A blue crystal recovered from a meteorite that fell near Morocco in 1998. The scale bar represents 200 microns (millionths of a meter). Credit: Queenie Chan/The Open University, U.K.

Study also suggests dwarf planet in asteroid belt may be a source of rich organic matter. A detailed study of blue salt crystals found in two meteorites that crashed to Earth – which included X-ray experiments found that they contain both liquid water and a mix of complex organic compounds including hydrocarbons and amino acids. A detailed study of the chemical makeup within the tiny crystals, which included results from X-ray experiments also found evidence for the pair’s past intermingling and likely parents...

A cross-section of underground ice is exposed at the steep slope that appears bright blue in this enhanced-color view from the HiRISE camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The scene is about 550 yards wide. The scarp drops about 140 yards from the level ground in the upper third of the image. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UA/USGS

Researchers using NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) have found 8 sites where thick deposits of ice beneath Mars’ surface are exposed in faces of eroding slopes. These 8 scarps, with slopes as steep as 55 degrees, reveal new information about the internal layered structure of previously detected underground ice sheets in Mars’ middle latitudes. The ice was likely deposited as snow long ago...

A stained cross section of the new muscle fibers. The red cells are muscle cells, the green areas are receptors for neuronal input, and the blue patches are cell nuclei. Credit: Image courtesy of Duke University

First functioning human muscle grown from induced pluripotent stem cells holds promise for cellular therapies, drug discovery and studying rare diseases. The advance builds on work published in 2015 when researchers at Duke University grew the first functioning human muscle tissue from cells obtained from muscle biopsies...

A comparison of a low resolution simulation (left) to the high-resolution simulation produced using Blue Waters (right) shows the effect of resolution on tilted accretion models. The high resolution model shows that precession and alignment slow down as a result of disk expansion due to magnetic turbulence.

Supercomputer power enables advanced simulations of relativistic jets’ behavior. Researchers, including a Northwestern University professor, have gained new insight into one of the most mysterious phenomena in modern astronomy: the behavior of relativistic jets that shoot from black holes, extending outward across millions of light years...