Category Astronomy/Space

This infrared image gives an unprecedented view of the southern aurora of Jupiter, as captured by NASA’s Juno spacecraft on Aug. 27, 2016. Credit: Photo courtesy of NASA.

When a NASA spacecraft made its first full orbit around Jupiter, a University of Iowa instrument on board recorded haunting sounds befitting the Halloween season. The radio emissions cast by Jupiter’s auroras were recorded by the UI instrument, called Waves, as the Juno spacecraft traveled about 2,600 miles above Jupiter’s swirling clouds. Those emission recordings were then converted into sound files by UI engineers. The emissions from Jupiter were discovered in the 1950s but had never been analyzed from such a close vantage point, according to NASA.

“Jupiter is talking to us in a way only gas-giant worlds can,” says Bil...

Gene puddle primeval, a drawing by talented first author Christine He to illustrate her discovery that viscosity moves spontaneous gene strand copying forward. Credit: Georgia Tech / Christine He

The original recipe for gene soup may have been simple—rain, a jumble of common molecules, warm sunshine, and nighttime cooling. Then add a pinch of thickener. The last ingredient may have helped gene-like strands to copy themselves in puddles for the first time ever, billions of years ago when Earth was devoid of life, Georgia Institute of Technology researchers found. Their novel discoveries add to a growing body of evidence that suggests first life may have evolved with relative ease, here and possibly elsewhere in the universe...

This Hubble image shows the central region of a spiral galaxy known as NGC 247.

NGC 247 is a small spiral galaxy in the southern constellation of Cetus (The Whale). Lying at a distance of around 11 million light-years from us, it forms part of the Sculptor Group, a loose collection of galaxies that also contains the more famous NGC 253 (otherwise known as the Sculptor Galaxy).

NGC 247’s nucleus is visible here as a bright, whitish patch, surrounded by a mixture of stars, gas and dust. The dust forms dark patches and filaments that are silhouetted against the background of stars, while the gas has formed into bright knots known as H II regions, mostly scattered throughout the galaxy’s arms and outer areas.

This galaxy displays one particularly unusual and mysterious feature—it is not visibl...

This scene from NASA’s Mars rover Opportunity shows “Wharton Ridge,” which forms part of the southern wall of “Marathon Valley” on the rim of Endeavour Crater. The ridge’s name honors the memory of astrobiologist Robert A. Wharton (1951-2012). The scene is presented in approximately true color. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell/Arizona State Univ.

Opportunity Mars rover will drive down a gully carved long ago by a fluid that might have been water, according to the latest plans for the 12-year-old mission. No Mars rover has done that before. The longest-active rover on Mars also will, for the first time, visit the interior of the crater it has worked beside for the last 5 years. These activities are part of a 2-year extended mission that began Oct...