Science & Technology News

Then it played Super Mario Bros

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A dust storm that engulfed Mars in 2018 destroyed a vortex of cold air around the planet's south pole and brought an early spring to the hemisphere. By contrast, the storm caused only minor distortions to the polar vortex in the northern hemisphere and no dramatic seasonal changes.

A new approach to analysing the development of magnetic tangles on the Sun has led to a breakthrough in a longstanding debate about how solar energy is injected into the solar atmosphere before being released into space, causing space weather events. The first direct evidence that field lines become knotted before they emerge at the visible surface of the Sun has implications for our ability to predict the behavior of active regions and the nature of the solar interior.

Not a moonshot: Astronomers explore possibility of lunar observatory to better understand fundamental physics, astronomy and cosmology.

The NASA mission used seismic waves from marsquakes to perform a core-to-crust survey of the planet’s subsurface

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Any life identified on planets orbiting white dwarf stars almost certainly evolved after the star's death, says a new study that reveals the consequences of the intense and furious stellar winds that will batter a planet as its star is dying.

New high-resolution observations clearly show a moon-forming region around exoplanet PDS 70c. The observations have allowed astronomers to determine the ring-shaped region's size and mass for the first time.

A new survey of our home galaxy, the Milky Way, combines the capabilities of the Very Large Array and the Effelsberg telescope in Germany to provide astronomers with valuable new insights into how stars much more massive than the Sun are formed.

Heat waves kill more people than any other type of severe weather in the U.S. And climate change is making them more frequent and unpredictable

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The disqualification of a leading U.S. Olympics candidate has brought the World Anti-Doping Agency’s marijuana prohibition under fire

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Astronomers have made detailed observations of a large tidal flow around the Sombrero galaxy, whose strange morphology has still not been definitively explained.

Little is known about the weather at night on Venus as the absence of sunlight makes imaging difficult. Now, researchers have devised a way to use infrared sensors on board the Venus orbiter Akatsuki to reveal the first details of the nighttime weather of our nearest neighbor. Their analytical methods could be used to study other planets including Mars and gas giants as well.

Astronomersand engineers are building a new kind of astronomical telescope. SuperBIT flies above 99.5% of the Earth's atmosphere, carried by a helium balloon the size of a football stadium. The telescope will make its operational debut next April and when deployed should obtain high-resolution images rivaling those of the Hubble Space Telescope.

Scientists are using football-field-sized lasers, warehouse-sized electromagnets and other immense facilities to reveal the deep secrets of planetary interiors

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Studies of extreme ecosystems on Earth can guide the search for Martian life and may reveal the fundamental limits of biology

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A team of solar physicists has reported the discovery of global oscillations of the Sun with very long periods, comparable to the 27-day solar rotation period. The oscillations manifest themselves at the solar surface as swirling motions with speeds on the order of 5 kilometers per hour.

New unpublished studies show that dogs and cats with COVID-positive owners frequently have SARS-CoV-2 antibodies

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Data on 2,000 years of Rocky Mountain forest fires shows skyrocketing damage

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Black holes with masses equivalent to millions of suns do put a brake on the birth of new stars, say astronomers. Using machine learning and three state of the art simulations to back up results from a large sky survey, the researchers resolve a 20-year long debate on the formation of stars.

A serendipitous flythrough of the tail of a disintegrated comet has offered scientists a unique opportunity to study these remarkable structures.