Category: 7. Science

It sounds like one of Kipling’s Just So Stories but it is rooted in science: experts say they have a new theory for how Pluto got its largest moon. Pluto – once considered the ninth planet of our solar system, but now classified as a “dwarf planet” – has five known moons, of which Charon…

Researchers have discovered the origins of a 200-year-old volcanic eruption that ejected so much sulfur into the atmosphere that it changed the climate and made the sun look blue. In 1831, the Northern Hemisphere climate cooled by an average of about 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit (1 degree Celsius), coinciding with reports of gloomy, bleak weather and…

Hi, and welcome back to TechCrunch Space. Happy New Year! And…surprise!: This will be the last edition of TechCrunch Space for the foreseeable future. I know, it’s a bummer. But fear not: We’ll still be reporting on space startups, so I hope you’ll stay tuned. And there will certainly be a lot to cover. This…

The rapid increase in diversity and abundance of biomineralizing organisms during the Early Cambrian epoch (around 535 million years ago) is often attributed to predation and an evolutionary arms race. A Cambrian arms race is typically discussed on a macroevolutionary scale, particularly in the context of escalation. Despite abundant fossils demonstrating early Cambrian predation, empirical……

Jupiter has always fascinated stargazers with its colorful bands of clouds and iconic weather patterns like the Great Red Spot. Now, new research from a team of citizen scientists challenges the old idea that its visible clouds are formed of ammonia ice. These findings add clarity to how Jupiter’s cloud layers and atmospheric dynamics work.…

This new image from the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) aboard the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows a tiny patch of sky in the constellation of Hydra. This Hubble image shows several galaxies in the constellation of Hydra. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / D. Erb. Behind a bright star in the lower…

Paul Romatschke Department of Physics, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, CO, US January 6, 2025• Physics 18, 1 Simulations of neutron stars provide new bounds on their properties, such as their internal pressure and their maximum mass. NASA; CXC; SAO; STScI; JPL; Caltech Figure 1: The neutron star in the Crab Nebula, as seen in…

An international marine research team guided by Cornell expertise has successfully completed an ambitious drilling project to investigate the plate boundary fault that ruptured during the Tohoku earthquake that devastated Japan in 2011.  At an extreme water depth of 7 kilometers, the team used the Japanese drilling vessel Chikyu to drill a series of deep…

The mysteries beyond our earthly world have always captivated and fascinated us, particularly those of the moon. Outer space, the moon, planets, and stars have ignited our curiosity and filled us with wonder for centuries. Our quest to understand our cosmic environment has evolved to include studying the invisible forces that shield our planet. One…