Space
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We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
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SpaceSupernova Outbreak
Thanks to a lucky break and an overactive galaxy, astronomers report the earliest detection yet of a normal supernova—the explosive death of a massive star.
By Ron Cowen -
SpaceTwisted roots for solar jets
Researchers have constructed the first 3-D image of a jet of gas zooming out of the sun's outer atmosphere, revealing the role that twisted magnetic fields play in generating such outbursts.
By Ron Cowen -
AstronomyGalaxy’s youngest supernova
Astronomers have found the youngest Milky Way supernova remnant ever recorded from Earth.
By Ron Cowen -
SpaceA shifty moon
Astronomers have found evidence that the icy shell of Jupiter's large moon Europa has rotated nearly a quarter-turn, which supports the notion that the moon has a subterranean ocean.
By Ron Cowen -
Materials ScienceLike the Nobel, Only Norwegian
Two weeks from now, an astrophysicist, neuroscientist, and nanoscience researcher will each be named to receive $1 million Kavli Prizes.
By Janet Raloff -
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SpaceBOOK LIST | Newton: Ackroyd’s Brief Lives
The book promises a personal history of Isaac Newton. Ackroyd also wrote Shakespeare: The Biography and London: The Biography. Nan A. Talese, 2008 176 p. $21.95 NEWTON: ACKROYD’S BRIEF LIVES
By Science News -
PhysicsJohn Wheeler (1911-2008)
SN Editor in Chief Tom Siegfried remembers the late physicist John Wheeler, who coined the term "black hole" in 1967, with excerpts from conversations the two had engaged in over the past two decades.
By Science News -
SpaceA special place
Two proposed studies might determine whether dark energy is real or humans live in a special place in the cosmos
By Ron Cowen -
SpaceA new look at the gamma-ray sky
Explosions pouring out as much energy in seconds as the sun does in its entire lifetime. Invisible beams of radiation sweeping across the sky like giant searchlights. Supermassive black holes emitting powerful and highly variable jets of radiation. GAMMA GLOW Simulation of the high-energy sky that will be seen by GLAST. Sonoma State, NASA The […]
By Ron Cowen -
SpaceFlooring the cosmic accelerator
If cosmologist Will Percival of the University of Portsmouth in England is right, the universe will end about 60 billion years from now, when every molecule and atom will be torn asunder by a mysterious entity that opposes gravity’s pull and turns it into a cosmic push.
By Ron Cowen -
AstronomyHoning the Hubble
Astronomers are sharpening measurements of a familiar cosmic parameter to shed new light on dark energy, the mysterious entity that’s accelerating the universe’s rate of expansion.
By Ron Cowen