The search for life elsewhere in the solar system and beyond should include efforts to detect what scientists sometimes refer to as "weird" life -- that is, life with an alternative biochemistry to that of life on Earth - says a new report from the National Research Council.
Get the full story...
Although the discrepancy is not large, it is significant: Geodesists from the University of Bonn have remeasured the size of the Earth in a long lasting international cooperation project. The blue planet is accordingly some millimeters smaller than up to now assumed.
Get the full story...
Research comparing silicon samples from Earth, meteorites and planetary materials, published in Nature (28th June 2007), provides new evidence that the Earth’s core formed under very different conditions from those that existed on Mars. It also shows that the Earth and the Moon have the same silicon isotopic composition supporting the theory that atoms from the two mixed in the early stages of their development.
Get the full story...
The contents of the deep Earth affect the planet as a whole, including life at its surface, but scientists must find unusual ways to "see" it. Only recently have researchers been able to produce the extreme temperatures and pressures found inside our planet to understand how it is forming and evolving.
Get the full story...
Astronomers have found the most Earth-like planet outside our Solar System to date, a world which could have water running on its surface. Scientists say the benign temperatures on the planet mean any water there could exist in liquid form, and this raises the chances it could also harbour life.
Get the full story...
Instruments known as solid-state telescopes (SSTs), built with detectors fabricated at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and carried aboard the recently launched THEMIS mission, have delivered their first data on how charged particles in the solar wind interact with Earth's magnetic field to shape the planet's magnetosphere.
Read the full story
An international research team led by Academy Research Fellow Mikko Kaasalainen has found an asteroid whose rotation receives an extra kick from solar radiation. The asteroid 1862 Apollo's diameter is about 1.5 km, it has a small moonlet, and its orbit crosses that of the Earth.
Read the full story
Using a variety of new approaches, scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego are forging a new understanding of the largest mammals on Earth.
Read the full story
The European Space Agency's (ESA) Rosetta spacecraft successfully completed a swing-by of Mars in the early hours of Sunday morning (25th February 2007). Not only did this mark an important milestone on the spacecraft's 7.1 billion km journey to comet Churyumov Gerasimenko but it provided a unique opportunity to gather further scientific data and images from the Red Planet.
Read the full story
A majority of Americans agree with most scientists that the Earth is getting warmer, but they are divided over the seriousness of the problem, according to surveys conducted by Jon Krosnick, professor of communication and of political science. Their uncertainty is based on a belief-shared by two-thirds of the population-that scientists themselves disagree about global warming.
Read the full story
Supernovae stand out in the sky like cosmic lighthouses. Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics and at the National Astronomical Institute of Italy have now found a way to use these cosmic beacons to measure distances in space more accurately. The researchers have been able to show that all supernovae of a certain type explode with the same mass and the same energy - the brightness depends only on how much nickel the supernova contains.
Read the full story
Temperatures are rising on Earth, which is heating up the debate over global warming and the future of our planet, but what may be needed most to combat global warming is a greater focus on adapting to our changing planet, says a team of science policy experts writing in this week's Nature magazine.
Read the full story
