Heavens

Washington, D.C.—Up to now scientists thought that the trace amounts of carbon on the surface of the Moon came from the solar wind. Now researchers at the Carnegie Institution's Geophysical Laboratory have detected and dated Moon carbon in the form of graphite—the sooty stuff of pencil lead—which survived from the late heavy bombardment era 3.8 billion years ago. The researchers found instances of graphite and a form of rolled graphite called graphite whiskers that could only form in very high temperature reactions initiated by an impact.

Areas of northeastern Mexico were slammed with heavy rainfall, and NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission Satellite estimated more than 10 inches of rainfall fell in various locations and that data was used to create a rainfall map.

Alex made landfall at 10 p.m. EDT in northeastern Mexico, about 110 miles south of Brownsville, Texas. By 8 a.m. EDT on July 1, Alex has weakened to a tropical storm and GOES satellite imagery showed it moving near the high mountains of Mexico.

Alexandria, VA — Today, the American Academy of Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery (AAO-HNS) announced the release of a consensus statement to address ambiguities and disparities in the diagnosis and management of nasal valve compromise (NVC).

Researchers have identified a set of "molecular signatures" for biliary atresia – the most common diagnosis leading to liver transplant in children – that can help identify the progression of disease at diagnosis and predict clinical outcomes.

Dartmouth Linguistics Professor Lewis Glinert and Jon Schommer, the associate head of the Department of Pharmaceutical Care and Health Systems at the University of Minnesota, have examined the corporate websites dedicated to the 100 best-selling prescription drugs. They found a startling lack of consistency in an industry where advertising standards are regulated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

The star R Coronae Australis lies in one of the nearest and most spectacular star-forming regions. This portrait was taken by the Wide Field Imager (WFI) on the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope at the La Silla Observatory in Chile. The image is a combination of twelve separate pictures taken through red, green and blue filters.

Many of the Milky Way's ancient stars are remnants of other smaller galaxies torn apart by violent galactic collisions around five billion years ago, according to researchers at Durham University.

A trough is an elongated area of low pressure and that's what the remnants of the once major hurricane known as Darby are becoming today. On June 28 at 6:55 p.m. EDT NASA and the Japanese Space Agency's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite captured isolated areas of rainfall off the western Mexico coast from Darby's remnants.

The Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite, GOES-11 captured a visible image of Celia's remnants on June 29 at 8:45 a.m. EDT revealing it to be a light swirl of clouds in the Eastern Pacific Ocean.

Montreal, June 29, 2010 – A planet about eight times the mass of Jupiter has been confirmed to orbit a Sun-like star that's some 300 times farther from its own star than Earth is from its sun.

The newly confirmed planet is the least massive planet known to orbit at such a great distance from its host star.

San Diego, CA, June 29, 2010 -- Increasing the availability of public transit systems is one among a number of modifications to the built environment that offers opportunities for increasing physical activity and reducing the prevalence of obesity and its associated problems.

The Eastern Pacific twins, Darby and Celia were once both major hurricanes and today are just barely hanging on to tropical storm status. Both are forecast to continue weakening over the next day or two.

When Mars Express set sail for the crater named after Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan, it found a windblown plateau and mysterious rocky mounds nearby.

CSIRO astronomer George Hobbs and colleagues in the UK, Germany and Canada report that they have taken a big step towards solving a 30-year-old puzzle: why the "cosmic clocks" called pulsars aren't perfect."We now have a more fundamental understanding of how pulsars work," Dr Hobbs said.

"We've shown that many pulsar characteristics are linked, because they have one underlying cause."