Scientists have spotted a planet much the same size as our Earth orbiting a star that closely resembles our sun, making this new world the most likely known place outside our solar system to harbor life.
The newfound planet, referred to as Kepler-452b, “is the closest thing we have to another place that somebody else might call home,” Jon Jenkins of NASA’s Ames Research Center told reporters Thursday. The planet has been at just the right temperature to boast liquid water for some 6 billion years, “a considerable time and opportunity for life to arise somewhere on its surface or in its oceans,” assuming the place has all the necessary ingredients for life, Jenkins said.
NASA's Kepler spacecraft spots planet 'somebody else might call home'
Social Security Disability Fund Will Run Dry Next Year
The 11 million Americans who receive Social Security disability face steep benefit cuts next year, the government said Wednesday, handing lawmakers a fiscal and political crisis in the middle of a presidential campaign.
The trustees who oversee Social Security and Medicare said the disability trust fund will run out of money in late 2016. That would trigger an automatic 19 percent cut in benefits, unless Congress acts.
Former Top NASA Scientist Predicts Catastrophic Rise In Sea Levels
One of the nation's most recognizable names in climate science, Dr. James Hansen, released a new paper this week warning that even 2 degrees Celsius of global warming may be "highly dangerous" for humanity.
The paper, which will be published online in the European Geosciences Union journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussion later this week, projects sea levels rising as much as 10 feet in the next 50 years.
Theodore Bikel, 'Sound of Music' star, dies at 91
Actor Theodore Bikel, who appeared in such films as “The Defiant Ones” and “My Fair Lady” and appeared onstage in the musicals “The Sound of Music” and “Fiddler on the Roof,” among others, has died.
Mr. Bikel, who was born in Vienna, played the role of Captain von Trapp in the original 1959 Broadway production of “The Sound of Music” opposite Mary Martin and portrayed protagonist Tevye in the musical “Fiddler on the Roof” more than 2,000 times onstage.
Galactic assembly seen in early universe for the first time
For the first time, astronomers in Europe have observed star-forming gas clouds in the early universe -- the building blocks of the first galaxies.
The faint glow of ionized carbon was spotted by the European Southern Observatory's ALMA telescope, located in Chile. To find these earliest galaxies, researchers trained the telescope deep into space, past the obvious light of more mature quasars and star-filled galaxies.
Pentagon chief Carter not offering new arms deal to Israel
In the face of Israeli outrage over the Iran nuclear accord, the Pentagon is moving quickly to reinforce arguably the strongest part of the U.S.-Israeli relationship: military cooperation.
But officials say Washington has no plans to offer new weaponry as compensation for the Iran deal.
Defense Secretary Ash Carter left for Tel Aviv on Sunday to push ahead with talks on ways the U.S. can further improve Israel's security — not just with Iranian threats in mind, but an array of other challenges, including cyberdefense and maritime security.
If Guns Make Us Safer, Why Not Let Them Into the U.S. Capitol?
It’s a curious feature of American life that when four innocents are killed by a gunman in Chattanooga, or when a young white supremacist opens fire inside a historic AME Church in Charleston, we talk about loosening gun safety laws.
In the aftermath of this week’s murders, Donald Trump managed the near-impossible—sounding like a mainstream Republican politician—when he argued, “Get rid of gun free zones. The four great marines who were just shot never had a chance.” He is hardly alone in proposing this solution to the epidemic of gun violence. “These terrible tragedies seem to occur in gun-free zones,” said Rand Paul in January. “The Second Amendment “serves as a fundamental check on government tyranny,” Ted Cruz has said.
Massless particle discovered 85 years after it was theorized
Researchers have discovered a massless particle, which was first theorized 85 years ago and thought to be a possible building block for other subatomic particles. The discovery of the Weyl fermion, conceived of by mathematician and physicist Hermann Weyl in 1929, could be a boon for electronics, researchers said. It could allow electricity to flow more freely and efficiently providing greater power, most notably for computers.
"The physics of the Weyl fermion are so strange, there could be many things that arise from this particle that we're just not capable of imagining now," M. Zahid Hasan, a professor of physics at Princeton University, said in a press release.
90 Dead, 17 Missing in Iraq Car Bombing
The toll for a massive suicide car bomb attack carried out by the Islamic State group north of Baghdad rose to 90 dead and 17 missing today.
The top official in Khan Bani Saad, the predominantly Shiite town 20 kilometres (12 miles) north of Baghdad where the attack occurred on Friday, put the number of wounded at 120.
"The toll so far is 90 martyrs and 120 wounded, and we have between 17 and 20 missing," Abbas Hadi Saleh told AFP at the scene.
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