Category Astronomy/Space

1. Type II features are the most common of Ceres’ landslides and look similar to deposits left by avalanches on Earth. This one also looks similar to TV’s Bart Simpson. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA, taken by Dawn Framing Camera
2. Type I landslides on Ceres are relatively round, large and have thick “toes” at their ends. They look similar to rock glaciers and icy landslides in Earth’s arctic. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA, taken by Dawn Framing Camera
3. Ceres’ Type III features appear to form when some of the ice is melted during impact events. These landslides at low latitudes are always found coming from large-impact craters. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA, taken by Dawn Framing Camera
4. Ceres

Massive landslides, similar to those found on Earth, are...

An image of a simulated galaxy cluster showing evidence for a boundary, or “edge” from a 2015 paper in the Astrophysical Journal by Surhud More, Benedikt Diemer and Andre Kravtsov.

University of Pennsylvania research could shed light on the distribution of one of the most mysterious substances in the universe. In the 1970s, scientists noticed something strange about the motion of galaxies. All the matter at the edge of spiral galaxies was rotating just as fast as material in the inner part of the galaxy. But according to the laws of gravity, objects on the outskirts should be moving slower. The explanation: dark matter, which affects everything from how objects move within a galaxy to how galaxies and galaxy clusters clump together in the first place...

Hypothetically, matter can have negative mass in the same sense that an electric charge can be either negative or positive. With negative mass, if you push something, it accelerates toward you. Forbes said, “It looks like the rubidium hits an invisible wall.” (stock image). Credit: © ktsdesign / Fotolia

Experimental technique can help probe phenomena in astrophysics and cosmology. Washington State University physicists have created a fluid with negative mass, which is exactly what it sounds like. Push it, and unlike every physical object in the world we know, it doesn’t accelerate in the direction it was pushed. It accelerates backwards...

Chaotic advection accelerates interfacial transport under hydrothermally relevant conditions Credit: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

A Texas A&M University team has uncovered a physical mechanism that may help answer one of the major questions concerning the origin of life, “How did the building blocks form?” Scientists have long known that the building blocks of life – amino acids, nucleobases and sugars – were present in the early ocean, but they were very low in concentration. In order for life to emerge, these building blocks needed to be combined and enriched into long-chain macromolecules.

“In the early ocean, those building blocks were present in the environment,” Ugaz said. “They were there, but they were so dilute; there is a question about how they combined...