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An interdisciplinary team of scientists has demonstrated that it is possible to build an ultra-sensitive sensor based on a new fluorescent molecule able to detect the nuclear decay key to knowing whether or not a neutrino is its own antiparticle. The results of this study have great potential to determine the nature of the neutrino and thus answer fundamental questions about the origin of the Universe.
Jun 23rd, 2020
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Researchers have found that rocky exoplanets, which formed early in the life of the galaxy seem to have had a greater chance of developing a magnetic field and plate tectonics than planets, which formed later. This means that if life exists in the Galaxy, it may have developed earlier than later, and that planets formed more recently may have less chance of developing life.
Jun 23rd, 2020
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For centuries, lighthouses helped sailors navigate safely into harbor. In the future, space explorers may receive similar guidance from the steady signals created by pulsars.
Jun 22nd, 2020
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Earth's Moon has a 'near side' that is perpetually Earth-facing and a 'far side', which always faces away from Earth. The composition of the Moon's near side is oddly different from its far side, and scientists think they finally understand why.
Jun 22nd, 2020
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An international team of astronomers identifies periodic gamma-ray emissions from 11 active galaxies.
Jun 20th, 2020
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The eROSITA telescope has provided a new, sharp view of hot and energetic processes across the Universe.
Jun 19th, 2020
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Through a mathematical analysis of several dozen exoplanets, scientists learned something significant: More than a quarter of the exoplanets they studied could be ocean worlds, with a majority possibly harboring oceans beneath layers of surface ice, similar to Europa and Enceladus.
Jun 19th, 2020
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As nuclear fusion engines, most stars live placid lives for hundreds of millions to billions of years. But near the end of their lives they can turn into crazy whirligigs, puffing off shells and jets of hot gas. Hubble has dissected such crazy fireworks in two nearby young planetary nebulas.
Jun 18th, 2020
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Every year, 2 million black hole mergers are missed - scientists work out how to detect them, revealing a lost 8 billion light years of Universe evolution.
Jun 18th, 2020
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The two-minute video explains how researchers are measuring the oldest light in the universe with the highest telescopes on Earth.
Jun 18th, 2020
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Signal from 500 million light years away is the first periodic pattern of radio bursts detected.
Jun 17th, 2020
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An international collaboration has shown that the very high-energy gamma-ray emission from quasars, galaxies with a highly energetic nucleus, is not concentrated in the region close to their central black hole but in fact extends over several thousand light-years along jets of plasma.
Jun 17th, 2020
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Mystery enshrouds the birth of swirls typical for supernova remnants like the Crab Nebula. A new 'supernova machine' may help solve it.
Jun 17th, 2020
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Instruments on-board future space missions are capable of detecting amino acids, fatty acids, and peptides, and even identify ongoing biological processes on ocean moons in our Solar System.
Jun 16th, 2020
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There may be as many as one Earth-like planet for every five Sun-like stars in the Milky way Galaxy, according to new estimates by astronomers using data from NASA's Kepler mission.
Jun 16th, 2020
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Light exerts a certain amount of pressure onto a body: sun sails could thus power space probes in the future. However, when light particles hit an individual molecule and knock out an electron, the molecule flies toward the light source. Atomic physicists have now observed this for the first time, confirming a 90 year-old theory.
Jun 15th, 2020
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