Comet discovered to have its own Northern Lights

Image acquired by the navigation camera on the European Space Agency’s Rosetta spacecraft orbiting Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko between Nov. 19 and Dec. 3, 2014. Image credit: ESA/Rosetta/NAVCAM

An atmospheric light show previously relegated to planets and Jupiter moons is found on comet using data from ESA’s Rosetta spacecraft. Data from NASA instruments aboard the ESA (European Space Agency) Rosetta mission have helped reveal that comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko has its own far-ultraviolet aurora. It is the first time such electromagnetic emissions in the far-ultraviolet have been documented on a celestial object other than a planet or moon. A paper on the findings was released today in the journal Nature Astronomy.

On Earth, aurora (also known as the northern or southern light...

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Novel Mechanism may Confer Protection against Glaucoma

reinal ganglion cells
Increased Antioxidant Capacity and Pro-Homeostatic Lipid Mediators in Ocular Hypertension—A Human Experimental Model

A team of researchers from LSU Health New Orleans Neuroscience Center of Excellence and the University of Copenhagen provides the first evidence that patients with ocular hypertension may exhibit superior antioxidant protection that promotes resistance to the elevated intraocular pressure associated with glaucoma. Their findings are published online in the Journal of Clinical Medicine.

In general, glaucoma patients are vulnerable to increased intraocular pressure. However, a particular group of patients has no glaucomatous neurodegeneration despite high intraocular pressure — patients with ocular hypertension.

The paper reports the discovery of a new mechanism to...

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World’s Smallest Ultrasound Detector created

Silicon chip (approx. 3 mm x 6 mm) with multiple detectors. The fine black engravings on the surface of the chip are the photonics circuits interconnecting the detectors (not visible with bare eyes). In the background a larger scale photonics circuit on a silicon wafer. © Helmholtz Zentrum München

Researchers at Helmholtz Zentrum München and the Technical University of Munich (TUM) have developed the world’s smallest ultrasound detector. It is based on miniaturized photonic circuits on top of a silicon chip. With a size 100 times smaller than an average human hair, the new detector can visualize features that are much smaller than previously possible, leading to what is known as super-resolution imaging.

Since the development of medical ultrasound imaging in the 1950s, the co...

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Device could Help Detect Signs of Extraterrestrial Life

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A fully automated microchip electrophoresis analyzer could someday be deployed in the search for life on other worlds.
Credit: Adapted from Analytical Chemistry 2020, DOI: 10.1021/acs.analchem.0c01628

Although Earth is uniquely situated in the solar system to support creatures that call it home, different forms of life could have once existed, or might still exist, on other planets. But finding traces of past or current lifeforms on other worlds is challenging. Now, researchers reporting in ACS’ Analytical Chemistry have developed a fully automated microchip electrophoresis analyzer that, when incorporated into a planetary rover, could someday detect organic biosignatures in extraterrestrial soil.

One critical piece of evidence for life beyond Earth is the presence of certain organic...

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