ESA's Rosetta spacecraft has made the first measurement of molecular nitrogen at a comet, providing clues about the temperature environment in which Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko formed, the agency reports.The in situ detection of molecular nitrogen has long been
Incessant mountain rain, snow and melting glaciers in a comparatively small region of land that hugs the southern Alaska coast and empties fresh water into the Gulf of Alaska would create the sixth largest coastal river in the world if it emerged as a single stream, a r
Researchers have discovered a network of viruses, which were previously associated with managed honeybees, may now pose a widespread risk to bumblebees in the wild, according to a new study published today in the Journal of Animal Ecology.The study revealed multiple int
A team of Brazilian astronomers led by Denilso Camargo of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul have made a remarkable discovery, a cluster of stars forming on the very edge of the Milky Way galaxy. This is the first time astronomers have found stars being…
As the sun skims through the galaxy, it flings out charged particles in a stream of plasma called the solar wind, and the solar wind creates a bubble extending far outside the solar system known as the heliosphere. For decades, scientists have visualized the heliosphere
Plastic debris in the marine environment is well known and widely documented, but the quantity of plastic making its way into the world’s oceans and from where it originates has been a mystery until now.A new study published today in the journal Science, quantifie
Seismic waves are helping scientists to plumb the world’s deepest mystery: the planet’s inner core.Thanks to a novel application of earthquake-reading technology, a research team at the University of Illinois and colleagues at Nanjing University in China hav
The US Midwest and surrounding states have endured increasingly more frequent flood episodes over the past half-century, according to a new study by scientists from the University of Iowa.The UI researchers based their findings on daily records collected by the USGS at
Counting sunspots over time helps in knowing the activity of our star but the two indices used by scientists disagree on dates prior to 1885. Now an international team of researchers has tried to standardise the historical results and has discovered that, contrary to wh
Mercury concentrations in Hawaiian yellowfin tuna are increasing at a rate of 3.8 percent or more per year, according to a new University of Michigan-led study that suggests rising atmospheric levels of the toxic substance are to blame. Mercury is a toxic trace metal th
