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    Category Astronomy/Space

    Ancient Stardust Sheds Light on the First Stars

    March 8, 2017, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    This artist's impression shows what the very distant young galaxy A2744_YD4 might look like. Observations using ALMA have shown that this galaxy, seen when the Universe was just 4 percent of its current age, is rich in dust. Such dust was produced by an earlier generation of stars and these observations provide insights into the birth and explosive deaths of the very first stars in the Universe. Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser

    This artist’s impression shows what the very distant young galaxy A2744_YD4 might look like. Observations using ALMA have shown that this galaxy, seen when the Universe was just 4 percent of its current age, is rich in dust. Such dust was produced by an earlier generation of stars and these observations provide insights into the birth and explosive deaths of the very first stars in the Universe. Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser

    Astronomers have used ALMA to detect a huge mass of glowing stardust in a galaxy seen when the Universe was only 4% of its present age. This galaxy was observed shortly after its formation and is the most distant galaxy in which dust has been detected. This observation is also the most distant detection of oxygen in the Universe...

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    Craters show Earth is Bombarded at Random

    March 8, 2017, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    A thankfully rare event: an asteroid hits the Earth. (Visualisations: iStock / Solarseven)

    A thankfully rare event: an asteroid hits the Earth. (Visualisations: iStock / Solarseven)

    Do mass extinctions, like the fall of the dinosaurs, and formation of large impact craters on Earth occur together at regular intervals? “This question has been under discussion for more than 30 years now,” says Matthias Meier, ETH Zurich’s Institute of Geochemistry and Petrology. As late as 2015, US researchers indicated that impact craters were formed on Earth around every 26 million years. “We have determined, however, that asteroids don’t hit the Earth at periodic intervals,” says Meier, refuting the popular hypothesis.

    In the past, researchers have even postulated the existence of a companion star to the Sun...

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    Flashy 1st images arrive from NOAA’s GOES-16 Lightning Mapper

    March 7, 2017, Categories  Astronomy/Space, Environment/Geology

    This is one hour of GOES-16's Geostationary Lightning Mapper (GLM) lightning data from Feb. 14.

    This is one hour of GOES-16’s Geostationary Lightning Mapper (GLM) lightning data from Feb. 14, when GLM acquired 1.8 million images of the Earth. It is displayed over GOES-16 ABI full disk Band 2 imagery. Brighter colors indicate more lightning energy was recorded; color bar units are the calculated kilowatt-hours of total optical emissions from lightning. The brightest storm system is located over the Gulf Coast of Texas, the same storm system in the accompanying video. This is preliminary, non-operational data. Credits: NOAA/NASA

    Detecting and predicting lightning just got a lot easier...

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    Paleolake Deposits on Mars might look like Sediments in Indonesia

    March 7, 2017, Categories  Astronomy/Space, Environment/Geology

    Lake Towuti, Indonesia. (A) Regional context for Lake Towuti on the island of Sulawesi in Indonesia. Red box indicates approximate location of part B. Background is the Ocean base map from ESRI et al. (2015). (B) Generalized geologic map of Lake Towuti and the surrounding area showing the dominance of ultramafic material. Map is modified from Costa et al. (2015). (C) Bathymetry of Lake Towuti showing the location of the two analyzed sediment cores at the distal margins of the Mahalona River delta (white dots labeled 4 for TOW4 and 5 for TOW5). River inputs are shown in thin blue lines, with the Mahalona River shown as a thick blue line. Credit: Goudge et al. and GSA Bulletin

    Lake Towuti, Indonesia. (A) Regional context for Lake Towuti on the island of Sulawesi in Indonesia. Red box indicates approximate location of part B. Background is the Ocean base map from ESRI et al. (2015). (B) Generalized geologic map of Lake Towuti and the surrounding area showing the dominance of ultramafic material. Map is modified from Costa et al. (2015). (C) Bathymetry of Lake Towuti showing the location of the two analyzed sediment cores at the distal margins of the Mahalona River delta (white dots labeled 4 for TOW4 and 5 for TOW5). River inputs are shown in thin blue lines, with the Mahalona River shown as a thick blue line. Credit: Goudge et al. and GSA Bulletin

    Timothy A...

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