman ruling elite, according to new research from Tel Aviv University. Still...

An artist’s reconstruction of Anatoliadelphys maasae. Image credit: Peter Schouten.

Cat-Sized Marsupial Relative Lived in Turkey 43 Million Years Ago

Aug 18, 2017 by Enrico de Lazaro

Fossils discovered in Turkey represent a new species that is a previously unknown relative of modern-day marsupials, according to a new paper published...

Gliese 832 Hosts at Least Three Exoplanets, Astrophysicists Say

Aug 18, 2017 by Natali Anderson

An international team of researchers from the Kiepenheuer Institute for Solar Physics and the University of Texas at Arlington has spotted signs of an...

Cryogenian Earth. Image credit: NASA.

‘Rise of Algae’ in Cryogenian Oceans Led to Appearance of First Complex Organisms, Study Says

Aug 17, 2017 by Enrico de Lazaro

The rapid rise of marine planktonic algae 659-645 million years ago (Cryogenian period), between the Sturtian and Marinoan ‘snowball Earth’ glaciations,...

This image of the ‘jellyfish’ galaxy JO204 shows clearly how material is streaming out of the galaxy in long tendrils to the lower-left; red shows the glow from ionized hydrogen gas and the whiter regions are where most of the stars in the galaxy are located; some more distant galaxies are also visible. Image credit: ESO / GASP Collaboration.

MUSE Observations of ‘Jellyfish’ Galaxies Reveal New Way to Fuel Supermassive Black Holes

Aug 17, 2017 by News Staff

An international research team, led by Dr. Bianca Poggianti of the INAF-Astronomical Observatory of Padova, has used the MUSE instrument on ESO’s Very...

A chemically termolecular reaction is a reaction where three different molecules (e.g. H, O2, H) each participate in the breaking and forming of chemical bonds. The reaction is mediated by an ephemeral collision complex (HO2**) formed from the collision of two molecules (H, O2) which then reacts upon colliding with a third molecule (H). Image credit: Michael P. Burke / Columbia Engineering.

New Class of Chemical Reaction Discovered: ‘Chemically Termolecular’ Reactions

Aug 17, 2017 by News Staff

A duo of researchers from Columbia University and Argonne National Laboratory has discovered an entirely new class of chemical reaction, dubbed chemically...

This is a false color image of Saturn, with exaggerated colors to enhance subtle variations in color to bring out details of the cloud structure. The view is centered on 46 degrees north latitude on Saturn. The filter centered at 727 nm was used for red in this image; the filter centered at 750 nm was used for blue. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Space Science Institute.

Cassini Image: Saturn’s Clouds Up Close

Aug 17, 2017 by News Staff

NASA’s Cassini mission has shared an amazing close-up portrait of Saturn taken from the Cassini robotic probe. This is a false color image of Saturn,...

Tropidogyne pentaptera, holotype. Scale bars -1 mm. Image credit: George O. Poinar, Jr. / Kenton L. Chambers.

Cretaceous Flowers Found Preserved in Burmese Amber

Aug 17, 2017 by News Staff

In a paper published recently in the journal Palaeodiversity, U.S. paleontologists described a new species of angiosperm flower, Tropidogyne pentaptera,...

The TinyLev system is composed of the driver board and the single-axis levitator with 72 transducers (arranged as two surfaces, each containing 36 transducers); expanded polystyrene (EPS) particles are trapped at its nodes. Image credit: Marzo et al, doi: 10.1063/1.4989995.

Researchers Develop Home Acoustic Levitator

Aug 16, 2017 by Enrico de Lazaro

A research team at the University of Bristol, UK, has developed a relatively cheap and small acoustic levitator that is capable of holding samples of interest...

This artist’s conception shows a hypothetical tidally-locked planet with two moons orbiting in the habitable zone of a red dwarf star. Image credit: D. Aguilar / Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

Tidally-Locked Planets More Common than Previously Thought, Astronomer Says

Aug 16, 2017 by News Staff

Dr. Rory Barnes, an assistant professor in the Department of Astronomy and Astrobiology Program at the University of Washington, arrived at this finding...

This illustration shows a likely configuration of a gravitational lensing system discovered by the team: the milli-lens is located in or near the intervening spiral galaxy; the lens is magnifying blobs of jet material within the active galaxy PKS1413+135, but the blobs are too small to be seen in the radio image (top left); only when the blobs move far away from the yellow core do they expand and are visible as the pink blobs in the image. Image credit: Anthony Readhead / Caltech / MOJAVE.

Gravitational ‘Milli-Lens’ Reveals Clumps of Hot Gas Streaming from Supermassive Black Hole

Aug 16, 2017 by News Staff

An international team of astronomers has found evidence for a unique gravitational lensing system, in which a massive star cluster is magnifying an extremely...

The Roman villa of Durrueli is located off the southern coast of Sicily. Image credit: University of South Florida.

Archaeologists Excavate Large Ancient Roman Villa in Italy

Aug 16, 2017 by Enrico de Lazaro

An international team of archaeologists led by the University of South Florida is the first to successfully excavate the 5,000 m2 Roman villa of Durrueli...

Chilesaurus diegosuarezi was up to 3 meters long; the different parts of its body were adapted to a particular diet and way of life, which was similar to other groups of dinosaurs. Image credit: Gabriel Lio.

‘Missing Link’ in Dinosaur Family Tree Discovered: Chilesaurus diegosuarezi

Aug 15, 2017 by News Staff

Chilesaurus diegosuarezi, a peculiar dinosaur that roamed the Earth some 145 million years ago and looked like a raptor but was in fact a plant-eater,...

A candidate event of light-by-light scattering, a very rare process in which two photons interact and change direction, measured in the ATLAS detector. Image credit: CERN.

CERN Physicists Find Direct Evidence of High Energy Light-By-Light Scattering

Aug 15, 2017 by News Staff

Physicists from the ATLAS experiment, one of the four major experiments at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Switzerland, have found the first direct...

The artist’s rendering shows how potential ‘wells’ are created for photons in the microresonator through heating with an external laser beam (green). Image credit: David Dung, University of Bonn.

Physicists Experiment with ‘Super-Photons’

Aug 15, 2017 by News Staff

A team of physicists at the University of Bonn in Germany has developed a technique to create optical ‘wells’ for a photonic Bose-Einstein condensate. The...

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