An international team of astrophysicists, astronomers and chemists has found evidence of carbonic acid (HOCOOH) in interstellar space, marking the first time it has been detected in such a setting. In their paper published ...
When the European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft discovered abundant molecular oxygen bursting from comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko (67P) in 2015, it puzzled scientists. They had never seen a comet emit oxygen, let alone ...
Astronomy
Mar 14, 2022
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Chemists at Scripps Research have solved a long-standing problem in their field by developing a method for making a highly useful and previously very challenging type of modification to organic molecules. The breakthrough ...
Materials Science
Jun 25, 2021
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About 2.4 billion years ago, at the end of the Archean Eon, a planet-wide increase in oxygen levels called the Great Oxidation Event (GOE) created the familiar atmosphere we all breathe today. Researchers focused on life's ...
Earth Sciences
Dec 5, 2019
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155
Over-fertilization of agricultural fields is a huge environmental problem. Excess phosphorus from fertilized cropland frequently finds its way into nearby rivers and lakes. A resulting boom of aquatic plant growth can cause ...
Biotechnology
Sep 2, 2019
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247
Science fiction stories are chock full of terraforming schemes and oxygen generators for a very good reason—we humans need molecular oxygen (O2) to breathe, and space is essentially devoid of it. Even on other planets with ...
Materials Science
May 24, 2019
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Scientists have found that molecular oxygen around comet 67P is not produced on its surface, as some suggested, but may be from its body.
Space Exploration
Jul 3, 2018
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For researchers pursuing the primordial history of oxygen in Earth's atmosphere, a new study might sour some "Eureka!" moments. A contemporary tool used to trace oxygen by examining ancient rock strata can produce false positives, ...
Earth Sciences
Nov 17, 2017
3
105
A Caltech chemical engineer who normally develops new ways to fabricate microprocessors in computers has figured out how to explain a nagging mystery in space—why comets expel oxygen gas, the same gas we humans breathe.
Space Exploration
May 8, 2017
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517
(Phys.org)—Using the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), astronomers have spotted an atomic hydrogen corona around Jupiter's icy moon Europa. The discovery which could improve our understanding of Europa's tenuous atmosphere ...
