Search

Voyager 2 went on to visit Uranus and Neptune, and both spacecraft eventually exited the heliosphere - the region of the sun's influence - and entered the area between stars called interstellar space. Voyagers' Greatest Hits The twin spacecraft took a grand tour through the giant planets of the solar system, passing by Jupiter (1, 2) and Saturn (5, 6) and taking the first close-up views of those planets' moons. This boundary is murky, but its clearest sign came when the vehicle encountered a marked rise in the intensity of cosmic rays, which are blocked by the sun's magnetic field within the heliosphere but plentiful in interstellar space. Early in their travels, four decades ago, the Voyagers gave astonished researchers the first close-up views of the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, revealing the existence of active volcanoes and fissured ice fields on worlds astronomers had thought would be as inert and crater-pocked as our own moon. [Extracted from the article]

WE LIVE IN A CIVILIZATION POWERED BY STEAM. Most of us don't notice its role in keeping the lights on, but steam power is practically ubiquitous. No matter what fuel [...]

If Max Planck hadn't ignored some bad advice, he would never have started a revolution. The pivotal moment happened in 1878, when young Planck asked one of his professors whether [...]

If it hadn't been for a shortfall in the supply of random numbers, one of history's most infamous spy rings might never have been exposed. The shortage occurred in late [...]

We see evidence of the kill first: a shockingly broad spread of scarlet, probably the blood of a ringed Seal, on snow-covered sea ice. Then the polar bear appears. She's [...]

THE VIKINGS WHO SETTLED GREENLAND A MILLENNIUM AGO THRIVED FOR FOUR CENTURIES--AND THEN VANISHED. NEW RESEARCH IS CLOSING IN ON AN ANCIENT MYSTERY ON THE GRASSY SLOPE OF A FJORD [...]

Late one quiet November night in the village of Niaqornat, 300 miles above the Arctic Circle on Greenland's west coast, the sled dogs began to howl. No one knew for [...]

Something is killing Ramadhani Juma's cassava crop. 'Maybe it's too much water' he says, fingering clusters of withered yellow leaves on a six-foot-high plant. 'Or too much sun.' Juma works [...]

The article discusses random numbers and their influence on espionage, science and reality itself. Particular focus is given to the use of random numbers by the NKVD, the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs, in the Soviet Union. Additional topics discussed include computers their use in generating random numbers, concerns that the Internet might be running out of random numbers, voiced by the physicists Jane Nordholt and Richard Hughes, and the notion of a random reality.

BY THE TIME HURRICANE SANDY VEERED TOWARD THE NORTHEAST coast of the United States last October 29, it had mauled several countries in the Caribbean and left dozens dead. Faced [...]

On the edge of a parking lot at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, stands a relic from a time when our future as a spacefaring species looked [...]

Eye on tsunamis Tsunamis aren't moon-driven tides or wind-driven waves at the sea surface. They're caused by violent movements of rock-seafloor earthquakes usually-that can put a whole ocean in motion. [...]

Most of us would be hard-pressed to locate Inner Mongolia, Jiangxi, or Guangdong on a map. Yet many of the high-tech devices we depend on--cell phones, laptops, and hundreds of [...]

A little north and west of Greenland's stormy southern tip, on a steep hillside above an iceberg-clotted fjord first explored by Erik the Red more than a thousand years ago, [...]

The article offers information on science of quantum physics and its association with reality. Topics discussed include interpretations of quantum mechanics by scientists and explaining the wave nature of atoms and particles and objective reality; changing properties of atoms and particles and its relation at time of the measurement; and reality of the wave function and fuzzy quantum.

The article discusses steam power that spins turbine blades. Topics discussed include steam pipes beneath city streets that operate under high pressures, monitoring systems that have been deployed for preventing accumulation of water around steam pipes, and a steam pipe that had been exploded in Baltimore, Maryland.

Seen from a distance, the tightly bunched adobe and sandstone homes of the Hopi pueblos look more like natural rock formations than like dwellings, barely distinguishable from the rugged ochre […]

ON THE GILA RIVER INDIAN RESERvation in southern Arizona, at least half my patients came to me in chains. It wasn't the ideal setting for therapy. The shackled clients were [...]

FROM ORIGINAL NOTES, SKETCHY BLUEPRINTS, AND BLURRY OLD PHOTOS, ENGINEERS ARE BUILDING THE MOST ACCURATE REPRODUCTION OF THE 1903 WRIGHT BROTHERS FLYER EVER MADE. WHAT THEY ARE LEARNING AMAZES THEM. [...]

The article discusses Large Hadron Collider (LHC) world's largest and most powerful collider and the discovery of Higgs Boson, a subatomic particle. Boson discovery confirms the existence of Higgs Field and unravels the theory of Standard Model of particle physics. The LHC collisions do not throw up dark matter nor superparticles to confirm Supersymmetry (SUSY) theory. The organisation Linear Collider Collaboration is overseeing the next collider project. International Linear Collider (ILC) project is a leading contender. It is hoped that ILC will discover evidence of new physics and shed light on SUSY, dark matter through different kinds of collisions. Compact accelerators like laser plasma accelerators are being developed as cheaper and smaller aternatives to conventional colliders.

The article discusses research on the composition and function of the Earth's core undertaken by geophysicists including David Stevenson, Bruce Buffett, and Dario Alfè. Topics include efforts to observe the core directly, like the Kola Superdeep Borehole, methods of indirect observation, such as Inge Lehmann's use of primary wave (P-wave) shadows, and the modern understanding of the Earth's composition, a solid iron core, liquid iron-nickel outer core and plastic mantle. Remaining questions include how the core can be made of iron and generate a sustained magnetic field, given iron's conductivity.

The article discusses about a massive algal bloom carpeted western Lake Erie in the summer of 2019, and peak the bloom covered 600 square miles.

The article discusses the Dawn spacecraft from the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and its travel to and exploration of the Vesta asteroid and Ceres dwarf planet. Topics include the development of the solar system from the collision of protoplanets, the ion engine propulsion system that enables Dawn to orbit Vesta, and the temporary cancellation of the Dawn mission in 2005 for funding reasons. The iron core of Vesta, its similarities to Earth, and the possibility of water minerals on Ceres are mentioned. INSETS: Beaming Up to Vesta;The Asteroid Queen.

This article discusses unmanned space probes and robotic exploration devices. The author describes the dangerous environments outside of Earth's immediate vicinity that space probes have encountered, referencing Voyagers 1 and 2 and Pioneer 10, which encountered extremely harsh radiation near Jupiter. Missions, such as the Solar Probe Plus that would explore near the surface of the Sun, and their impacts on future human activity in space, are also highlighted.

The article focuses on the mission of the Kepler spacecraft, run by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration, to search for small, Earth-sized planets around distant stars. Launched in March 2009, Kepler monitors 156,000 stars for signs of planets, and discovered 1,235 possible planets in the first four months of operation. The article states that the mission has changed expectations about what types of planets exist. 53 of the planets, it notes, exist in a life-friendly zone.

The article discusses the return of physicist Stephen Hawking into the scientific community and his work on a theory regarding the origin of the universe. Hawking, who wrote the book "A Brief History of Time," gave a speech titled "Why We Should Go Into Space" at a convention center in Pasadena, California. Topics include a brief biography of Hawking including his education a Oxford and his diagnosis of Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), and the mixed reviews he had received regarding his theory. Also discussed is the relationship between Hawking and mathematician Roger Penrose, and the adaptations he made to overcome the debilitating effects of ALS, and in-depth analysis of Hawking's quasi-theory on Big Bang singularity and quantum mechanics.

This article discusses models in theoretical physics that seek to explain how the universe developed in a manner amenable to human life on Earth. One explanation, which posits the existence of multiple universes, challenges the Copernican notion that human life on Earth is not at the center of the universe. Work by physicists such as Andrei Linde on the relationship between superstring theory, the theory of multiple universes, and the improbable nature of the universe is noted. INSET: COSMIC COINCIDENCES.