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Public Release: 15-Jan-2009
Discovery of methane reveals Mars is not a dead planet
A team of NASA and university scientists has achieved the first definitive detection of methane in the atmosphere of Mars. This discovery indicates the planet is either biologically or geologically active.
NASA
Contact: Dwayne Brown
dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov
202-358-1726
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
Public Release: 15-Jan-2009
The Science Coalition applauds House economic stimulus package proposal
The Science Coalition applauds the House for recognizing the vital need to include research funding in the economic stimulus and recovery efforts. Funding for targeted federal research programs will have the immediate impact of creating jobs and stimulating economic activity in communities across the country. This is an example that we hope the Senate will eventually follow.
Contact: Ashley Prime
aprime@qga.com
202-429-4002
The Science Coalition
Public Release: 15-Jan-2009
Science Express
Scientists solve longstanding astronomy mystery
New research by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, University of California, Santa Cruz and UC Berkeley has shown how a massive star can grow despite outward-flowing radiation pressure that exceeds the gravitational force pulling material inward. The study appears in the Jan. 15 online edition of Science Express.
Contact: Anne Stark
stark8@llnl.gov
925-422-9799
DOE/Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Public Release: 15-Jan-2009
Science
Cornell-led team detects dust around a primitive star, shedding new light on universe's origins
A Cornell-led team of astronomers has observed dust forming around a dying star in a nearby galaxy, giving a glimpse into the early universe and enlivening a debate about the origins of all cosmic dust.
Contact: Blaine Friedlander
bpf2@cornell.edu
607-254-8093
Cornell University Communications
Public Release: 15-Jan-2009
Science
New study resolves mystery of how massive stars form
Theorists have long wondered how massive stars -- up to 120 times the mass of the sun -- can form without blowing away the clouds of gas and dust that feed their growth. But the problem turns out to be less mysterious than it once seemed. A study published this week by Science shows how the growth of a massive star can proceed despite outward-flowing radiation pressure that exceeds the gravitational force pulling material inward.
National Science Foundation, NASA, US Department of Energy
Contact: Tim Stephens
stephens@ucsc.edu
831-459-2495
University of California - Santa Cruz
Public Release: 14-Jan-2009
Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics
Nature
Even stars get fat
Researchers have discovered evidence that blue stragglers in globular clusters, whose existence has long puzzled astronomers, are the result of 'stellar cannibalism' in binary stars. In other words, binary stars are eating each other and turning into a blue straggler.
Contact: Jane Christmas
chrisja@mcmaster.ca
McMaster University
Public Release: 14-Jan-2009
Nature
'Stellar cannibalism' is key to formation of overweight stars
Researchers have discovered that the mysterious overweight stars known as blue stragglers are the result of "stellar cannibalism" where plasma is gradually pulled from one star to another to form a massive, unusually hot star that appears younger than it is.
Contact: Julia Short
julia.short@stfc.ac.uk
01-793-442-012
Science and Technology Facilities Council
Public Release: 14-Jan-2009
Astronomy & Astrophysics
First ground-based detection of light from transiting exoplanets
This week, Astronomy & Astrophysics is publishing the first ground-based detections of thermal emission from transiting exoplanets. Up to now, detections of this kind have only been made from space. Two independent teams are now presenting detections with ground-based telescopes of the thermal emission from transiting hot Jupiters.
Contact: Dr. Jennifer Martin
aanda.paris@obspm.Fr
33-143-290-541
Astronomy & Astrophysics
Public Release: 14-Jan-2009
Astronomy & Astrophysics
Exoplanet atmospheres detected from earth
Two independent groups have simultaneously made the first-ever ground-based detection of extrasolar planets thermal emissions. Until now, virtually everything known about atmospheres of planets orbiting other stars in the Milky Way has come from space-based observations. These new results open a new frontier to studying these alien worlds and are especially critical because the major space-based workhorse to these studies, the Spitzer telescope, will soon run out of cryogens, highly limiting its capabilities.
NASA
Contact: Mercedes López-Morales
mercedes@dtm.ciw.edu
202-478-8480
Carnegie Institution
Public Release: 13-Jan-2009
Astrophysical Journal
XMM-Newton measures speedy spin of rare celestial object
XMM-Newton has caught the fading glow of a tiny celestial object, revealing its rotation rate for the first time. The new information confirms this particular object as one of an extremely rare class of stellar zombie – each one the dead heart of a star that refuses to die.
Contact: Norbert Schartel
Norbert.Schartel@esa.int
34-918-131-184
European Space Agency
Public Release: 12-Jan-2009
Geological Society of America Bulletin
January-February GSA Bulletin media highlights
Bulletin papers examine carbon-14 dating of marine mud fossils in Ireland that suggests high ice-sheet sensitivity to small climate changes, formation of Valles Marineris, Mars, a buried fossil forest in the Gold Hill Loess, Alaska, a 20-meter-high salt pillar near the Dead Sea, how shrimp affect groundwater flow in the Biscayne aquifer, a possible emerging natural gas play in the Appalachian Basin and banded iron formations exposed by the Agouron South African Drilling Project.
Contact: Christa Stratton
cstratton@geosociety.org
303-357-1093
Geological Society of America
Public Release: 12-Jan-2009
Archives of Ophthalmology
From outer space to the eye clinic: New cataract early detection technique
A compact fiber-optic probe developed for the space program has now proven valuable for patients in the clinic as the first non-invasive early detection device for cataracts, the leading cause of vision loss worldwide.
NASA, Nuclear Energy Institute
Contact: NEI News Office
neinews@nei.nih.gov
301-496-5248
NIH/National Eye Institute
Public Release: 8-Jan-2009
Geology
How Martian winds make rocks walk
Rocks on Mars are on the move, rolling into the wind and forming organized patterns, according to new research. Small rocks seen in images from the Spirit Rover end up evenly spaced across the landscape because of wind-caused erosion and deposition. This counters the previous idea that extremely high winds carried or pushed the rocks.
Contact: Mari N. Jensen
mnjensen@email.arizona.edu
520-626-9635
University of Arizona
Public Release: 8-Jan-2009
Geology
January Geology media highlights
Geology topics include "the best submarine record of displacement"; geophysical data from the Black Sea; hazardous volcanic ice-slurry flows; the controversy over riverbank erosion rates; surface cracks in the Atacama Desert; CO2 sequestration; ultradeep Australian diamonds; Earth's magnetic field and the cosmic-ray-climate theory; fresh-water megafloods into the Pacific; early marine fossils preserved in French amber; tiny fossil fish teeth recovered by the Ocean Drilling Program; and alkaline groundwater at the dawn of land plant radiation.
Contact: Christa Stratton
cstratton@geosociety.org
303-357-1093
Geological Society of America
Public Release: 8-Jan-2009
Climate Dynamics
Sea level rise of 1 meter within 100 years
New research indicates that the ocean could rise in the next 100 years to a meter higher than the current sea level -- which is three times higher than predictions from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC. The groundbreaking new results from an international collaboration between researchers from the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen, England and Finland are published in the scientific journal Climate Dynamics.
Contact: Gertie Skaarup
skaarup@nbi.dk
453-532-5320
University of Copenhagen
Public Release: 8-Jan-2009
213th AAS Meeting
Astronomers discover new radio signal using large balloon
A team of NASA-funded scientists, including two from UC Santa Barbara, have discovered cosmic radio noise that they find completely unexpected and exciting.
Contact: Gail Gallessich
805-893-7220
University of California - Santa Barbara
Public Release: 7-Jan-2009
213th AAS Meeting
NASA balloon mission tunes in to a cosmic radio mystery
Listening to the early universe just got harder. A team led by Alan Kogut of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., today announced the discovery of cosmic radio noise that booms six times louder than expected.
NASA, University of Maryland at College Park
Contact: Francis Reddy
Francis.j.reddy@nasa.gov
301-286-4453
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
Public Release: 7-Jan-2009
Nature
Scientists publish first ever evidence of asteroids with Earth-like crust
Two rare meteorites found in Antarctica two years ago are from a previously unknown, ancient asteroid with a crust similar in composition to that of Earth's continents, reports a research team primarily composed of geochemists from the University of Maryland. Published in the Jan. 8 issue of the journal Nature, this is the first ever finding of material from an asteroid with a crust like Earth's, and the oldest rock with this composition ever found.
Contact: Lee Tune
ltune@umd.edu
301-405-4679
University of Maryland
Public Release: 7-Jan-2009
Geology
Martian rock arrangement not alien handiwork
A new study published in the journal Geology explains how pebble-sized rocks organize themselves in evenly spaced patterns in sand.
Contact: Leanne Yohemas
leanne.yohemas@ucalgary.ca
403-220-5144
University of Calgary
Public Release: 7-Jan-2009
Nature
Half-baked asteroids have Earth-like crust
Asteroids are hunks of rock that orbit in the outer reaches of space, and scientists have generally assumed that their small size limited the types of rock that could form in their crusts. But two newly discovered meteorites may rewrite the book on how some asteroids form and evolve.
NASA
Contact: Douglas Rumble
drumble@ciw.edu
202-478-8990
Carnegie Institution
Public Release: 6-Jan-2009
213th AAS Meeting
Cassiopeia A comes alive across time and space
Two new efforts have taken a famous supernova remnant from the static to the dynamic. A new movie of data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory shows changes in time never seen before in this type of object. A separate team will also release a dramatic 3-D visualization of the same remnant.
Contact: Megan Watzke
mwatzke@cfa.harvard.edu
617-496-7998
Chandra X-ray Center
Public Release: 6-Jan-2009
213th AAS Meeting
Astrophysical Journal Letters
Astronomers use gamma-ray burst to probe star formation in the early universe
The brilliant afterglow of a powerful gamma-ray burst (GRB) has enabled astronomers to probe the star-forming environment of a distant galaxy, resulting in the first detection of molecular gas in a GRB host galaxy. By analyzing the spectrum of light emitted in the GRB afterglow, the researchers are gleaning insights into an active stellar nursery in a galaxy so far away it appears as it was 10 billion years ago.
National Science Foundation, NASA, TABASGO Foundation
Contact: Tim Stephens
stephens@ucsc.edu
831-459-2495
University of California - Santa Cruz
Public Release: 6-Jan-2009
213th AAS Meeting
Black holes lead galaxy growth, new research shows
Peering deep into the early universe, astronomers may have solved a longstanding cosmic chicken-and-egg problem -- which forms first -- galaxies or the black holes at their cores?
National Science Foundation
Contact: Dave Finley
dfinley@nrao.edu
575-835-7302
National Radio Astronomy Observatory
Public Release: 5-Jan-2009
213th AAS Meeting
Milky Way a swifter spinner, more massive, new measurements show
Our home galaxy is rotating about 100,000 miles per hour faster than previously thought, meaning its mass is 50 percent greater. This makes it even with the Andromeda Galaxy, and no longer the "little sister" in our local group of galaxies.
National Science Foundation
Contact: Dave Finley
dfinley@nrao.edu
575-835-7302
National Radio Astronomy Observatory
Public Release: 5-Jan-2009
Iowa State astrophysicist helps map the Milky Way's 4 spiral arms
Martin Pohl, an Iowa State University associate professor of physics and astronomy, is part of a research team that developed the first complete map of the Milky Way galaxy's spiral arms. The map shows two prominent, symmetric spiral arms in the inner part of the galaxy. The arms extend into the outer galaxy where they branch into four spiral arms.
Contact: Martin Pohl
mkp@iastate.edu
515-294-6448
Iowa State University
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