Science Glance
China is set to start operating the world's largest single-dish radio telescope, enabling astronomers to probe farther and darker regions of space for the faintest signs of life.
Scheduled to be launched on Sunday, the science mega-project is named after its huge dimensions: the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope, or FAST.
Built within a valley surrounded by naturally-formed karst hills in China's remote and mountainous southwestern Guizhou province, the FAST radio telescope's huge dish is equal in size to 30 football pitches and was constructed from 4,000 individual metal panels at a cost of around $180m.
China's great space telescope to begin search for alien life
Stephen Hawking warns against seeking out aliens in new film
“We come in peace” might be the traditional opening gambit for aliens in science fiction, but we should be wary about beaming back a response to any advanced life-forms in real life, Stephen Hawking has warned.
Our first contact from an advanced civilisation could be equivalent to when Native Americans first encountered Christopher Columbus and things “didn’t turn out so well”, he cautioned.
Jurassic 'sea monster' fossil emerges in Scotland
A Jurassic sea monster in all its prehistoric glory has finally re-emerged into the light after 50 years cooped up in a museum storage room in Scotland.
Nicknamed the Storr Lochs Monster, the newly revealed creature is actually an ichthyosaur, a kind of extinct swimming reptile that ruled the waves while the dinosaurs reigned over the land. Over their long history, ichthyosaurs evolved into enormous beasts akin to the whales of their day.
This fossil, though not a giant, is a scientific prize, scientists say. At roughly 170 million years old, it lived during the Middle Jurassic, a somewhat mysterious period for paleontologists.
Cracking an ice cold case: Nearly 3.2 million years ago, Lucy died. Now we know how.
Talk about cracking a cold case: Nearly 3.2 million years ago, Lucy died. Now we may know how.
Lucy, the iconic human cousin whose skeleton was discovered in Ethiopia in 1974, died shortly after she fell out of a tree, according to a new study published Monday in the peer-reviewed British journal Nature.
More than four decades after her discovery, Lucy remains one of oldest, best and most complete skeletons of any adult, erect-walking hominid, according to John Kappelman, an anthropologist at the University of Texas and the lead author of the study. A hominid is a member of the evolutionary family that includes great apes – such as gorillas, chimps, and orangutans, humans, and their ancestors, some of which are extinct.
Discovery of potentially Earth-like planet Proxima b raises hopes for life
The search for life outside our solar system has been brought to our cosmic doorstep with the discovery of an apparently rocky planet orbiting the nearest star to our sun.
Thought to be at least 1.3 times the mass of the Earth, the planet lies within the so-called “habitable zone” of the star Proxima Centauri, meaning that liquid water could potentially exist on the newly discovered world.
Researchers confirm astronomical nature of ancient Scottish stones
For the first time, researchers have confirmed the astronomical accuracy of Britain's earliest stone structures. According to scientists at the University of Adelaide, the great circles traced the paths of the moon and sun at the time of their construction, 5,000 years ago.
"Nobody before this has ever statistically determined that a single stone circle was constructed with astronomical phenomena in mind -- it was all supposition," Gail Higginbottom, visiting research fellow at Adelaide and leader of the recent research effort, said in a news release.
Super telescope finds hundreds of previously undetectable galaxies
A South African radio telescope has revealed hundreds of galaxies in a tiny corner of the universe where only 70 had been seen before.
The images, taken by MeerKAT telescope, are an indication of the detail the southern hemisphere's most powerful radio telescope may be able to provide when it is fully operational later this year.
At present, 16 of MeerKAT's 64 dishes are scanning the skies. As well as its scientific goals, the project serves as a technological demonstration of South Africa's capability to host the Square Kilometer Array, a huge multiradio-telescope project to be built in Australia and South Africa comprising dozens of dishes.
More Articles...
Page 1 of 55
