A University of Alberta researcher has successfully generated 3D simulations of deep jet streams and storms on Jupiter and Saturn, helping to satiate our eternal quest for knowledge of planetary dynamics. The results facilitate a deeper understanding of planetary weather and provide clues to the dynamics of Earth's weather patterns evidenced in jet streams and ocean currents.
Heavens
A supercomputer simulation of a mere 10 milliseconds in the collapse of a massive star into a neutron star proves that these catastrophic events, often called hypernovae, can generate the enormous magnetic fields needed to explode the star and fire off bursts of gamma rays visible halfway across the universe.
A new study by Sauder School of Business Professor Izak Benbasat and his collaborators shows that envy is a key motivator behind Facebook posts and that contributes to a decrease in mental well-being among users.
Creating a vicious cycle of jealousy and self-importance, the researchers say Facebook leads users to feel their lives are unfulfilling by comparison, and react by creating posts that portray their best selves.
Scientists have discovered a hungry black hole swallowing a star at the centre of a nearby galaxy.
The supermassive black hole was found to have faint jets of material shooting out from it and helps to confirm scientists' theories about the nature of black holes.
The discovery was published today in the journal Science.
An international team of astrophysicists led by a Johns Hopkins University scientist has for the first time witnessed a star being swallowed by a black hole and ejecting a flare of matter moving at nearly the speed of light.
The finding reported Thursday in the journal Science tracks the star -- about the size of our sun -- as it shifts from its customary path, slips into the gravitational pull of a supermassive black hole and is sucked in, said Sjoert van Velzen, a Hubble fellow at Johns Hopkins.
Tropical Storm In-fa was becoming an extra-tropical storm as it tracked toward the island of Iwo To, Japan in the western North Pacific Ocean. NASA's Terra satellite captured an infrared image of the small storm that is battling wind shear and was becoming extra-tropical.
AMES, Iowa - Was it a catastrophic collision in the star's asteroid belt? A giant impact that disrupted a nearby planet? A dusty cloud of rock and debris? A family of comets breaking apart? Or was it alien megastructures built to harvest the star's energy?
Just what caused the mysterious dimming of star KIC 8462852?
Massimo Marengo, an Iowa State University associate professor of physics and astronomy, wondered when he saw all the buzz about the mysterious star found by citizen scientists on the Planet Hunters website.
VY Canis Majoris is a stellar goliath, a red hypergiant, one of the largest known stars in the Milky Way. It is 30-40 times the mass of the Sun and 300 000 times more luminous. In its current state, the star would encompass the orbit of Jupiter, having expanded tremendously as it enters the final stages of its life.
Drowning has emerged as a mysterious cause of death amongst groups of young common starlings (Sturnus vulgaris), according to research by a team of scientists led by international conservation charity the Zoological Society of London (ZSL).
Drowning as a cause of death amongst wild birds is comparatively rare and normally involves single rather than multiple animals. Starlings, however, have been observed to drown in groups of 10 or more, prompting scientists to investigate these unusual occurrences.
Digital measurements of millions of trees indicate that previous studies likely overestimate the amount of carbon stored by temperate U.S. forests, according to a new NASA study.
The findings could help scientists better understand the impact that trees have on the amount of carbon in the atmosphere. Although it is a well-established fact that trees absorb carbon and store it long-term, researchers are unsure how much is stored in global forests.
This winter, two sounding rockets will launch through the aurora borealis over Norway to study how particles move in a region near the North Pole where Earth's magnetic field is directly connected to the solar wind. After the launch window opens on Nov. 27, 2015, the CAPER and RENU 2 rockets will have to wait for low winds and a daytime aurora before they can send their instrument payloads soaring through the Northern Lights.
During the early morning of Nov. 24, Tropical Storm Sandra became the 18th named storm of the 2015 Eastern Pacific hurricane season. NASA's Global Precipitation Measurement or GPM mission core satellite passed over the new storm and looked at its clouds and rainfall.
At 4 p.m. EST (2100 UTC) on Nov. 23, Tropical Depression Twenty-Two-E was born near latitude 10.8 north, longitude 102.9 west. Twelve hours later it strengthened into a tropical storm.
Tropical Cyclone Annabelle ran into adverse atmospheric and oceanic conditions and was fading quickly on Nov. 24. But the day before, NASA's RapidScat instrument saw some dying bursts of wind from the weakening Southern Indian Ocean system.
Mars' largest moon, Phobos, is slowly falling toward the planet, but rather than smash into the surface, it likely will be shredded and the pieces strewn about the planet in a ring like the rings encircling Saturn, Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune.
Though inevitable, the demise of Phobos is not imminent. It will probably happen in 20 to 40 million years, leaving a ring that will persist for anywhere from one million to 100 million years, according to two young earth scientists at the University of California, Berkeley.
The Global Precipitation Measurement mission known as GPM passed over Typhoon In-fa and found extreme rainfall occurring in the storm.
GPM is a satellite that can estimate rainfall rates from space. It's a jointly managed satellite by both NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency.