Heavens

SAN FRANCISCO—In the search for rogue nukes, researchers have discovered an unlikely tool: astronomical radio telescopes.

Ohio State University researchers previously demonstrated another unlikely tool, when they showed that South Korean GPS stations detected telltale atmospheric disturbances from North Korea's 2009 nuclear test.

Both techniques were born out of the discovery that underground nuclear explosions leave their mark—on the outer reaches of Earth's atmosphere.

Many galaxies have a giant black hole at their centre that causes the gas around it to glow. However, in the case of green bean galaxies, the entire galaxy is glowing, not just the centre. These new observations reveal the largest and brightest glowing regions ever found, thought to be powered by central black holes that were formerly very active but are now switching off.

SANTA CRUZ, CA--An ongoing investigation of elevated mercury levels in coastal fog in California suggests that upwelling of deep ocean water along the coast brings mercury to the surface, where it enters the atmosphere and is absorbed by fog.

Philadelphia, Pa. (December 4, 2012) – Can treatment with modern anti-HIV drugs help fight hunger for HIV-infected patients in Africa? Starting antiretroviral therapy for HIV reduces "food insecurity" among patients in Uganda, suggests a study published online by the journal AIDS, official journal of the International AIDS Society.

Scientists using NASA satellite data and climate models have projected drier conditions likely will cause increased fire activity across the United States in coming decades. Other findings about U.S. wildfires, including their amount of carbon emissions and how the length and strength of fire seasons are expected to change under future climate conditions, were also presented Tuesday at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco.

By combining the observing powers of ESA's Herschel space observatory and the ground-based Keck telescopes, astronomers have characterised hundreds of previously unseen starburst galaxies, revealing extraordinary high star-formation rates across the history of the Universe.

Starburst galaxies give birth to hundreds of solar masses' worth of stars each year in short-lived but intense events.

By comparison, our own Milky Way Galaxy on average produces the equivalent of only one Sun-like star per year.

How do driverless vehicles navigate through intersections? Faster and safer than if humans were in charge, according to researchers with the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute.

A new analysis of topographic and gravity data from Titan, the largest of Saturn's moons, indicates that Titan's icy outer crust is twice as thick as has generally been thought.

Scientists have long suspected that a vast ocean of liquid water lies under the crust. The new study suggests that the internally generated heat that keeps that ocean from freezing solid depends far more on Titan's interactions with Saturn and its other moons than had been suspected.

Two NASA satellites gathered data as the passed over Bopha when it was a Super Typhoon on Dec. 2, gathering valuable data for forecasters. Since Dec. 2, Bopha's maximum sustained winds have fluctuated up and down from its previous high of 155 mph and today, Dec. 3, the storm has reached its strongest point so far as a Category 5 typhoon on the Saffir-Simpson scale with sustained winds of 161 mph. Warnings are up for the Philippines as Bopha approaches.

In new research published in a special issue of the journal Environmental Health Perspectives and in "Sources to Seafood: Mercury Pollution in the Marine Environment"— a companion report by the Dartmouth-led Coastal and Marine Mercury Ecosystem Research Collaborative (C-MERC), scientists report that mercury released into the air and then deposited into oceans contaminates seafood commonly eaten by people in the U.S. and globally.

SAN FRANCISCO—Scattered around the Milky Way are stars that resemble our own sun—but a new study is finding that any planets orbiting those stars may very well be hotter and more dynamic than Earth.

That's because the interiors of any terrestrial planets in these systems are likely warmer than Earth—up to 25 percent warmer, which would make them more geologically active and more likely to retain enough liquid water to support life, at least in its microbial form.

Six years of observations by ESA's Venus Express have shown large changes in the sulphur dioxide content of the planet's atmosphere, and one intriguing possible explanation is volcanic eruptions.

The thick atmosphere of Venus contains over a million times as much sulphur dioxide as Earth's, where almost all of the pungent, toxic gas is generated by volcanic activity.

Most of the sulphur dioxide on Venus is hidden below the planet's dense upper cloud deck, because the gas is readily destroyed by sunlight.

The 2012 Atlantic Hurricane season was a busy one as there were 19 tropical cyclones. A new NASA animation using data from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission satellite known as TRMM shows rainfall from tropical cyclones in the western Atlantic, as measured from space.

The TRMM satellite has now been making highly accurate measurements of rainfall from space for fifteen years since it launched in Nov. 1997. TRMM is a joint mission between NASA and the Japanese space agency, JAXA.

Researchers funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) describe in a new publication a viable community of bacteria that ekes out a living in a dark, salty and subfreezing environment beneath nearly 20 meters of ice in one of Antarctica's most isolated lakes.

The finding could have implications for the discovery of life in other extreme environments, including elsewhere in the solar system.

Bopha intensified into a typhoon today, Nov. 30, as it continues to affect the islands in Micronesia in the western North Pacific Ocean. NASA's TRMM satellite captured rainfall data of Bopha and noticed "Hot Tower" thunderstorms as it was intensifying from a tropical storm into a typhoon.