Author: Daniel Tom

During the Milky Way’s roughly 13.6-billion-year history, billions of stars have formed, grown and ultimately died in spectacular supernova explosions. So, where are all of their corpses hiding? In new research published Aug. 25 in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, astronomers set out to dig up those long lost stellar bodies (so to…

(Inside Science) — Astronomers have detected the fastest-spinning white dwarf star found yet — one that researchers say acts like an extraordinarily powerful magnetic propeller, a new study finds. White dwarfs are stars that have burnt up all their fuel and shed their outer layers, leaving behind their cool, dim cores. Our sun will one…

Using computer simulations, scientists based at NASA have pieced together the story of how the dwarf planet Haumea, found in the Kuiper Belt of icy worlds beyond the orbit of outermost planet Neptune, became one of the most unusual objects in the solar system. Nearly the size of Pluto, Haumea is strange in several ways.…

    Air Combat Command said its new HH-60W Jolly Green II has achieved initial operational capability, a key milestone for the new combat search and rescue helicopter. Lockheed Martin, whose Sikorsky business unit makes the helicopter, and ACC each announced the achievement in separate press releases Oct. 12.     Achieving IOC means the Air Force now has…

MissionThe CV-22 Osprey is a tiltrotor aircraft that combines the vertical takeoff, hover and vertical landing qualities of a helicopter with the long-range, fuel efficiency and speed characteristics of a turboprop aircraft. The mission of the CV-22 is to conduct long-range infiltration, exfiltration and resupply missions for special operations forces. FeaturesThis versatile, self-deployable aircraft offers…

A rancher came across an old bone sticking out of his desert property near La Flecha in the Patagonia region of Argentina four years ago. With the recent news of exciting dinosaur finds in that country in mind, he scratched around some more. Then he went to a local museum to ask paleontologists to come…

By human standards, Venus is not a nice place. It’s a toxic, super-heated hellscape for a world named after a Roman goddess of love and beauty. But it wasn’t always like this. In a study, scientists make the case for how ancient Venus could have once supported life alongside oceans of liquid water, until a mysterious resurfacing event…

A group of astronomers has become star-struck at the brightest flash of light that has ever been seen, probably caused by a black hole forming. On October 9, astronomers’ telescopes detected what is now considered to be the brightest flash of light ever observed. The Swift’s X-Ray Telescope captured the afterglow of GRB 221009A an…

Recent discovery, shows that black holes can make stars just as well as they can eat them. Astronomers came to this conclusion after watching a black hole 30 million light-years away make stars in a small galaxy called Henize 2-10. Experts say that this discovery, which was made possible by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, is…

Here is an idea that likely never crossed the mind of most space enthusiasts – a gas emitted from broccoli (and other plants) is one of the most indicative signs of the existence of life on a planet. At least according to a new study from researchers at the University of California Riverside. That gas,…