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NASA’s NuSTAR Spots Highest-Energy Light Ever Detected From Jupiter – And Solves a Decades-Old Mystery

Lead Image: Jupiter’s southern hemisphere is shown in this image from NASA’s Juno mission. New observations by NASA’s NuSTAR reveal that auroras near both the planet’s poles emit high-energy X-rays, which are produced when accelerated particles collide with Jupiter’s atmosphere. Credit: Enhanced image by Kevin M. Gill (CC-BY) based on images provided courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS The planet’s auroras are known to produce low-energy X-ray light. A new study finally reveals higher-frequency X-rays and explains why they eluded another mission 30 years ago. Scientists have been studying Jupiter up close since the 1970s, but the gas giant is still full of…

New Planet Detected Nearby – Orbiting Around Star Closest to the Sun

Lead Image: This artist’s impression shows a close-up view of Proxima d, a planet candidate recently found orbiting the red dwarf star Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the Solar System. The planet is believed to be rocky and to have a mass about a quarter that of Earth. Two other planets known to orbit Proxima Centauri are visible in the image too: Proxima b, a planet with about the same mass as Earth that orbits the star every 11 days and is within the habitable zone, and candidate Proxima c, which is on a longer five-year orbit around the…

Where Did That Sound Come From? MIT Neuroscientists Can Answer That Question

Lead Image: MIT neuroscientists developed a computer model that can localize sounds. Credit: Jose-Luis Olivares, MIT MIT neuroscientists have developed a computer model that can answer that question as well as the human brain. The human brain is finely tuned not only to recognize particular sounds, but also to determine which direction they came from. By comparing differences in sounds that reach the right and left ear, the brain can estimate the location of a barking dog, wailing fire engine, or approaching car. MIT neuroscientists have now developed a computer model that can also perform that complex task. The model,…

Mars Rovers Have Performed Way Better Than What Was Expected

NASA’s Curiosity rover exploring Mars. Image Credit: NASA The Curiosity Rover that landed on Mars on August 5, 2012, has taken more than 850,000 images of the Martian surface so far. Meanwhile, the Chinese rover Zhurong that arrived on the red planet in May 2021 is searching for underground water pockets. Another rover from NASA called Opportunity, actively explored Mars for 14 years between 2004 and 2018, and detected an iron meteorite (named Heat Shield Rock) – the first meteorite ever identified on another planet The above-mentioned facts are just a glimpse of what rovers can do. Humans have been sending…

New Atlas of Globe’s Glaciers Finds They Have Less Ice Than Previously Thought

Using data on glacier velocity, South America’s tropical Andes mountains were found to have up to 23% less ice and freshwater availability. Darker colors overlayed here on Peru’s Cordillera Blanca range, signify faster glacial speed. Credit: IGE-CNRS ©Mapbox ©OpenStreetMap ©Maxar Findings on glacier speed and depth revise outlook for freshwater availability and sea level rise. The first atlas to measure the movement and thickness of the world’s glaciers gives a clearer, but mixed picture of the globe’s ice-bound freshwater resources, according to researchers from the Institute of Environmental Geosciences (IGE) and Dartmouth College. The worldwide survey, published in Nature Geoscience,…