Category Astronomy/Space

Clemens M. Rumpf, Hugh G. Lewis, Peter M. Atkinson. Asteroid impact effects and their immediate hazards for human populations. Geophysical Research Letters, 2017; DOI: 10.1002/2017GL073191

Violent winds, shock waves from impacts pose greatest threat to humans. If an asteroid struck Earth, which of its effects – scorching heat, flying debris, towering tsunamis – would claim the most lives? A new study has the answer: violent winds and shock waves are the most dangerous effects produced by Earth-impacting asteroids. The study explored 7 effects associated with asteroid impacts – heat, pressure shock waves, flying debris, tsunamis, wind blasts, seismic shaking and cratering – and estimated their lethality for varying sizes...

An artist’s rendition of the galaxies Akira (right) and Tetsuo (left) in action. Akira’s gravity pulls Tetsuo’s gas into its central supermassive black hole, fuelling winds that have the power to heat Akira’s gas. Because of the action of the black hole winds, Tetsuo’s donated gas is rendered inert, preventing a new cycle of star formation in Akira. Copyright : Prime Focus Spectrograph Project

Supermassive black hole winds in a newly discovered class of galaxies are so energetic they suppress future star formation. An international team involved in the SDSS-IV MaNGA (Sloan Digital Sky Survey-IV Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory) project is studying ~10,000 galaxies near Earth...

What our Milky Way might look like to alien astronomers: This image of NGC 2683, a spiral galaxy also known as the “UFO Galaxy” due to its shape, was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. Since trying to find out what the Milky Way looks like is a bit like trying to picture an unfamiliar house while being confined to a room inside, studies like this one help us gain a better idea of our cosmic home. Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA

Astronomers find missing mass in the hydrogen halo that surrounds our home galaxy. Sometimes it takes a lot of trees to see the forest. In the case of the latest discovery made by astronomers at the University of Arizona, exactly 732,225...

Renal urea accumulation, plasma Na+ and urea concentration, and plasma osmolality in response to experimental salt loading

New studies show that salty food diminishes thirst while increasing hunger, due to a higher need for energy. We’ve all heard it: eating salty foods makes you thirstier. But what sounds like good nutritional advice turns out to be an old-wives’ tale. In a study carried out during a simulated mission to Mars, an international group of scientists has found exactly the opposite to be true. “Cosmonauts” who ate more salt retained more water, weren’t as thirsty, and needed more energy.

For some reason, no one had ever carried out a long-term study to determine the relationship between the amount of salt in a person’s diet and his drinking habits...