Heavens

The sea ice cover of the Southern Ocean reached its yearly maximum extent on Oct. 6. At 7.27 million square miles (18.83 million square kilometers), the new maximum extent falls roughly in the middle of the record of Antarctic maximum extents compiled during the 37 years of satellite measurements - this year's maximum extent is both the 22nd lowest and the 16th highest. More remarkably, this year's maximum is quite a bit smaller than the previous three years, which correspond to the three highest maximum extents in the satellite era, and is also the lowest since 2008.

University of Maryland astronomers Silvia Protopapa and Douglas Hamilton are among the authors of the first published paper from the New Horizons flyby, which appears in the Oct. 16, 2015 issue of the journal Science. Protopapa helped map the composition of Pluto's surface and locate ices on it. Hamilton helped confirm the shapes, sizes and unique rotations of two of Pluto's moons and the finding that no other moons appear to orbit Pluto. The findings will help scientists understand the origins and subsequent history of Pluto and its moons.

Boulder, Colo. -- Oct. 15, 2015 -- The New Horizons team described a wide range of findings about the Pluto system in its first research paper, published today. "The Pluto System: Initial Results from its Exploration by New Horizons" appears in and on the cover of the Oct. 16 issue of the journal Science; the publication comes just three months after NASA's historic first exploration of the Pluto system in mid-July. The authors include more than 150 New Horizons project and NASA personnel; Principal Investigator Alan Stern of Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) is first author.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] -- A giant mound near the Moon's south pole appears to be a volcanic structure unlike any other found on the lunar surface, according to new research by Brown University geologists.

The formation, known as Mafic Mound, stands about 800 meters tall and 75 kilometers across, smack in the middle of a giant impact crater known as the South Pole-Aitken Basin. This new study suggests that the mound is the result of a unique kind of volcanic activity set in motion by the colossal impact that formed the basin.

In an article published in the journal Nature, Professor Burgman and Professor William Sutherland from the University of Cambridge argue expert opinions are often considered infallible.

But expert advice or estimates are often compromised by "cognitive frailties", which include the expert's mood, values, whether they stand to gain or lose from a decision and the context in which their opinions are sought.

"Experts are typically unaware of these subjective influences," the article says.

ITHACA, N.Y. - Cornell University engineers have developed a method to re-create the arrangement of muscles of an octopus tentacle, using an elastomer and 3D printer.

The research was groundbreaking since until now, 3D printing methods could not directly print a soft robotic device with as much agility and degree of freedom as the new method provides, according to Rob Shepherd, assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering and senior author of the study.

Galaxies forming stars at extreme rates nine billion years ago were more efficient than average galaxies today, researchers find.

The Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission core satellite analyzed rainfall within Tropical Storm Koppu and identified areas of some intense thunderstorms.

Launching humans to Mars may not require a full tank of gas: A new MIT study suggests that a Martian mission may lighten its launch load considerably by refueling on the moon.

Previous studies have suggested that lunar soil and water ice in certain craters of the moon may be mined and converted to fuel. Assuming that such technologies are established at the time of a mission to Mars, the MIT group has found that taking a detour to the moon to refuel would reduce the mass of a mission upon launch by 68 percent.

Ushering new technologies from the university lab to the marketplace has long been a challenge, with many stalling indefinitely due to a lack of funding. But a model of investing has developed over the past 15 years to help bridge that gap with some stunning successes, according to an article in Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), the weekly newsmagazine of the American Chemical Society.

RIVERSIDE, Calif. -- In recent years the practice of Android rooting, that is the process of allowing an Android phone or tablet to bypass restrictions set by carriers, operating systems or hardware manufacturers, has become increasingly popular.

Scientists using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have produced new maps of Jupiter -- the first in a series of annual portraits of the solar system's outer planets.

Collecting these yearly images -- essentially the planetary version of annual school picture days for children -- will help current and future scientists see how these giant worlds change over time. The observations are designed to capture a broad range of features, including winds, clouds, storms and atmospheric chemistry.

Much like the flapping of a windsock displays the quick changes in wind's speed and direction, called turbulence, comet tails can be used as probes of the solar wind - the constant flowing stream of material that leaves the sun in all directions. According to new studies of a comet tail observed by NASA's Solar and Terrestrial Relations Observatory, or STEREO, the vacuum of interplanetary space is filled with turbulence and swirling vortices similar to gusts of wind on Earth.

A study of spiral galaxies seen edge-on has revealed that halos of cosmic rays and magnetic fields above and below the galaxies' disks are much more common than previously thought. Edge-on galaxies, when seen with the naked eye, look like a line in the sky.An international team of astronomers including lead author and Queen's postdoctoral student Theresa Wiegert and Queen's researcher Judith Irwin (Physics, Engineering Physics and Astronomy) used the Karl G.

Ancient memory devices such as handwriting were based on mechanical energy--but in the modern world they have given way to devices based generally on electrical manipulation.

Today, scientists from the RIKEN Center for Emergent Matter Science may be about to wind back time. In a study published in Nature Communications, they have found a way to manipulate skyrmions--tiny nanometer-sized magnetic vortices found at the surface of magnetic materials--using mechanical energy.