“Breathtaking” new maps of likely sites of water on Mars showcase their association with geologic features such as Vallis Marineris, the largest canyon in the solar system.

The maps detail the distribution of water-equivalent hydrogen as revealed by Los Alamos National Laboratory-developed instruments aboard NASA’s Mars Odyssey spacecraft. In an upcoming talk at the Sixth International Conference on Mars at the California Institute of Technology, in Pasadena, Los Alamos space scienti

Computer Researchers Find Critical Flaws in Popular Software Produced for U.S. Elections

The software believed to be at the heart of an electronic voting system being marketed for use in elections across the nation has weaknesses that could easily allow someone to cast multiple votes for one candidate, computer security researchers at The Johns Hopkins University have determined.

The researchers reached this conclusion after studying computer code believed to be for Ohio-base

Astronomers from the University of Cambridge, UK, have found for the first time the true outer limits of a galaxy. They have also shown that the dark matter in this galaxy is not distributed in the way conventional theory predicts.

The team – Professor Gerry Gilmore, Dr Mark Wilkinson, Dr Jan Kleyna and Dr Wyn Evans – presents its results today at the 25th General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union in Sydney, Australia. The work could provide the key to understanding how

Three years before he received the Nobel Prize in Physics, Eugene Wigner published an article entitled “The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences” (1960). He marveled at how often physicists develop concepts to describe the “real” world only to discover that mathematicians–heedless of that real world–have already thought up and explored the concepts. His own experience of the uncanny applicability of mathematical insights to the physical reality of quantum mechanics led

Astronomers using ESA’s X-ray observatory, XMM-Newton, have discovered a pair of X-ray tails, stretching 3 million million kilometres across the sky. They emanate from the mysterious neutron star known as Geminga. The discovery gives astronomers new insight into the extraordinary conditions around the neutron star.

A neutron star measures only 20-30 kilometres across and is the dense remnant of an exploded star. Geminga is one of the closest to Earth, at a distance of about 500 light-years.

A new hybrid technique could lead to mass-produced chips with molecular-scale structure Scientists at the University of Wisconsin´s Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC) on Nanostructures, Materials, and Interfaces have demonstrated a technique that could one day allow electronic devices to assemble themselves automatically–giving semiconductor manufacturers a way to mass-produce “nanochips” that have circuit elements only a few molecules across, roughly ten times smaller than

Two University of Toronto astronomers and a U.S. colleague have made the first-ever measurements of the size and shape of massive dark matter halos that surround galaxies

‘Our findings give us the clearest picture yet of a very mysterious part of our universe,’ says principal investigator Henk Hoekstra, a post-doctoral fellow at University of Toronto’s Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics. ‘Using relatively simple physics, we can get our first direct glimpse of the size an

NASA satellites’ “eyes” above Earth are providing scientists and fire managers with powerful monitoring tools. NASA is providing the “big picture” needed to understand how fires behave before, during, and after damage has been done. A suite of NASA satellites, flying in coordinated fashion, offers the unparalleled insight only possible from space.

Fire season is underway in the American West, with wildfires raging in at least 11 states, challenging fire agencies and their limite

New research on dwarf spheroidal galaxies by a team of astronomers at the University of Cambridge promises a real astronomical first: detection, for the first time, of the true outer limits of a galaxy.

The team is presenting today (23 July 2003) at the 25th General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union (IAUXXV) in Sydney, Australia. The research could provide the key to understanding how larger galaxies were formed, including our own Milky Way galaxy.

The rare dw

Peering into a giant molecular cloud in the Milky Way galaxy – known as W49 – astronomers from the European Southern Observatory (ESO) have discovered a whole new population of very massive newborn stars. This research is being presented today at the International Astronomical Union’s 25th General Assembly held in Sydney, Australia, by ESO-scientist João Alves.

With the help of infrared images obtained during a period of excellent observing conditions with the ESO 3.5-m New Technolog

Scientists and engineers who work with the Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer have pulled off a second daring and unprecedented rescue of the satellite observatory from serious guidance problems. This time, though, they didn´t actually wait for the guidance problems to happen.

In response to hints of the potential for future new difficulties with FUSE´s gyroscopes, which are used to check the satellite´s pointing accuracy, researchers redesigned software for three computers aboard FUSE a

A comparison of 754 nearby stars like our sun – some with planets and some without – shows definitively that the more iron and other metals there are in a star, the greater the chance it has a companion planet.

“Astronomers have been saying that only 5 percent of stars have planets, but that’s not a very precise assessment,” said Debra Fischer, a research astronomer at the University of California, Berkeley. “We now know that stars which are abundant in heavy metals are five times

The sun´s big, bright, explosive flares are the attention grabbers, but tiny, more numerous microflares may have nearly as much influence on the solar atmosphere, according to new data from the University of California, Berkeley´s RHESSI satellite.

Solar flares, the largest explosions in the solar system, propel energetic particles into space and are thought to be the main source of heat pumping the sun´s outer atmosphere to a few million degrees Celsius — hotter than the surface i

On 27th August, Mars will be at its closest to Earth for almost 60,000 years. On that date, the Red Planet will approach to within 34,646,418 miles (55,758,006 km) – 145 times the distance of the Moon.

The last time the two planets were so close our ancestors were living in caves and struggling to survive the extreme conditions of the Ice Age. Who knows what will have happened by the time they are as near again – 284 years into the future?

When and were to see Mars

Communicating with ESA’s spacecraft such as Mars Express, or SMART-1, Rosetta and Venus Express – yet to be launched – will be even easier and more effective when the new Cebreros ground station, near Avila (Spain), becomes operational in September 2005.

On 22 July, in Madrid, the Director General of ESA, Jean-Jacques Dordain, the Spanish Secretary of State for Defence, Mr Fernando Díez Moreno, and the Spanish Secretary of State for Science and Technology, Mr Pedro Morenés Eulate, wil

Researchers at Purdue University are creating interactive software that artists could use to make realistic animations of cloud formations, explosions, smoke, steam, fog and other gaseous phenomena for movies and video games.

The same software might also be used by meteorologists to create accurate representations of quickly developing weather conditions. Because the software is interactive, it shows results immediately, whereas conventional programs might take hours to complete such anim