Full Moon, Partial Eclipse, and Jupiter

This week we are presented with a collection of celestial alignments that are quite visible in an urban setting.

Climate change may supersize sweet potatoes

RISING levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere may have a silver lining: doubling the size of the sweet potato, the fifth most important food crop in the developing world.

Most studies of the effects of higher atmospheric CO₂ on crops have shown rising yields of rice,

Bridging Cities of Galaxies

Image credits: Sunyaev–Zel’dovich effect: ESA Planck Collaboration; optical image: STScI Digitized Sky Survey

Planck has discovered a bridge of hot gas that connects galaxy clusters Abell 399 (lower center) and Abell 401 (top left). The galaxy pair is located about a billion light-years from Earth, and the gas bridge extends approximately 10 million light-years between them.

Nebula new photo

Australian astrophotographer Dave Larkin used the Internet based Slooh Space Camera's Canary Island 20'' robotic telescope to capture this photo of the Lagoon Nebula

Solar Eclipses: An Observer’s Guide (Infographic)

Big Idea Bring Back the "Cold Fusion" Dream

In 1989 Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann made a sensational claim that would have changed the world—had it been true. They said they had achieved nuclear fusion at room temperature using a simple tabletop device, thus creating a revolutionary clean energy source they called “cold fusion.”

Solar system’s birth record revised

Some 4.567 billion years ago, our solar system’s planets spawned from an expansive disc of gas and dust rotating around the sun. While similar processes are witnessed in younger solar systems throughout the Milky Way, the formative stages of our own solar system were believed to have taken twice as long to occur. Now, new research lead by the Centre for Star and Planet Formation at the Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen, suggests otherwise.

Polystyrene atoms could surpass the real deal

SOMETIMES a copy can surpass the original. Imitation atoms made of microscopic polystyrene spheres have bonded with each other using the same three-dimensional geometries found in real molecules. These surrogate atoms could one day be used to build novel materials such as semiconductors that carry light rather than electricity.