Cosmic dust discs withstand hellfire
Bonn, Germany (SPX) Mar 12, 2015 -
A team of scientists led by astronomers at the University of Bonn discovered an unusual phenomenon in the centre of the Milky Way: They detected about 20 rotating dust and gas discs in each cluster hosting exceptionally large and hot stars. The existence of these discs in the presence of the destructive UV radiation field of their massive neighbours came as a surprise.
The science team is ...
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Milky Way isn't a flat disk, it's corrugated
Troy, N.M. (UPI) Mar 11, 2015 -
According to a new study by a team of international astronomers, the Milky Way's galactic disk resembles the undulating ripples seen after a pebble is tossed into a pond. In other words, it's not flat - it's corrugated, like a steel roof.
The study, led by Heidi Jo Newberg, an astronomer at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, in Troy, New York, is a reinterpretation of data collected ...
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In 'milestone' toward Mars, NASA test-fires rocket
Miami (AFP) March 11, 2015 -
The most powerful solid rocket booster ever built was fired up for the first time Wednesday in a test that NASA described as a "significant milestone" toward Mars.
Tied horizontally to the ground at the base of a Utah mountain, the 177-foot-long (54-meter) Space Launch System (SLS) booster was hot-fired for two minutes to see how the system would perform when eventually launched.
"Great ...
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Gamma rays from dwarf galaxy may point to dark matter
Providence RI (SPX) Mar 12, 2015 -
A newly discovered dwarf galaxy orbiting our own Milky Way has offered up a surprise - it appears to be radiating gamma rays, according to an analysis by physicists at Carnegie Mellon, Brown, and Cambridge universities. The exact source of this high-energy light is uncertain at this point, but it just might be a signal of dark matter lurking at the galaxy's center.
"Something in the direct ...
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Scientists Will Try to Contact the Comet Lander on March 12
Washington DC (SPX) Mar 12, 2015 -
Scientists from the German Aerospace Center (DLR) will make the first attempt to contact the stranded comet lander Philae on Thursday Mar. 12. "The first attempt will take place already this week, on March 12," Stephan Ulamec, Lander Project Manager at DLR, told astrowatch.net.
If we're lucky, the first signal will be received by ESA's Rosetta spacecraft at 05:00 CET. Philae came to rest o ...
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Testing astronauts' lungs in Space Station airlock
Paris (ESA) Mar 12, 2015 -
Air was pumped out of the International Space Station's air lock for the first time in the name of science last week. Inside the cylindrical Quest airlock, ESA astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti and NASA's Terry Virts monitored their breathing for researchers back on Earth.
With each lungful of air, our bodies absorb oxygen and exhale waste-product molecules such as carbon dioxide and the im ...
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Astronauts return to Earth on Russian Soyuz spaceship
Miami (AFP) March 12, 2015 -
Two Russian cosmonauts and an American astronaut returned to Earth aboard a Soyuz space capsule after spending six months at the International Space Station.
Yelena Serova, Alexander Samokutyaev and Barry Wilmore landed in snowy Kazakhstan just after sunrise on Thursday morning.
"The Expedition 42 crew is back on Earth," said NASA commentator Rob Navias on the US space agency's live broa ...
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Billionaire Teams Up with NASA to Mine the Moon
Moscow (Sputnik) Mar 12, 2015 -
Another player in the field of commercial space travel, a California-based company just made a major stride toward the creation of the first commercial robotic spacecraft to be sent to the moon. It's future lunar mission? Mining.
Moon Express, an outfit located in the heart of Silicon Valley, has been conducting testing with the end goal to send the lander to the moon in 2016 as part of th ...
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New dwarf galaxies discovered in orbit around the Milky Way
Cambridge, UK (SPX) Mar 12, 2015 -
A team of astronomers from the University of Cambridge have identified nine new dwarf satellites orbiting the Milky Way, the largest number ever discovered at once. The findings, from newly-released imaging data taken from the Dark Energy Survey, may help unravel the mysteries behind dark matter, the invisible substance holding galaxies together.
The new results also mark the first discove ...
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Rocky grains stir theories of life on Saturn moon
Paris (AFP) March 11, 2015 -
Grains of rock spewed into deep space suggest a small moon of Saturn has hydrothermal vents, boosting theories it may harbour microbial life, scientists said Wednesday.
Reporting in the journal Nature, astrophysicists in the United States offered a solution to a decade-old mystery over dust observed streaming from Saturn's rings.
The grains are disgorged from a mineral-rich, balmy sea be ...
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Mali rebels begin talks to mull peace deal
Bamako (AFP) March 11, 2015 -
Mali's Tuareg-led rebels met Wednesday in the northeast of the country to decide whether to sign a peace deal already accepted by the government and smaller armed groups, a participant told AFP.
Between 150 and 200 mainly Tuareg figures travelled from across the region to the city of Kidal to take part in the talks, expected to last several days, said the source, speaking on condition of ano ...
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Indonesia threatens Australia with 'tsunami' of asylum-seekers
Jakarta (AFP) March 11, 2015 -
An Indonesian minister has warned a "human tsunami" of asylum-seekers could be unleashed on Australia in retaliation if Canberra keeps pressing for clemency for two Australian drug smugglers on death row, as ties between the neighbours fray.
Several foreigners are due to be executed for drug-related crimes with Australia among countries pleading with Indonesian President Joko Widodo to show ...
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France to boost Sahel troops to help Boko Haram fight
Paris (AFP) March 11, 2015 -
France will boost its military presence in the troubled Sahel region of Africa where jihadist groups operate to support the fight against Boko Haram, Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said Wednesday.
Speaking to reporters, he said France would "slightly increase" the number of soldiers operating under its Barkhane anti-jihadist operation in the Sahel and reduce armed forces in the Central ...
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Briton diagnosed with Ebola in Sierra Leone: London
London (AFP) March 11, 2015 -
A female British healthcare worker has been diagnosed with Ebola in Sierra Leone, authorities in London said Wednesday, and a military plane has been sent to evacuate her if needed.
"We can confirm that a UK military healthcare worker in Sierra Leone has tested positive for Ebola," said a spokesman for Public Health England (PHE), a government agency.
The health worker is being treated i ...
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UN to hold disaster meeting in tsunami-hit Japan
Tokyo (AFP) March 12, 2015 -
The UN will hold a once-in-a-decade meeting on disaster risk reduction this weekend, with policymakers gathering in tsunami-struck Japan after warnings that the cost of climate change-related calamities could bankrupt future generations.
The meeting will review what lessons have been learned since the last conference, which came months after a quarter of a million people died in the December ...
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Colombia quake damaged buildings, but only one injury: official
Bogota (AFP) March 11, 2015 -
A strong earthquake that rocked northeastern Colombia damaged some 300 buildings but injured only one person, an official assessment said Wednesday.
Most of the damage from Tuesday's quake occurred near the epicenter in the province of Santander.
The US Geological Survey put the quake's intensity at 6.2 on the Moment Magnitude scale, while the Colombian Geological Survey gave a reading o ...
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India-backed port won't dump dredge in Australia's Great Barrier Reef
Sydney (AFP) March 11, 2015 -
Plans to dump dredge waste in Australia's Great Barrier Reef as part of an Indian-backed port expansion have been shelved in favour of land disposal, Queensland state said Wednesday.
The Australian government in January broadly ruled out allowing dredge dumping in the Great Barrier Reef area, but the Port Abbot project in north Queensland had been approved last year.
It has now been dro ...
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Second volcano rumbles to life in Guatemala
Guatemala City (AFP) March 11, 2015 -
Two of Guatemala's three active volcanoes have now rumbled to life, officials said Wednesday, one day after the Santiaguito volcano began belching smoke and showering nearby towns with ash.
Guatemala's Fuego volcano, in the southwest, over the past several weeks has spewed adjacent towns with soot, forcing the temporary closure last month of a neighboring airport.
Now the Santiaguito vol ...
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Experts sound warning over flu dangers in China, India
Paris (AFP) March 11, 2015 -
Scientists sounded warnings Wednesday over H7N9 bird flu in China and the H1N1 strain of swine flu in India that have jointly claimed more than 1,700 lives.
H7N9 virus presents a high risk of becoming pandemic if China fails to close loopholes in its live poultry trade, researchers reported in the journal Nature.
A different team, writing in the US journal Cell Host and Microbe, said a s ...
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Concern over India plan to stop publishing smog data
New Delhi (AFP) March 11, 2015 -
Environmental activists expressed concern Wednesday after Indian authorities said they would stop releasing raw air pollution figures for New Delhi, the world's most polluted city.
Three separate government agencies currently compile data from air monitoring stations in the capital, and each publishes the figures directly.
The government said late Tuesday the data should in future be sen ...
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Pakistan fines Qatari royal for hunting with falcons without permit
Peshawar, Pakistan (AFP) March 11, 2015 -
Pakistani authorities have fined a Qatari royal $800 for hunting birds with falcons without a permit in the northwest of the country, officials said Wednesday.
The royal, identified as Sheikh Abdullah bin Abdul Rahman bin Hamad, was caught in Dera Ismail Khan district of northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in November, Ishtiaq Urmar, the environment and wildlife advisor to the provincial chief m ...
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UN black-lists seven DR Congo officers
United Nations, United States (AFP) March 11, 2015 -
The United Nations has blacklisted seven officers in the Democratic Republic of Congo who pose a "real risk" of committing grave rights violations, a report said Wednesday.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon reported to the Security Council that the UN mission to the country had screened 124 military and police commanders and found seven officers who did not measure up to UN human rights polic ...
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UNH Instruments to Lift Off on NASA Four-Satellite Mission March 12
Durham NH (SPX) Mar 11, 2015 -
On March 12, 2015 at 10:44 p.m. EDT, scientists, engineers, and students from the University of New Hampshire's Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space (EOS) and department of physics will watch anxiously as ten years of exacting scientific effort is blasted into outer space by a 191-foot Atlas V rocket launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida.
The launch vehicle ...
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Same forces as today caused climate changes 1.4 billion years ago
Funen, Denmark (SPX) Mar 12, 2015 -
Natural forces have always caused the climate on Earth to fluctuate. Now researchers have found geological evidence that some of the same forces as today were at play 1.4 billion years ago.
Fluctuating climate is a hallmark of Earth, and the present greenhouse effect is by far the only force affecting today's climate. On a larger scale the Earth's climate is also strongly affected by how t ...
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Invertebrate palaeontology: The oldest crab larva yet found
Munich, Germany (SPX) Mar 12, 2015 -
A study of a recently discovered fossil published by LMU zoologists reveals the specimen to be the oldest known crab larva: The fossil is 150 million years old, but looks astonishingly modern.
To catch living crab larvae, all you have to do is trawl a plankton-net in the nearest bay or tidal pool. Finding fossilized crab larvae is rather more difficult - as witnessed by the fact that the s ...
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