Heavens

Light from a distant galaxy can be strongly bent by the gravitational influence of a foreground galaxy. That effect is called strong gravitational lensing. Normally a single galaxy is lensed at a time. The same foreground galaxy can - in theory - simultaneously lens multiple background galaxies. Although extremely rare, such a lens system offers a unique opportunity to probe the fundamental physics of galaxies and add to our understanding of cosmology. One such lens system has recently been discovered and the discovery was made not in an astronomer's office, but in a classroom.

San Antonio -- July 26, 2016 -- A team of scientists led by Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) made a puzzling observation while studying the size and distribution of craters on the dwarf planet Ceres.

When NASA's Dawn spacecraft arrived to orbit the dwarf planet Ceres in March 2015, mission scientists expected to find a heavily cratered body generally resembling the protoplanet Vesta, Dawn's previous port of call.

Instead, as the spacecraft drew near to Ceres, a somewhat different picture began to emerge: Something has happened to Ceres to remove its biggest impact basins.

A group of risk experts is proposing a new framework and research agenda that they believe will support the most effective public warnings when a hurricane, wildfire, toxic chemical spill or any other environmental hazard threatens safety. Effective warnings are a growing need as expanding global populations confront a wide range of hazards.

Supernovae are among the most violent phenomena in the universe. They are huge explosions which put an end to the lives of certain types of stars. These explosions release immense amounts of energy, so much that sometimes we can see them from Earth with the naked eye, as points of light which for a short time are brighter than all the millions of stars in the galaxies where they are found. After an intense burst of light lasting a few weeks, supernovae start to fade gradually until they have effectively burned out,

Cygnus A is an elliptical galaxy at around 600 million light years from the Earth, which has a supermassive black hole at its centre. It is one of the brightest sources of radio waves in the sky and featured in Contact, the famous science fiction novel by Carl Sagan which was made into a film. It has an active galactic nucleus which means that the black hole is "swallowing" material from its surroundings.

WASHINGTON, July 26, 2016 -- When we go outside, we expose ourselves to the most common carcinogen of all: ultraviolet (UV) rays in sunlight. Most of us know we should apply sunscreen to protect our skin, but some of us forget and suffer a flaky, irritated sunburn in return. In this week's Reactions, we highlight the chemistry behind UV radiation, melanin and sunburns. See the video here: https://youtu.be/7ZXvngquyT4.

Tropical Depression 05W strengthened into a tropical storm and was renamed Mirinae as NASA's Aqua satellite passed over the South China Sea and captured a visible image of the storm.

On Tuesday, July 26, 2016 at 06:05 a.m. UTC (2:05 a.m. EDT) the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer aboard NASA's Aqua satellite looked at the storm in visible light. The image showed a somewhat elongated storm. The strongest thunderstorms around the center appear slightly elongated from southwest to northeast, as a result of moderate vertical wind shear.

It's an age-old astronomical truth: To resolve smaller and smaller physical details of distant celestial objects, scientists need larger and larger light-collecting mirrors. This challenge is not easily overcome given the high cost and impracticality of building and -- in the case of space observatories -- launching large-aperture telescopes.

Tropical Storm Darby weakened to a remnant low pressure system in the Central Pacific Ocean today, July 26. NASA's Aqua satellite and RapidScat instrument provided a "last look" at Darby when it was still a tropical storm the previous day.

Infrared data from NASA's Aqua satellite showed a transition within Tropical Storm Frank over three days, and now Frank has become the Eastern Pacific's fifth hurricane.

Two tropical cyclones in the Eastern Pacific Ocean have see-sawed in strength today, July 26, 2016.

Infrared satellite imagery from NASA's Aqua satellite showed colder cloud top temperatures in Frank today as it became a hurricane and warming temperatures in Georgette as it weakened from a hurricane to a tropical storm. The infrared data, taken July 26 at 0959 UTC (5:59 a.m. EDT) showed a much smaller Tropical Storm Georgette in comparison to the now hurricane, Frank.

BINGHAMTON, NY - Mood and personality play an important role in how companies should manage their IT systems, according to a new study co-authored by a researcher at Binghamton University, State University of New York.

A couple of times in four billion years, evolution has slowed to a crawl. And an eon or so has passed before more complex life forms, such as simple animals, could arise.

Evolution may have been waiting for a decent breath of oxygen, said researcher Chris Reinhard. And that was hard to come by. His research team is tracking down O2 concentrations in oceans, where earliest animals evolved.

Water is the key to life on Earth. Scientists continue to unravel the mystery of life on Mars by investigating evidence of water in the planet's soil. Previous observations of soil observed along crater slopes on Mars showed a significant amount of perchlorate salts, which tend to be associated with brines with a moderate pH level. However, researchers have stepped back to look at the bigger picture through data collected from the 2001: Mars Odyssey, named in reference to the science fiction novel by Arthur C.