Our Galaxy’s Explosive Past

Our Galaxy's Explosive Past

A huge energy flare ripped through the heart of our galaxy about 3.5 million years ago. A blast so extremely powerful, it could be felt 200k light-years away and lasted more than 300k years. A study concluded by researchers in Australia and the U.S. found that the former belief that “our galaxy was an inactive galaxy” may in fact not […]

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When the Red Planet was partly blue

Astronomers have found the strongest evidence yet that ancient Mars had a massive ocean for millions of years— an indication that the Red Planet once had everything necessary to support life. Shortly after Mars formed 4.5 billion years ago, NASA scientists say, the planet was wet, with enough water to cover the entire planet to a depth of about 450 […]

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A Moon With Water

Astrobiologists searching the heavens for extraterrestrial life have a simple motto: “Follow the water, ”says The Washington Post. Water is an essential ingredient in all earthly biochemistry, so scientists believe it’s logical to look for life first on planets and moons with liquid water.New data from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft indicate that Enceladus, a tiny, ice-encrusted moon orbiting Saturn, may be […]

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Mysterious signal from deep space

Mysterious signal from deep space

Mysterious radio signals from space have been known to repeat, but for the first time, researchers have noticed a pattern in a series of bursts coming from a single source half a billion light-years from Earth. Fast radio bursts, or FRBs, are millisecond-long bursts of radio waves in space. Individual radio bursts emit once and don’t repeat. But repeating fast […]

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Ice in a planetary cauldron

With temperatures in excess of 800 F, Mercury is one of the last places in the solar system you’d expect to find ice. But when NASA’s Messenger spacecraft transmitted its first optical images of the closest planets to the sun, that’s exactly what scientists discovered. Mercury sits about 36 million miles from the sun, which is roughly 57 million miles […]

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Relics of the big bang

Astronomers have discovered two clouds of gas some 12 billion light-years away that appear to preserve the primordial conditions of the universe in the minutes after the big bang. The clouds contain just hydrogen and its isotope deuterium, making them “the first examples to fit precisely” into what scientists think the early universe was like, University of California astronomer Jason […]

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