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Scientists at the University of Oxford may have solved one of the biggest questions in modern physics, with a new paper unifying dark matter and dark energy into a single phenomenon: a fluid which possesses 'negative mass." If you were to push a negative mass, it would accelerate towards you. This astonishing new theory may also prove right a prediction that Einstein made 100 years ago. Our current, widely recognised model of the Universe, called LambdaCDM, tells us nothing about what dark matter and dark energy are like physically. We only know about them because of the gravitational effects they...

"In almost all of the older star books, you will find a shower known as the Andromedids listed as among the best and to be looked for. That used to be true. In recent years, however . . . the gravitational pull of one of the planets has displaced their orbit so that they no longer lie in the path of the earth. At any rate, it looks as if the once famous Andromedids will have to be crossed off our meteor-hunting date book." Henry M. Neely A Primer for Star-gazers Harper & Brothers 1946 Once upon a time, there was...

Astronomer Mark Lacy and colleagues used the Atacama Large Millimeter Array in Chile to observe the universe’s first light, and found evidence of gusts flowing from a type of black hole called a quasar. The wind extends about 228,000 light-years away from the galaxy that surrounds the quasar. Previously, astronomers had seen signs of these winds only about 3,000 light-years from their galaxies.The result, published November 12 at arXiv.org, could help resolve questions about how black holes can grow with their galaxies, or shut galaxies down for good.Black holes are best known for gravitationally gobbling everything that veers too close....

The US military has raised concerns about the mysterious Russian launch They found five orbital bodies leaving the rocket instead of four, as suggested Either rocket's upper stage broke, or Russia had kept part of the launch secret The US military has raised concerns about the mysterious Russian launch after they found five orbital bodies leaving the rocket instead of four, as previously suggested. The US Combined Space Operations Centre (CSpOC) believe that either the rocket's upper stage broke in two, or the Russians had kept part of the launch secret.

Bob Lazar says he is STILL being monitored by authorities 30 years after he went on TV and said he'd worked with alien spacecraft in a secret US government project Bob Lazar first hit headlines in 1989 when he told Las Vegas TV station that nine alien spacecraft were being tested and analyzed in Nevada by US scientists Lazar said he'd worked to help reverse engineer the 'flying discs,' which used technology that had not been discovered or invented by humans The 'scientist' said he'd been threatened about coming forward but felt the public should know; he was highly criticized...

For more than 40 years, the "Apollo to the Moon" gallery at the National Air and Space Museum has provided millions of visitors a close-up look at some of the key artifacts from humanity's first visit to another world. On Monday (Dec. 3), the gallery will close forever. "This was one of the original galleries built for the museum in 1976," explained curator Michael Neufeld, during a tour of "Apollo to the Moon" streamed live on Facebook from the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. on Friday (Nov. 30). "It has many key artifacts that are great...

SpaceX's next resupply mission to the International Space Station has been pushed back to tomorrow (Dec. 5) due to a rodent problem. While technicians were getting a mouse experiment ready for loading onto SpaceX's robotic Dragon cargo capsule yesterday (Dec. 3), they found mold on some of the rodents' food bars, NASA officials said in a pre-launch news conference yesterday. The Dragon had been scheduled to lift off atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket this afternoon (Dec. 4) from Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. But the food could not be replaced in time to meet that target, NASA officials announced last night....

Well with a fairly close approach and the right timing/lighting, you should be able to see Venus today during the day. It happens to be below the waning moon I would say about the length of your fist at arms length. If you cannot see it at first glance, I would say a quick peek with binoculars or opera glasses will give you an idea.

Most stars with the mass of the sun or larger have one or more companion stars, but when and how these multiple stars form is one of the controversial central problems of astronomy. Gravity contracts the natal gas and dust in an interstellar cloud until clumps develop that are dense enough to coalesce into stars, but how are multiple stars fashioned? Because the shrinking cloud has a slight spin, a disk (possibly a preplanetary system) eventually forms. In one model of binary star formation, this disk fragments due to gravitational instabilities, producing a second star. The other model argues that...

NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft was launched in 2016, but today it will begin to orbit its destination: the asteroid Bennu. When it does, Benniu will break the record for the smallest object ever orbited by a manmade spacecraft. NASA will begin a process of learning more about the small asteroids that reside in our part of the solar system. You can watch the livestream of the arrival here:

Act Two of the 12-year-old New Horizons mission to Pluto and the solar system’s icy Kuiper Belt is heating up, with less than a month to go before NASA’s piano-sized spacecraft makes history’s farthest-out close encounter with a celestial object. The New Year’s flyby of a mysterious Kuiper Belt object (or objects) known as Ultima Thule (UL-ti-ma THOO-lee) follows up on the mission’s first act, which hit a climax three years ago with a history-making flyby of Pluto. Launched in 2006, New Horizons was never meant to be a one-shot deal. Even before the Pluto flyby, mission managers used the...

A simple molecule in the atmosphere that acts as a "detergent" to breakdown methane and other greenhouse gases has been found to recycle itself to maintain a steady global presence in the face of rising emissions, according to new NASA research. Understanding its role in the atmosphere is critical for determining the lifetime of methane, a powerful contributor to climate change. The hydroxyl (OH) radical, a molecule made up of one hydrogen atom, one oxygen atom with a free (or unpaired) electron is one of the most reactive gases in the atmosphere and regularly breaks down other gases, effectively ending...

If human-induced climate change continues unchecked, 10 percent of the U.S. economy could evaporate by 2100, a 1,656-page federal report the White House slipped out on Black Friday (Nov. 23) warned — but a nearby world has an even hotter climate problem than ours, and scientists say we could learn some valuable lessons from it. That world is Venus, Earth's "evil twin," which was once nice enough — until something went wrong and the atmosphere began trapping a little too much heat. Scientists aren't positive precisely how events played out, but the runaway greenhouse effect that resulted is beyond debate:...

NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is scheduled to rendezvous with its targeted asteroid, Bennu, on Monday, December 3, 2018, at approximately 17:00 UTC (noon EST). Translate UTC to your time. NASA will air a live event from 16:45 to 17:15 UTC (11:45 a.m.to 12:15 p.m. EST) to highlight the arrival of the agency’s first asteroid sample return mission. You can watch on NASA TV, Facebook Live, Ustream, YouTube and NASA Live. NASA TV also will air an arrival preview program starting at 16:15 UTC (11:15 a.m. EST). OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer) launched in September 2016 and has been...

Have you ever stopped to wonder exactly how much light has been produced by all the stars in the Universe, over all the time that has passed? Well, now you can wonder no more. An international team of astronomers has actually calculated the amount of starlight in the cosmos. And it's teaching us new things about the early years of our Universe. In the time since the Big Bang - roughly 13.7 billion years - our Universe has produced many, many galaxies, and many more stars. Perhaps around two trillion galaxies, containing around a trillion-trillion stars. For decades, scientists have...

A mild winter could be in store for much of the United States this winter according to NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center. In the U.S. Winter Outlook for December through February, above-average temperatures are most likely across the northern and western U.S., Alaska and Hawaii. Additionally, El Nino has a 70 to 75 percent chance of developing. “We expect El Nino to be in place in late fall to early winter,” said Mike Halpert, deputy director of NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center. “Although a weak El Nino is expected, it may still influence the winter season by bringing wetter conditions across the...

On a summer night in 2017, Chen Zhanqi made a curious find in his lab in China’s Yunnan province. In an artificial nest, he spotted a juvenile jumping spider attached to its mother in a way that reminded him of a baby mammal sucking its mother’s teats. On closer inspection, the spider mom really seemed to be doting on her young, he says. “She had to invest so much in caring for the baby.” Further study by Chen and Quan Rui-Chang, behavioral ecologists at the Chinese Academy of Sciences’s Center for Integrative Conservation in Menglunzhen, confirmed the jumping spider females...

Gravity is big and weird and difficult to study. It moves through space as a wave, sort of like how light does. But these waves are subtle and difficult to detect. They occur in measurable amounts only after massive events, like the collision of black holes. Humanity didn't spot its first gravitational wave until 2015. Then, in 2017, astronomers for the first time detected both gravitational waves and light from a single event: a neutron star collision. Now, researchers are using data from that event to confirm some basic facts about the universe. In a paper first uploaded Nov. 1...

The Flat Earth International Conference has come to Denver. The flat-earthers come to discuss their beliefs with each other and debate the ideas of a flat versus round Earth. People not so sure the Earth is round have come from around the globe to Denver this week to discuss their beliefs at the Flat Earth International Conference, hosted at the Crowne Plaza Denver Airport Convention Center. The two-day conference began on Thursday and ends Friday. Self-described "flat-earthers" believe the Earth's shape has not been proven using the scientific method. "Scientifically when you go and try to prove the curvature, or...

Which of this generation's biggest tech luminaries and innovators will ultimately be remembered for having the greatest lasting effect on the world? It's a tough question, especially when you consider the role that people like Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg play in our everyday lives. But, if you ask renowned astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, the answer is simple: Elon Musk. "As important as Steve Jobs was, no doubt about it — [and] you have to add him to Bill Gates, because they birthed the personal computing revolution kind of together — here's the difference: Elon Musk is trying...