New Evidence of Dark Matter

A hazy ring of dark matter spawned by a colossal cosmic crash eons ago offers the best evidence to date that vast amounts of this mysterious stuff reside in the universe, scientists said on Tuesday..........

Yahoo News

Ancient Star Almost as Old as the Universe

Astronomers have spied a granddaddy of the galaxy—a 13.2-billion-year-old star formed soon after the big bang 13.7 billion years ago..........

National Geographic News

Earth-like Planet Discovered Outside Solar System

In a find­ing that if con­firmed could stand as a land­mark in history, as­tro­no­mers have re­ported dis­co­v­er­ing the most Earth-like plan­et out­side our So­lar Sys­tem to date: a world that may have liq­uid oceans and thus life..........

World Science

Water Outside Our Solar System

Evidence of water has been detected for the first time in a planet outside our solar system, an astronomer said on Tuesday, a tantalizing find for scientists eager to know whether life exists beyond Earth..........

Yahoo News

Hot, Windy Planets Beyond the Solar System

Earth's inhabitants are used to temperatures that vary, sometimes greatly, between day and night. New measurements for three planets outside our solar system indicate their temperatures remain fairly constant -- and blazing hot -- from day to night, even though it is likely one side of each planet always faces its sun and the other is in permanent darkness..........

Science Daily

Signs of Flowing Water on Mars

NASA pho­tos have re­vealed bright new de­posits in two gul­lies on Mars that sug­gest wa­ter coursed through these ditches some­time in the past sev­en years, re­search­ers say..........

World Science

Scientists Find Organic Materials Inside Meteorite

NASA researchers at Johnson Space Center, Houston have found organic materials that formed in the most distant reaches of the early Solar System preserved in a unique meteorite. The study was performed on the Tagish Lake carbonaceous chondrite, a rare type of meteorite that is rich in organic (carbon-bearing) compounds..........

Science Daily

NASA Announces Plans for Lunar Base

NASA an­nounced plans today to build a per­ma­nent base on the moon by 2024.“With such an out­post, NASA can learn to use the moon’s nat­u­ral re­sources to live off the land, make prepa­ra­tions for a jour­ney to Mars, con­duct a wide range of sci­en­tif­ic in­ves­ti­ga­tions and en­cour­age in­ter­na­tion­al par­tic­i­pa­tion,” the agen­cy said in a state­ment..........

World Science

Puzzling Hurricane-Like Storm on Saturn

NASA's Cassini spacecraft has seen something never before seen on another planet -- a hurricane-like storm at Saturn's South Pole with a well-developed eye, ringed by towering clouds..........

Science Daily

Large Meteorite Unearthed in Kansas

Scientists were excited when they pulled a 154-pound meteorite from deep below a Kansas wheat field, but what got them most electrified was the way they unearthed it..........

Yahoo News

Amazing Photo of Victoria Crater on Mars

An image released today by the University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory in Tucson exposes the distinctive lacy scallops of Mars's Victoria Crater in unprecedented detail. The feature, an impact crater near the Martian equator, is approximately half a mile (800 meters) in diameter..........

National Geographic News

Study Holds Out Possibility of Life on Other Planets in Solar System

A comprehensive review by leading scientists about our solar system which speculates on the possibility of life on other planets has been published..........

Science Daily

Evolution of the First Galaxies

A systematic search for the first bright galaxies to form in the early universe has revealed a dramatic jump in the number of such galaxies around 13 billion years ago. These observations of the earliest stages in the evolution of galaxies provide new evidence for the hierarchical theory of galaxy formation--the idea that large galaxies built up over time as smaller galaxies collided and merged..........

Science Daily

Study Says Other Earthlike Planets Exist

New com­pu­ter sim­u­la­tions by as­tronomers have found that Earth-like pla­n­ets, warm and wet enough for life, should be common.

The si­m­u­la­tions fo­cused on a com­mon type of so­lar sys­tem iden­t­i­fied be­fore, fea­tur­ing pla­n­ets called Hot Ju­pi­ters. A third of these sys­tems al­so pro­duce Earth-like worlds in the com­put­er re­en­act­ments, the re­searchers said..........

World Science

Highest Clouds Discovered Above Mars

Planetary scientists have discovered the highest clouds above any planetary surface. They found them above Mars using the SPICAM instrument on board ESA's Mars Express spacecraft. The results are a new piece in the puzzle of how the Martian atmosphere works..........


Science Daily

Cosmic Crash Proves Existence of Dark Matter

A colossal crash between two clusters of galaxies has wrenched apart “dark matter” and normal matter, proving the mysterious dark substance exists, astronomers say..........

World Science

A New Way to Explore Mars

MIT engineers and scientist colleagues have a new vision for the future of Mars exploration: a swarm of probes, each the size of a baseball, spreading out across the planet in every direction...........

Science Daily

Galaxies Cluster Near Dark Matter

Try mixing caramel into vanilla ice cream -- you will always end up with globs and swirls of caramel. Scientists are finding that galaxies may distribute themselves in similar ways throughout the universe and in places where there is lots of so-called dark matter..........


Science Daily

Solar System's New Tenth Planet a Little Larger Than Pluto

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has resolved the "tenth planet," nicknamed "Xena" for the first time, and has found that it is only just a little larger than Pluto..........

Science Daily

Earth Life Began on Mars?

..........A few scientists think there's evidence that humans actually descended from Martian microbes, not exactly what the author of Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus had in mind. But it merits further study, said chemist Steven Benner, who has founded a new institute in Gainesville, the Westheimer Institute for Science and Technology, which aims to bridge chemistry and biology, with evolution as its guide."If you really want to find a place to get life started, it's Mars, and if you want to get a place to get life to flourish, it's Earth," Benner said.While at the University of Florida a few years ago, Benner's team collaborated with scientists at The Scripps Research Institute to explore what kind of chemistry is necessary to support life..........

Unexplained Mysteries