Category Astronomy/Space

CSIRO’s Compact Array in Australia is shown under the night lights of the Milky Way. Credit: Alex Cherney

Invisible structures shaped like noodles, lasagne sheets or hazelnuts could be floating around in our Galaxy radically challenging our understanding of gas conditions in the Milky Way. Astronomers say the structures appear to be ‘lumps’ in the thin gas that lies between the stars in our Galaxy.”They could radically change ideas about this interstellar gas, which is the Galaxy’s star recycling depot, housing material from old stars that will be refashioned into new ones,” Dr Bannister said.

Dr Bannister and his colleagues described breakthrough observations of one of these ‘lumps’ that have allowed them to make the first estimate of its shape...

This is a view from the Experimental Zone floor of the ALPHA-2 Cryostat and external solenoid assembly, with control and data acquisition electronics located on the overhead platform above the cryostat. Credit: Photo by Robert Thompson, ALPHA-2 member, University of Calgary

Latest breakthrough has been via studying the properties of antihydrogen. The result is an improved measurement of the charge of antihydrogen by a factor of 20. It is the latest contribution in the quest to find the answer to the antimatter question, ‘If matter and antimatter were created in equal amounts during the Big Bang, where did all the antimatter go?’

“That means the electrical charge of antihydrogen – the antimatter analogue of hydrogen – can be ruled out as the answer to the antimatter question,” says York Uni...

This artistic rendering shows the distant view from Planet Nine back towards the sun. The planet is thought to be gaseous, similar to Uranus and Neptune. Hypothetical lightning lights up the night side. Credit: Caltech/R. Hurt (IPAC)

Evidence has been found of a giant planet tracing an elongated orbit in the outer solar system, nicknamed Planet Nine, has a mass ~10X that of Earth and orbits ~20X farther from the sun on average than Neptune (which orbits the sun at an average distance of 2.8 billion miles). In fact, it would take this new planet between 10,000 and 20,000 years to make just one full orbit around the sun. Konstantin Batygin and Mike Brown, discovered the planet’s existence through mathematical modeling and computer simulations but have not yet observed the object directly.

“T...

The zinnia plants began to exhibit guttation and epinasty, both signs of plant stress. Credit: NASA

When Scott Kelly tweeted a picture of moldy leaves on the current crop of zinnia flowers aboard ISS, it could have looked like the science was doomed. It was in fact an opportunity for scientists back on Earth to better understand how plants grow in microgravity, and for astronauts to practice doing what they’ll be tasked: autonomous gardening.

The Veggie plant growth facility was installed on the orbiting laboratory in early May of 2014, and the first crop – ‘Outredgrous’ red romaine lettuce – was activated for growth. The first growth cycle faced some issues...