Space : Science World Report

Mar 14, 2012 11:31 AM EDT

Astronomers Get Rare Peek at Early Stage of Star Formation

Using radio and infrared telescopes, astronomers have obtained a first tantalizing look at a crucial early stage in star formation. The new observations promise to help scientists understand the early stages of a sequence of events through which a giant cloud of gas and dust collapses into dense cor...

Mar 14, 2012 10:24 AM EDT

NASA and CSA Robotic Operations Advance Satellite Servicing

NASA's Robotic Refueling Mission (RRM) experiment aboard the International Space Station has demonstrated remotely controlled robots and specialized tools can perform precise satellite-servicing tasks in space. The project marks a milestone in the use of the space station as a technology test bed.

Mar 14, 2012 09:16 AM EDT

The Fraser Runs through It

Arising from headwaters around Mount Robson in the Rocky Mountains, the Fraser River starts as a fast-moving stream. The river angles northward around the Columbia Mountains, picking up so much sediment that it appears brown by the time it reaches Quesnel. Near the coast, the river flows over flatte...

Mar 14, 2012 08:04 AM EDT

Danish Research Center to Explore Mysteries of Earth's Interior

The DanSeis Centre at the University of Copenhagen has just received a grant of more than â‚¬3 million from the Danish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Higher Education to investigate and tackle one of geoscience's great mysteries: do mantle plumes, hypothetically buoyant regions of heated ma...

Mar 14, 2012 07:42 AM EDT

The Feeding Habits of Teenage Galaxies

Astronomers have known for some time that the earliest galaxies were much smaller than the impressive spiral and elliptical galaxies that now fill the Universe. Over the lifetime of the cosmos galaxies have put on a great deal of weight but their food, and eating habits, are still mysterious. A new ...

Mar 13, 2012 04:30 PM EDT

Show Time for Commercial Spaceflight at Hand

The first privately owned passenger spaceship is on track for a test flight beyond the atmosphere this year, and nearly 500 people have signed up for rides.

Mar 13, 2012 04:08 PM EDT

Cassini Spies Wave Rattling Jet Stream on Jupiter

New movies of Jupiter are the first to catch an invisible wave shaking up one of the giant planet's jet streams, an interaction that also takes place in Earth's atmosphere and influences the weather. The movies, made from images taken by NASA's Cassini spacecraft when it flew by Jupiter in 2000, are...

Mar 13, 2012 02:50 PM EDT

NASA Sees Double Tropical Trouble in Northern Australia

Northern Australia is dealing with two tropical systems today, and both were close enough to be captured on one satellite image. One of them has strengthened enough to be named Tropical Cyclone Lua, while the other is still getting organized and is a tropical low pressure area. The unnamed storm is ...

Mar 13, 2012 12:10 PM EDT

Prolonged Space Travel Causes Brain and Eye Abnormalities in Astronauts

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the eyes and brains of 27 astronauts who have spent prolonged periods of time in space revealed optical abnormalities similar to those that can occur in intracranial hypertension of unknown cause, a potentially serious condition in which pressure builds within the...

Mar 13, 2012 08:18 AM EDT

Wreckage and Recovery in Ishinomaki, Japan

At the northern end of Sendai Bay, Ishinomaki once boasted one of the world's largest fish markets. On March 11, 2011, the earthquake and tsunami destroyed about 28,000 of the port city's houses. More than 3,000 residents perished, and nearly three months later, almost as many people remained missin...

Mar 12, 2012 04:35 PM EDT

A New Theory on the Formation of the Oldest Continents

The earth's structure can be compared to an orange: its crust is the peel supported by the earth's heavy mantle. That peel is made up of a continental crust 30 to 40 kilometers thick. It is much lighter than the thinner oceanic crust and protrudes from the earth's mantle because of its lower density...

Mar 12, 2012 10:14 AM EDT

Why do We See the Man in the Moon?

More than 99 percent of Antarctic blue whales were killed by commercial whalers during the 20th century, but the first circumpolar genetic study of these critically endangered whales has found a surprisingly high level of diversity among the surviving population of some 2,200 individuals.