An asteroid heading toward Earth can be deflected without ever touching a spacecraft. The trick is to use X-rays to deflect the space rock, researchers report Sept. 23 Nature Physics. In laboratory experiments, scientists heated the surfaces of free-falling artificial asteroids with X-ray radiation, producing steam plumes that blew the objects away. Later computer simulations […]

A red dwarf star known as Barnard’s Star, located just six light-years from our solar system, has at least one — and possibly a handful — of small rocky planets orbiting it, a new study suggests. . Barnard’s Star, which is about one-sixth the mass of our sun, is the closest individual star to our […]

Some tadpoles do not poop in the first weeks of their lives. At least, this is the case for Eiffinger’s tree frogs (Kurixalus eiffingeri), scientists report on September 22 at Ecology. Eiffinger tree frogs are small frogs that live in Taiwan and two Japanese islands: Ishigaki and Iriomote. Tree-dwelling amphibians lay their eggs in small […]

Satellites interfere with radio astronomy – Scientific news, October 5, 1974 In the past, satellites and probes launched by NASA and others successfully avoided conflict with the radio frequency bands reserved for radio astronomy. But now there is trouble. The offenders are two large US satellites launched in May…. When one of the satellites is […]

Above the cloud tops, storms blow with a complex and frenetic light show of high-energy radiation. A view from a refurbished spy plane flying 20 kilometers up revealed storms glowing and flickering in gamma rays, high-energy light invisible to the eye. Ten flybys of the aircraft, NASA’s ER-2 aircraft, captured the flickering of gamma-ray bursts […]

NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft will soon be on its way to help solve a quarter-century-old mystery: Could anything live in the ocean hiding beneath the icy shell of Jupiter’s moon Europa? “This is a mission we’ve dreamed about for 25 years now, since I was in graduate school,” says planetary geologist Cynthia Phillips of NASA’s […]

Displacement is in the nature of a river. But when a river breaks from its channel and carves a new path across the landscape, devastating floods can descend on communities with little or no warning. For decades, researchers have struggled to explain exactly how river channels prepare for such sudden diversions or avulsions. A study […]

Stitching is getting a shocking upgrade. In an experiment with mice, a new tough, flexible thread accelerated wound healing by converting muscle movement into electrical energy, researchers report Oct. 8. Nature Communications. If the material is eventually deemed safe for use in humans, it “could change the way we treat injuries,” says materials scientist Chengyi […]

Extreme Climate Survey Scientific news is collecting questions from readers about how to navigate our planet’s changing climate. What do you want to know about extreme heat and how it can lead to extreme weather events? The rapid intensification of both storms was fueled by unusually warm Gulf water. Developing tropical storms can absorb heat […]