Advocates of manned space flight have long argued that propelling people into orbits has a public appeal unmatched by robotic missions. That was true when astronauts were racing to the moon, but since the Apollo program ended 40 years ago unmanned exploration has provided almost all of our extraterrestrial excitement – at a far lower…
An ambitious British plan to search for minute forms of life in an ancient lake beneath Antarctica’s ice has been suspended because of technical problems, the scientist leading the project said. In a move that clears the way for U.S. and Russian teams to take the lead, Professor Martin Siegert said technical problems and a…
The first truly Earth-like alien planet is likely to be spotted next year, an epic discovery that would cause humanity to reassess its place in the universe. While astronomers have found a number of exoplanets over the last few years that share one or two key traits with our own world — such as size…
Just outside of Jerusalem, archaeologists have discovered a cache of vessels and figurines inside a 2,750-year-old temple that could provide a rare window into religious rituals of the period, the Israeli Antiquities Authority announced. The finds were uncovered at Tel Motza, an archaeological site being excavated ahead of the expansion of Highway 1, the main…
This year has been a spectacular one for exoplanets. New discoveries and new insights have truly pushed the gateway to other worlds even further open. In the past 12 months we’ve gained increasingly good statistics on the incredible abundance of planets around other stars and their multiplicity. We also finally seem to have evidence that…
At Olduvai Gorge in northern Tanzania, where excavations helped to confirm Africa was the cradle of humanity, scientists now find the landscape once fluctuated rapidly, likely guiding early human evolution.These findings suggest that key mental developments within the human lineage may have been linked with a highly variable environment. Scientists had long thought Africa went…
Rocks, water and hot alkaline fluid rich in hydrogen gas spewing out of deep-sea vents: this recipe for life has been championed for years by a small group of scientists. Now two of them have fleshed out the detail on how the first cells might have evolved in these vents, and escaped their deep sea…
For over a millennium the Chinese have used an herb known as Chang Shan to treat fevers associated with malaria. While its effectiveness in treating the disease has long been confirmed by modern medicine, its exact function has remained mystery. However, in a recent study, scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) say they have…
NASA’s long-lived Mars rover Opportunity that beat newcomer sister probe Curiosity to an area containing water-formed clay minerals, has found that the spot may be far richer than scientists first realized. A new study looks at chemicals spotted by a Mars-orbiting spacecraft to conclude that Endeavour Crater, which Opportunity reached in August 2011 after a…
An exploding meteor that blasted its fragments across California’s Gold Country in April has revealed rare evidence of its origin in a single family of asteroids hundreds of millions of miles from Earth, astronomers report. Seventy-seven bits of space debris collected around Sutter’s Mill in El Dorado County, where they fell on April 22, have…