Category Astronomy/Space

New global atlas offers new way to map coral reefs from space. Scientists offer a new way to accurately map coral reefs using a combination of Earth-orbiting satellites and field observations. This first-ever global coral reef atlas contains maps of over 65,000 square kilometers (25,097 square miles) of coral reefs and surrounding habitats.

The maps, published today in the journal Coral Reefs, are the result of a 10-year Global Reef Expedition by scientists for the Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foun...

Researchers show young stars rapidly destroy Earth-like Nitrogen dominated atmospheres. Fundamentally important for the habitability of a planet is whether or not it can hold onto an atmosphere, which requires that the atmosphere is not completely lost early in the lifetime of the planet. A new study by researchers based at the University of Vienna and at the Space Research Institute of the ÖAW in Graz has shown that young stars can rapidly destroy the atmospheres of potentially-habitable Earth-like planets, which is a significant additional difficulty for the formation of life outside our solar system. The results will appear soon in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics Letters.

Much recent research has focused on planets orbiting stars called M-dwa...

Scientists said Tuesday they might have detected the first known seismic tremor on Mars in a discovery that could shed light on the ancient origins of Earth’s neighbour. A dome-shaped probe known as SEIS landed on the surface of Mars in December after hitching a ride on NASA’s InSight spacecraft. Its instruments measure surface vibrations caused by weather but are also capable of detecting movement from deep within the planet—so called “marsquakes”—or those caused by meteorite impacts.

The French space agency Cnes, which operates SEIS, said it had detected “a weak but distinct seismic signal” from the probe...

Scientists have used the tiny distortions imprinted on the cosmic microwave background by the gravity of matter throughout the universe, recorded by ESA’s Planck satellite, to uncover the connection between the luminosity of quasars – the bright cores of active galaxies – and the mass of the much larger ‘halos’ of dark matter in which they sit. The result is an important confirmation for our understanding of how galaxies evolve across cosmic history.

Most galaxies in the universe are known to host supermassive black holes, with masses of millions to billions of times the Sun’s mass, at their cores...