All About Everything

Legendary Meteor Outburst May Occur Thursday Night. Here's What to Know

Put a big red circle on your calendar for Thursday night (Nov. 21), for skywatchers will be out in force, anxiously waiting for and hoping to get a view of a meteor shower that almost nobody has heard of. But the Alpha Monocerotids are this autumn's ...

It's Still Not Aliens: 'Mars Bug' Claim Could Damage the Search for Life

An Ohio scientist claims to have found photographic proof of "insect and reptile-like" life on Mars. But, as always, it's not aliens, other researchers say. William Romoser, a professor emeritus who specializes in arbovirology (the study of viruses transmitted by ...

NASA's Undersea Robot Crawls Beneath Antarctic Ice in Test for Icy Moons

It's going to take a lot more than a doggy paddle to explore the oceans hidden below the icy surfaces of some of the solar system's most intriguing moons. That's why NASA engineers are already working on an underwater rover they hope could one day tackle ...

Oxygen on Mars Adds to Atmospheric Mysteries

There is not much air on Mars — the atmospheric pressure there is less than one one-hundredth of what we breathe on Earth — but what little is there has baffled planetary scientists. Oxygen, which makes up about 0.13 percent of the Martian atmosphere, ...

Nanoracks Books SpaceX Rocket to Launch Space Habitat Demo in 2020 (Cubesats, Too!)

Nanoracks wants to expand from hosting experiments on board the International Space Station to running its own miniature stations built from used rockets, with a first launch scheduled for next year. The company has arranged two launch eight cubesats and ...

The Most Powerful Explosions in the Universe Emit Way More Energy Than Anyone Thought

Gamma-ray bursts, the most powerful kinds of explosions known in the universe, can generate even more energetic light beams than astronomers previously realized, according to a set of new studies. The new research suggests that scientists may have been ...

Scientists Are Just Beginning to Understand Mysterious DNA Circles Common in Cancer Cells

There's no image in biology more iconic than our chromosomes — all 23 pairs of DNA bundles arrayed in a genetic lineup. But in a surprising number of cases, this picture leaves out something very important. In some cells, extra circles of DNA float alongside ...

New Map of Saturn's Moon Titan Reveals a Liquid-Filled World

A new geologic map of Saturn's large moon Titan reveals just how much liquid this world holds. The new map is the first to show the global geology of Titan, allowing scientists to get a better understanding about how different regions of the moon interact with ...

First detection of the cosmic monster explosions with ground-based gamma-ray telescopes

The strongest explosions in the universe produce even more energetic radiation than previously known: Using specialized telescopes, two international teams have registered the highest energy gamma rays ever measured from so-called gamma-ray bursts, ...

New water-based optical device revolutionizes the field of optics research

Light is versatile in nature. In other words, it shows different characteristics when traveling through different types of materials. This property has been explored with various technologies, but the way in which light interacts with materials needs to be ...