Where does snow come from? This may seem like a simple question to ponder as half the planet emerges from a season of watching whimsical flakes fall from the sky—and shoveling them from driveways. But a new study on how ...
Earth Sciences
Mar 22, 2021
3
4769
Much of the carbon in space is believed to exist in the form of large molecules called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). Since the 1980s, circumstantial evidence has indicated that these molecules are abundant in space, ...
Astronomy
Mar 18, 2021
13
936
In early 2016, an icy visitor from the edge of our solar system hurtled past Earth. It briefly became visible to stargazers as Comet Catalina before it slingshotted past the Sun to disappear forevermore out of the solar system.
Planetary Sciences
Mar 5, 2021
0
875
What remains of the star that exploded just outside our galaxy in 1987? Debris has obscured scientists' view, but two of NASA's X-ray telescopes have revealed new clues.
Astronomy
Feb 23, 2021
8
213
Researchers have found a way to use light and a single electron to communicate with a cloud of quantum bits and sense their behavior, making it possible to detect a single quantum bit in a dense cloud.
Quantum Physics
Feb 15, 2021
2
5317
It forever changed history when it crashed into Earth about 66 million years ago.
Astronomy
Feb 15, 2021
12
898
Observations of Earth's atmosphere show that thunderstorms are often stronger in the presence of high concentrations of aerosols—airborne particles too small to see with the naked eye.
Earth Sciences
Jan 4, 2021
1
137
The Milky Way is not alone in its neighborhood. It has captured smaller galaxies in its orbit, and the two largest are known as the Small and Large Magellanic Clouds, visible as twin dusty smears in the Southern Hemisphere.
Astronomy
Sep 9, 2020
10
729
By analyzing the data from ESA's Gaia satellite, Chinese astronomers have discovered four new open clusters in the Cygnus Nebula Cloud. The newfound clusters, designated QC1 to QC 4, are located between 4,100 and 7,600 light-years ...
A new study uses satellite data over the Southern Hemisphere to understand global cloud composition during the industrial revolution. This research tackles one of the largest uncertainties in today's climate models—the ...
Earth Sciences
Jul 27, 2020
2
147
