Category: Science

Space.com explains a new idea that the “goldilocks” zone around suns may be different than previously thought. Some extrasolar planets that one might assume are too cold to host life could in fact be made habitable by a squishing effect from their stars, a new study found. A planet’s midsection gets stretched out by its…

A novel idea: Dust – often thought of as an impediment to lunar exploration – could be put to good use to build giant telescopes on the Moon – perhaps some large enough to fill entire craters, says a team of US researchers. The team, led by Peter Chen of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center…

New Scientist details a pretty awesome collision in space: At roughly 8500 by 10,600 kilometres across, it is nearly 15 times the area of the Moon’s South Pole-Aitken basin which, at 2500 kilometres in diameter, is the largest undisputed impact scar in the solar system. The Mars crater was probably created by an object as…

Should we send a mission to Mars that is only one way? A soldier is volunteering to go. I would prefer that a self-sustaining colony were created. It seems rather futile to go with no hope of return.

Popular Mechanics have a fascinating how-to guide on the Google sponsored prize to get private enterprise onto the moon. They helpfully conclude: Realistically, the odds seem to be against a prize-winning lunar mission by 2012. But take heart: Lindbergh and Rutan beat long odds. If you manage to snag a friendly billionaire and follow our…

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter managed to snap a photo of the Phoenix during its parachute-aided descent to Mars. Our technology continues to amaze me, if we can have an orbiter of another planet take a photo of another satellite descending to that planet, what can’t we do? This photo is truly historic, and is making…

The Earth and Moon as seen from a probe orbiting Mars using a HiRes camera. Amazing.

Looks like progress. Here’s hoping. Scientists have constructed a custom enzyme that reverses the process by which the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) inserts its genetic material into host DNA, suggesting that treatment with similar enzymes could potentially rid infected cells of the virus. In tests on cultured human tissue, the mutated enzyme, Tre recombinase, snipped…

An interesting discovery: ‘Planemos’ is a great word… The pair belongs to what some astronomers believe is a new class of planet-like objects floating through space; so-called planetary mass objects, or “planemos”, which are not bound to stars. They appear to have been forged from a contracting gas cloud, in a similar way to stars,…