Summaries | Headlines

Astronomers Measure Mass Of Largest Dwarf Planet (June 18, 2007) -- Aptly named after the Greek goddess of conflict, the icy dwarf planet, Eris, has rattled the general model of our solar system. The object was discovered by astronomer Mike Brown of Caltech in the ... > full story

To Keep Fit In Space, Train Like An Athlete (June 18, 2007) -- If one part of your car isn't properly maintained, it can affect how the entire vehicle runs -- especially if you're taking a long trip. The same can be said for the human body. That's why, when it ... > full story

Scientists Simulate Effects Of Blowing Mars Dust (June 15, 2007) -- Gusting winds and the pulsating exhaust plumes from the Phoenix spacecraft's landing engines could complicate NASA's efforts to sample frozen soil from the surface of Mars, according to atmospheric ... > full story

It's A Gas When Galaxies Merge -- A Lot Of Gas (June 15, 2007) -- Picture the Milky Way galaxy--a disk of stars and gas, a stellar spheroid and an enormous halo of dark matter. It spirals around a black hole that is supermassive--about 3 million solar masses. The ... > full story

Two More Active Moons Around Saturn (June 15, 2007) -- Saturn's moons Tethys and Dione are flinging great streams of particles into space, according to data from the NASA/ESA/ASI Cassini mission to Saturn. The discovery suggests the possibility of some ... > full story

Astronomers Find Most Distant Black Hole (June 15, 2007) -- A team of astronomers from Canada, France and the United States is announcing the discovery of a record-breaking black hole located nearly 13 billion light years from the Earth. Details of the ... > full story

Hidden Planet Pushes Star's Ring A Billion Miles Off-center (June 14, 2007) -- A young star's strange elliptical ring of dust likely heralds the presence of an undiscovered Neptune-sized planet according to astronomers. Stars in the early stages of life are surrounded by dust ... > full story

Mars Probably Once Had A Huge Ocean (June 13, 2007) -- UC Berkeley geophycists are providing strong evidence that Mars once had an ocean. Naysayers have argued that what appear to be ancient coastlines near the North Pole are too warped to be true ... > full story

New Solar Panels For Space Station Installed (June 13, 2007) -- The International Space Station spread its new set of wings Tuesday, and the crew members prepared for the mission's next spacewalk. The solar arrays on the newly installed Starboard 3 and 4 truss ... > full story

Double Explosion Heralds The Death Of A Very Massive Star (June 13, 2007) -- A unique discovery of two celestial explosions at exactly the same position in the sky has led astronomers to suggest they have witnessed the death of one of the most massive stars that can ... > full story

Free From The Atmosphere: Laser Guide Star System Starts Regular Science Operations (June 13, 2007) -- An artificial, laser-fed star now shines regularly over the sky of ESO's VLT. This system provides assistance for the adaptive optics instruments on the VLT and so allows astronomers to obtain images ... > full story

NASA Scientist Finds A New Way To The Center Of The Earth (June 12, 2007) -- Humans have yet to see Earth's center, as did the characters in Jules Verne's science fiction classic, "Journey to the Center of the Earth." But a new NASA study proposes a novel technique to ... > full story

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Solstice -- The summer solstice is an astronomical term regarding the position of the sun in relation to the celestial equator. The summer solstice is the day of the year with the longest daylight period and ... > full article

Star Trek -- Star Trek is an American science fiction franchise. In addition to six television programs including the original 1966 Star Trek, the same fictional universe created by Gene Roddenberry is the ... > full article

Edwin Hubble -- Edwin Powell Hubble (November 20, 1889 - September 28, 1953) was an American astronomer, noted for his discovery of galaxies beyond the Milky Way and the cosmological redshift. Edwin Hubble was one ... > full article

Outer space -- Outer space, also simply called space, refers to the relatively empty regions of the universe outside the atmospheres of celestial bodies. Outer space is used to distinguish it from airspace (and ... > full article

Solar radiation -- Solar radiation is radiant energy emitted by the sun, particularly electromagnetic energy. About half of the radiation is in the visible short-wave part of the electromagnetic spectrum. The other ... > full article

Solar wind -- A solar wind is a stream of charged particles (i.e., a plasma) which are ejected from the upper atmosphere of a star. When originating from stars other than the Earth's Sun, it is sometimes called a ... > full article

Quantum number -- A quantum number describes the energies of electrons in atoms. Each quantum number specifies the value of a conserved quantity in the dynamics of the quantum system. Since any quantum system can have ... > full article

Quantum mechanics -- Quantum mechanics is a fundamental branch of theoretical physics that replaces Newtonian mechanics and classical electromagnetism at the atomic and subatomic levels. It is the underlying framework of ... > full article

Introduction to quantum mechanics -- Quantum mechanics is a physical science dealing with the behaviour of matter and waves on the scale of atoms and subatomic particles. It also forms the basis for the contemporary understanding of how ... > full article

Subatomic particle -- A subatomic particle is a particle smaller than an atom: it may be elementary or composite. Particle physics and nuclear physics concern themselves with the study of these particles, their ... > full article

Particle accelerator -- A particle accelerator is a device that uses electric fields to propel electrically charged particles to high speeds and magnetic fields to contain them. An ordinary CRT televison set is a simple ... > full article

Atom -- In chemistry and physics, an atom is the smallest particle of a chemical element that retains its chemical properties. Protons and neutrons make up a dense, massive atomic nucleus, and are ... > full article

Electron -- The Electron is a fundamental subatomic particle that carries an electric charge. It is a spin-half lepton that participates in electromagnetic interactions, and its mass is less than one thousandth ... > full article

Quark -- Quarks are one of the two basic constituents of matter in the Standard Model of particle physics. (The others are leptons.) Antiparticles of quarks are called antiquarks. Quarks and antiquarks are ... > full article

Phase (matter) -- A phase is a set of states of a macroscopic physical system that have relatively uniform chemical composition and physical properties (i.e. density, crystal structure, index of refraction, and so ... > full article

X-ray -- X-rays are a form of electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength in the range of 10 to 0.1 nanometers, corresponding to frequencies in the range 30 to 3000 PHz. X-rays are primarily used for ... > full article

Astrobiology -- Astrobiology is the study of life in space, combining aspects of astronomy, biology and geology. It is focused primarily on the study of the origin, distribution and evolution of ... > full article

Rocket -- The traditional definition of a rocket is a vehicle, missile or aircraft which obtains thrust by the reaction to the ejection of fast moving fluid from within a rocket engine. There are many ... > full article

Volcano -- A volcano is an opening (or rupture) in the Earth's surface or crust, which allows hot, molten rock, ash, and gases to escape from deep below the surface. Volcanic activity involving the extrusion of ... > full article

Titan (moon) -- Titan, or Saturn VI, is the largest moon of Saturn and the second largest moon in the solar system, after Jupiter's moon Ganymede. It is roughly 50% larger than Earth's moon by diameter, and is ... > full article