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Latest Panoramic Image of Pluto Reveals ‘Arctic-Like’ World

This panoramic image of Pluto highlights dwarf planet’s varied terrains and extended atmosphere. The scene measures 780 miles (1,250 km) across. The smooth expanse of Sputnik Planum (right) is flanked to the west (left) by rugged mountains up to 11,000 feet (3.5 km) high, including Norgay Montes in the foreground and Hillary Montes on the skyline. To the right, east of Sputnik, rougher terrain is cut by apparent glaciers. The backlighting highlights over a dozen layers of haze in the atmosphere of Pluto. The image was taken from a distance of 11,000 miles (18,000 km) to Pluto. Image credit: NASA / Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory / Southwest Research Institute.
Sep 18, 2015 by News Staff

NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft snapped this remarkable panoramic view of Pluto’s crescent on July 14, 2015. This picture, taken with the spacecraft’s wide-angle Ralph/Multispectral Visual Imaging Camera, reveals with exquisite detail glaciers of frozen nitrogen, icy mountains and haunting hazes. This panoramic image of Pluto highlights dwarf planet’s varied terrains and extended atmosphere. The scene measures 780 miles (1,250 km) across. The...

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Artist’s depiction of a black hole merger. Image credit: NASA / CXC / A. Hobart / Josh Barnes, University of Hawaii / John Hibbard, NRAO.

Astronomers Find Closest Pair of Supermassive Black Holes

Sep 17, 2015 by News Staff

A team of U.S. astronomers has found the closest pair of supermassive black holes ever discovered in the Universe. Artist’s depiction of a black hole...

This Cassini image shows the night sides of Saturn and Tethys. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Space Science Institute.

Cassini Captures Dark Sides of Saturn and Tethys

Sep 17, 2015 by News Staff

This beautiful image from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft shows the night sides of Saturn and its fifth largest moon, Tethys. This Cassini image shows the...

This illustration shows what the activities of a Kardashev Type III civilisation might look like - encapsulating the energy of stars by so-called Dyson spheres is one way to harness enormous energies on galactic scales; the resulting waste heat products should be detectable by telescopes. Image credit: Danielle Futselaar / ASTRON.

Astronomer Finds No Evidence of Kardashev Type III Civilizations in Local Universe

Sep 17, 2015 by News Staff

So-called Kardashev Type III civilizations – galaxy-spanning civilizations that command power equal to all of the stars in their galaxy – are...

May bruno. Image credit: Dirk Kunz.

New Genus, Four New Species of Huntsman Spiders Discovered in Southern Africa

Sep 16, 2015 by News Staff

German arachnologists have described a new genus and four species of huntsman spiders from South Africa and Namibia. May bruno. Image credit: Dirk Kunz. Only...

Tasiilaq, Greenland. Image credit: Christine Zenino / CC BY 2.0.

New Study Finds Mosquitoes Thriving in Greenland

Sep 16, 2015 by News Staff

Warming temperatures are causing mosquitoes in Greenland to grow faster and emerge earlier, boosting their population and threatening the caribou they...

Green turtles swimming in the Great Barrier Reef, Queensland. Image credit: © Troy Mayne.

Marine Populations in Serious Decline Worldwide: WWF Report

Sep 16, 2015 by News Staff

WWF’s Living Blue Planet Report provides the most accurate picture of the state of the ocean, and the results are not very good. The report, released...

This illustration is a speculative representation of the interior of Enceladus with a global ocean between its rocky core and icy crust. The thickness of layers shown here is not to scale. Scientists determined that the slight wobble of the moon as it orbits Saturn is much too large for the moon to be frozen from surface to core. The wobble, technically referred to as a libration, reveals that the crust of Enceladus is disconnected from its rocky interior. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

Enceladus Harbors Global Subsurface Ocean

Sep 16, 2015 by News Staff

Planetary researchers with NASA’s Cassini mission have found a large body of water beneath the surface of Saturn’s moon Enceladus. This color view...

This image shows the Sculptor Dwarf Galaxy, a close neighbor of our own Milky Way Galaxy. Despite their proximity, both galaxies have very distinct histories and characters. This galaxy is much smaller, fainter and older than the Milky Way and appears here as a cloud of faint stars filling most of the image. Many other much more distant galaxies can be seen shining right through the sparse stars of the galaxy. Image credit: ESO.

Astronomers Capture Stunning Image of Sculptor Dwarf Galaxy

Sep 16, 2015 by News Staff

Using the Wide Field Imager on the 2.2-m MPG/ESO telescope at ESO’s La Silla Observatory, Chile, astronomers have captured a new image of a nearby small...

This image was taken by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory at 3:12 a.m. EDT on September 13, 2015. The edge of Earth, visible near the top of the frame, appears fuzzy because Earth’s atmosphere blocks different amounts of light at different altitudes. On the left, the Moon’s edge is perfectly crisp, because it has no atmosphere. This image was taken in extreme UV wavelengths of 171 angstroms. Though this light is invisible to our eyes, it is typically colorized in gold. Image credit: NASA / SDO.

NASA’s SDO Spacecraft Catches Double Solar Eclipse

Sep 15, 2015 by News Staff

NASA’s SDO (Solar Dynamics Observatory) spacecraft captured this image of Earth and the Moon transiting the Sun together on September 13, 2015. This...

The dot in the cross-hairs is a comet streaming toward the Sun, as seen on September 14, 2015, by SOHO. This is the 3,000th comet discovered in the data from the space observatory since it launched in 1995, Image credit: NASA / ESA / SOHO.

SOHO Observatory Discovers Its 3,000th Comet

Sep 15, 2015 by News Staff

On Sunday, September 13, the NASA/ESA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) discovered its 3,000th comet. The dot in the cross-hairs is a comet streaming...

This colorful view of Mercury was produced by using images from the color base map imaging campaign during MESSENGER’s primary mission. These colors are not what Mercury would look like to the human eye, but rather the colors enhance the chemical, mineralogical, and physical differences between the rocks that make up the planet’s surface. Image credit: NASA / Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory / Carnegie Institution of Washington.

Planet Mercury Spins Faster Than Expected

Sep 15, 2015 by News Staff

By analyzing data collected by NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft, scientists have found that, on average, Mercury spins on its axis 9 seconds faster than had...

A pair of zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata) at Bird Kingdom, Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada. Image credit: Keith Gerstung / CC BY 2.0.

Speed-Dating for Zebra Finches Reveals Evolutionary Importance of Love

Sep 15, 2015 by News Staff

A new study is attempting to answer one of mankind’s oldest questions: why does love exist? A pair of zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata) at Bird Kingdom,...

This image of Charon, taken by New Horizons ten hours before its closest approach to Pluto on July 14, 2015 from a distance of 290,000 miles (470,000 km), is a recently downlinked, much higher quality version of a Charon image released on July 15. The smallest visible features are 2.9 miles (4.6 km) in size. Image credit: NASA / Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory / Southwest Research Institute.

New Horizons Beams Back New Images of Charon, Pluto’s Small Moons

Sep 15, 2015 by News Staff

NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft has sent back new, better images of Pluto’s largest moon, Charon, and the dwarf planet’s smaller satellites Nix and...

The Cosgrove hotspot track. Image credit: Drew Whitehouse / NCI National Facility VizLab.

Cosgrove Track: Scientists Discover World’s Longest Chain of Continental Volcanoes

Sep 14, 2015 by News Staff

An international team of researchers has discovered the world’s longest known continental volcanic hotspot track — a 1,245 mile (2,000 km) long...

The Kimberley death adder (Acanthophis cryptamydros). Image credit: Ryan J. Ellis.

New Species of Venomous Snake Discovered in Australia

Sep 14, 2015 by News Staff

Scientists have discovered a new species of snake in the Kimberley region, north-western Australia. The Kimberley death adder (Acanthophis cryptamydros)....

This image from NASA’s Galileo spacecraft shows Io. There are rugged mountains several miles high, layered materials forming plateaus, and many irregular depressions called volcanic calderas. Several of the dark, flow-like features correspond to hot spots, and may be active lava flows. There are no landforms resembling impact craters, as the volcanism covers the surface with new deposits much more rapidly than the flux of comets and asteroids can create large impact craters. The picture is centered on the side of Io that always faces away from Jupiter; north is to the top. Image credit: NASA / JPL / University of Arizona.

Jupiter’s Moon Io May Have Subsurface Magma Ocean

Sep 14, 2015 by News Staff

Io is the Solar System’s most volcanically active planetary body. However, concentrations of volcanic activity are displaced from where they are expected...

This Hubble image shows NGC 3921, an interacting pair of galaxies in the late stages of its merger. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / Judy Schmidt, geckzilla.com.

NGC 3921: Hubble Spies Colliding Galaxies

Sep 14, 2015 by News Staff

A beautiful new image of two colliding spiral galaxies, known as NGC 3921, has been released by NASA. This Hubble image shows NGC 3921, an interacting...

New Species of Dinosaur Nicknamed Lightning Claw Found in Australia

Sep 14, 2015 by News Staff

A remarkable new species of theropod dinosaur has been unearthed in an underground mine in north-central New South Wales, Australia. Illustration of the...

Sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus) off the coast of Mauritius. Image credit: Gabriel Barathieu / CC BY-SA 2.0.

Sperm Whales Have Their Own Culture, Marine Biologists Say

Sep 11, 2015 by News Staff

Culture in animal societies is a highly debated topic. Some scientists think it’s clear enough, while others don’t think the word ‘culture’ should...

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