Science

An international team of astronomers who spent five sleepless nights staring into the darkest corners of the universe may have just captured the first ever image of a black hole. There were nights when they had to stop their observations due to bad weather or something going wrong with their system, but they ultimately wrapped up on April 11th, 11:22 …

NASA just snapped the first photos of a mysterious crack in one of Greenland’s largest glaciers. Scientists at NASA’s Operation IceBridge are photographing shrinking Arctic and Antarctic ice to study the effect of climate change on the planet’s polar regions. Stef Lhermitte, a Delft University of Technology professor, first noticed the crack in the middle of the glacier in satellite …

Researchers are busy digging into the crust of the Earth to study the planet’s natural carbon sequestration process in an effort to find a more efficient way to effectively combat castastrophic climate change. A team of geologists, led by Columbia University’s Peter Kelemen, are cracking into the exposed sections of the Earth’s mantle in Oman’s al-Hajjar mountains to observe how …

Researchers believe life could exist on Saturn’s moon Enceladus around hydrothermal vents which are similar to those found at the bottom of the Earth’s ocean. Chemical analysis of the plume suggested conditions favourable for methanogenesis – the generation of methane by microbes that use hydrogen and carbon dioxide to obtain energy. According to Reuters and the New York Times, scientists …

A new water harvester developed by researchers at UC Berkeley and MIT could become a low-energy, off-the-grid means of sustenance. A proof-of-concept solar-powered harvester, produced in a joint venture between the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of California, Berkeley, uses ambient sunlight to extract water from the air. In rooftop tests, reported in the journal Science, the device …

Scientists at the University of Waterloo have produced what they say is the first composite image of a dark matter filament that connects galaxies across the cosmos. The composite image, which combines a number of individual images, confirms predictions that galaxies across the universe are tied together through a cosmic web connected by dark matter that has until now remained …

NASA released new global maps of the Earth at night today, and the space agency says they’re the clearest composite views yet of human settlement patterns on our home planet. This composite image, one of three new full-hemisphere views, provides a view of the Americas at night. The clouds and sun glint — added here for aesthetic effect — are …

Prepare to see space like never before: NASA, with the help of Amazon Web Services, will host the first live 4K Ultra HD video stream from outer space, the space agency announced Tuesday. During the event, scheduled for April 26 at 1:30 p.m. Eastern time, NASA’s Expedition 51 Commander Peggy Whitson will speak from the International Space Station with Sam …

A discovery of fossil bones of one of the earliest dinosaur relatives shows a creature that is a mesh of crocodilian and dinosaur-like features. The discovery of an odd-looking species named Teleocrater rhadinus has filled a gap in the fossil record just before the origin of dinosaurs. The first dinosaurs roamed the Earth in the late Triassic around 230 million …

A report into the threats climate change poses to the natural wonder, to be released today by the Climate Council, has predicted that if severe bleaching continues, regions adjacent to the Reef stand to lose more than one million visitors annually. This is equivalent to an estimated $1 billion in tourism spending and 10,000 jobs supported by the natural asset. …

Scientists at the University of Alberta have confirmed what has long been suspected — polar bears rely on their nose and the direction of the wind to hunt seals. Using satellite telemetry data collected from 123 adult polar bears in Canada’s Hudson Bay over 11 years, the researchers merged the movements of polar bears with wind patterns to explore how …