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KHARTOUM, Sudan - A plane carrying about 200 passengers apparently veered off a runway late Tuesday and burst into flames. It was not immediately clear whether there were casualties. An Associated Press reporter at the scene said the plane arriving from Amman, Jordan apparently veered off the runway as it landed in Khartoum and then burst into flames. It was not immediately clear what airline was involved. Ambulances and fire trucks were seen rushing to the scene. Sudan has a poor aviation safety record. In July 2003, a Sudan Airways Boeing 737 en route from Port Sudan to Khartoum crashed...

May 2, 2007—Jupiter's most turbulent moon, Io, is renowned among scientists for its flashy volcanic displays. But even experts were surprised when they saw this plume of gas vaulting nearly 200 miles (320 kilometers) over the moon's north pole. The giant frozen jet—about as tall as the state of New Hampshire is long—spewed from a volcano known as Tvashtar in February, just as NASA's New Horizons spacecraft was cruising by on its way to Pluto. The passing craft captured several images of the event, providing an unprecedented view of volcanism on Io, the most geologically active body in the solar...

JAKARTA (AFP) - A passenger jet burst into flames on landing in the central Indonesian city of Yogyakarta on Wednesday, witnesses told local radio. "The plane is burnt. The fire came suddenly from the front wheel," one witness, Hariman, told ElShinta radio. There was no immediate mention of casualties, and the number of passengers aboard the jet was not immediately known. The Detikcom news website said the plane was a jet from the country's flag carrier Garuda Indonesia. Another passenger who escaped the blaze told ElShinta radio there were still passengers aboard as the fire raged. Indonesia's flight safety record...

Gamma-ray bursts could be the signature of ultradense stars. This X-ray image shows the 3C58 pulsar, the remnant of a supernova noted on Earth in AD 1181, which astronomers suspect may be a quark star. It lies about 10,000 light years from Earth.© NASA/SAO/CXC/P.Slane et al. Intense flashes of gamma rays in far-off galaxies might be produced by a bizarre kind of star, consisting of phenomenally dense material in which the particles that make up atomic nuclei have fallen apart. Two astrophysicists have proposed that gamma-ray (gamma-ray) bursts, whose origins have foxed astronomers for decades, might be the signatures of...

Summary - (Jul 29, 2004) NASA's Swift satellite is due to arrive at Florida's Cape Canaveral today, to prepare for its launch in October. Named after the fast-moving bird, Swift will track down the fastest and most powerful known explosions in the Universe: gamma ray bursts. Swift has one instrument to detect bursts in the sky, and then it can swing around two high-resolution telescopes in less than a minute for a closer look. It'll also inform the astronomical community of a blast so that anyone watching the sky can tune in as well and watch the explosion unfold....

Beijing bursts balloon plot Reuters in Beijing Thursday January 1, 2004 The Guardian (UK) An American and a New Zealander were jailed in Beijing yesterday on charges of plotting to explode balloons by remote control above Tiananmen Square and scatter pro-democracy leaflets. The New Zealander, Sun Gang, 44, who was born in China, was sentenced to five years and the American, Lan Yupeng, born in Taiwan, to three-and-a-half-years, the Xinhua news agency said. Both were fined unspecified amounts and ordered to be deported, it added, but did not say whether this would be immediately or after serving their sentences. The...