All about Ultima: New Horizons flyby target is unlike anything explored in space

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NASA's New Horizons spacecraft is set to fly by a target nicknamed 'Ultima Thule,' 4 billion miles from the Sun, on New Year's Day 2019. No spacecraft has ever explored such a distant world.
via Science Daily
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Holiday asteroid imaged with NASA radar

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The December 2018 close approach by the large, near-Earth asteroid 2003 SD220 has provided astronomers an outstanding opportunity to obtain detailed radar images of the surface and shape of the object and to improve the understanding of its orbit.
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The coolest experiment in the universe

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NASA's Cold Atom Laboratory on the International Space Station is the first facility in orbit to produce clouds of "ultracold" atoms, which can reach a fraction of a degree above absolute zero. Nothing in nature is known to hit the temperatures achieved in laboratories like CAL, which means the orbiting facility is regularly the coldest known spot in the universe.
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NASA's InSight places first instrument on Mars

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NASA's InSight lander has deployed its first instrument onto the surface of Mars, completing a major mission milestone. New images from the lander show the seismometer on the ground, its copper-colored covering faintly illuminated in the Martian dusk.
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Baby star's fiery tantrum could create the building blocks of planets

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A massive stellar flare on a baby star has been spotted by astronomers, shedding light on the origins of potentially habitable exoplanets.
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NASA telescopes take a close look at the brightest comet of 2018

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As the brilliant comet 46P/Wirtanen streaked across the sky, NASA telescopes caught it on camera from multiple angles.
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Faint starlight in Hubble images reveals distribution of dark matter

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Astronomers have employed a revolutionary method to detect dark matter in galaxy clusters. The method allows astronomers to 'see' the distribution of dark matter more accurately than any other method used to date and it could possibly be used to explore the ultimate nature of dark matter.
via Science Daily
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Beyond the black hole singularity

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Our first glimpses into the physics that exist near the center of a black hole are being made possible using 'loop quantum gravity'-- a theory that uses quantum mechanics to extend gravitational physics beyond Einstein's theory of general relativity.
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Newly discovered adolescent star seen undergoing 'growth spurt'

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Astronomers have discovered a young star undergoing a rare growth spurt -- giving a fascinating glimpse into the development of these distant stellar objects.
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Planetary astronomers identify cycle of spectacular disturbances at Jupiter's equator

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New research finds a pattern of unique events at Jupiter's equator.
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How does your garden grow in space?

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Understanding how plants respond to microgravity is critical to providing fresh food during space exploration initiatives. Researchers compared two methods - RNA-Seq and microarray -- of analyzing which genes are expressed (the 'transcriptome') in plant tissue, specifically in the root tip. The results reveal how plants adapt to the microgravity space environment and can help guide research needed for the successful utilization of plants in future exploration initiatives.
via Science Daily
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Getting a glimpse inside the moon

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New research provides the first-ever model of our Moon's rotational dynamics, taking into consideration its solid inner core. Their model helps to explain why, as seen from Earth, the Moon appears to wobble on its axis.
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Space telescope detects water in a number of asteroids

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Using the infrared satellite AKARI, a research team has detected the existence of water in the form of hydrated minerals in a number of asteroids for the first time. This discovery will contribute to our understanding of the distribution of water in our solar system, the evolution of asteroids, and the origin of water on Earth.
via Science Daily
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Fossil from the Big Bang discovered with W. M. Keck Observatory

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A relic cloud of gas, orphaned after the Big Bang, has been discovered in the distant universe by astronomers using the world's most powerful optical telescope, the W. M. Keck Observatory on Maunakea, Hawaii.
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Saturn is losing its rings at 'worst-case-scenario' rate

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New NASA research confirms that Saturn is losing its iconic rings at the maximum rate estimated from Voyager 1 and 2 observations made decades ago. The rings are being pulled into Saturn by gravity as a dusty rain of ice particles under the influence of Saturn's magnetic field.
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Alien imposters: Planets with oxygen don't necessarily have life

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Lab simulations nix the common wisdom that atmospheric oxygen and organic compounds are good evidence that a planet harbors life.
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Narrowing the universe in the search for life

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In the search for life on other planets, scientists traditionally have looked for a world with water. But a geophysicist now wonders if we should look to rocks instead.
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Discovered: The most-distant solar system object ever observed

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A team of astronomers has discovered the most-distant body ever observed in our solar system. It is the first known solar system object that has been detected at a distance that is more than 100 times farther than Earth is from the sun.
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A young star caught forming like a planet

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Astronomers have captured one of the most detailed views of a young star taken to date, and revealed an unexpected companion in orbit around it.
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Mars InSight lander seen in first images from space

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On Nov. 26, NASA's InSight mission knew the spacecraft touched down within an 81-mile-long (130-kilometer-long) landing ellipse on Mars. Now, the team has pinpointed InSight's exact location using images from HiRISE, a powerful camera onboard another NASA spacecraft, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).
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Tangled magnetic fields power cosmic particle accelerators

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Magnetic field lines tangled like spaghetti in a bowl might be behind the most powerful particle accelerators in the universe. That's the result of a new computational study that simulated particle emissions from distant active galaxies.
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Where did the hot Neptunes go? A shrinking planet holds the answer

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'Where did the hot Neptunes go?' This is the question astronomers have been asking for a long time, faced with the mysterious absence of planets the size of Neptune. Researchers have just discovered that one of these planets is losing its atmosphere at a frantic pace. This observation strengthens the theory that hot Neptunes have lost much of their atmosphere and turned into smaller planets called super-Earths.
via Science Daily
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Large population of potential young planets found in distant planetary systems

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Astronomers used the powerful ALMA telescope to discover that in other parts of the Milky Way Galaxy (seen here) there is potentially a large population of young planets -- similar in mass to Neptune or Jupiter -- at wide-orbit that are not detectable by other current planet searching techniques.
via Science Daily
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Bose-Einstein condensates cannot currently detect gravitational waves

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The gravitational waves created in the depths of space indeed reach Earth. Their effects, however, are so small that they could only be observed so far using kilometer-long measurement facilities. Physicists therefore discuss whether Bose-Einstein condensates with their ordered quantum properties could also detect these waves. Astronomers have now looked at these suggestions and have soberly determined that such evidence is far beyond the reach of current methods.
via Science Daily
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NASA's Juno mission halfway to Jupiter science

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On Dec. 21, NASA's Juno spacecraft will be 3,140 miles (5,053 kilometers) above Jupiter's cloud tops and hurtling by at a healthy clip of 128,802 mph (207,287 kilometers per hour). This will mark the solar-powered spacecraft's halfway point in data collection during its prime mission.
via Science Daily
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NASA's InSight takes its first selfie

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NASA's InSight lander used a camera on its robotic arm to take its first selfie -- a mosaic made up of 11 images. This is the same imaging process used by NASA's Curiosity rover mission, in which many overlapping pictures are taken and later stitched together.
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ICESat-2 reveals profile of ice sheets, sea ice, forests

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With each pass of the ICESat-2 satellite, the mission is adding to datasets tracking Earth's rapidly changing ice.
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Calibrating cosmic mile markers

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New work provides the best-yet calibrations for using type Ia supernovae to measure cosmic distances, which has implications for our understanding of how fast the universe is expanding and the role dark energy may play in driving this process.
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Water found on asteroid, confirming Bennu as excellent mission target

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Spectral observations made by the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft identified hydrated minerals across the asteroid, confirming that Bennu, a remnant from early in the formation of the solar system, is an excellent specimen for the OSIRIS-REx mission to study the composition of primitive volatiles and organics.
via Science Daily
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Solar activity research provides insight into sun's past, future

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Scientists have developed a new technique for looking at historic solar data to distinguish trustworthy observations from those that should be used with care. This work is critical to understanding the sun's past and future as well as whether solar activity plays a role in climate change.
via Science Daily
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Evidence for carbon-rich surface on Ceres

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Astronomers have concluded that the surface of dwarf planet Ceres is rich in organic matter. Data from NASA's Dawn spacecraft indicate that Ceres's surface may contain several times the concentration of carbon than is present in the most carbon-rich, primitive meteorites found on Earth.
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NASA's Voyager 2 probe enters interstellar space

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For the second time in history, a human-made object has reached the space between the stars. NASA's Voyager 2 probe now has exited the heliosphere -- the protective bubble of particles and magnetic fields created by the Sun.
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Magnetic reconnection in space: Experiment and satellite sightings

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New research describes striking similarity of laboratory research findings with observations of the four-satellite Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission that studies magnetic reconnection in space.
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NASA InSight lander 'hears' Martian winds

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NASA's Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport InSight lander, which touched down on Mars just 10 days ago, has provided the first ever "sounds" of Martian winds on the Red Planet.
via Science Daily
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NASA's Mars InSight flexes its arm

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New images from NASA's Mars InSight lander show its robotic arm is ready to do some lifting. With a reach of nearly 6 feet (2 meters), the arm will be used to pick up science instruments from the lander's deck, gently setting them on the Martian surface at Elysium Planitia, the lava plain where InSight touched down on Nov. 26.
via Science Daily
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Planetary defense: The Bennu experiment

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On Dec. 3, after traveling billions of kilometers from Earth, NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft reached its target, Bennu, and kicked off a nearly two-year, up-close investigation of the asteroid. It will inspect nearly every square inch of this ancient clump of rubble left over from the formation of our solar system. Ultimately, the spacecraft will pick up a sample of pebbles and dust from Bennu's surface and deliver it to Earth in 2023.
via Science Daily
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Mice display altered immune system following spaceflight

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Based on examinations of mice that had been on board the Bion-M1 biosatellite, new research demonstrates that the outer space environment impairs the production of B lymphocytes, the white blood cells responsible for antibody production. The study also shows that such adverse effects persist at least one week after returning to Earth.
via Science Daily
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An exoplanet inflated like a balloon

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Although helium is a rare element on Earth, it is ubiquitous in the universe. It is, after hydrogen, the main component of stars and gaseous giant planets. Despite its abundance, helium was only detected recently in the atmosphere of a gaseous giant by an international team. The team has observed for the first time how this gas escapes from the overheated atmosphere of an exoplanet, literally inflated with helium.
via Science Daily
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Tissue chips rocket to International Space Station

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Scientists have recently sent tissue chips, a research technology that reflects the human body, into space. On Dec. 4, the first set of NIH-funded tissue chips that model aspects of the human immune system will launch on SpaceX's 16th commercial resupply mission (awarded by NASA) from Cape Canaveral, Florida, to the ISS National Lab.
via Science Daily
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Bringing balance to the universe: New theory could explain missing 95 percent of the cosmos

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New research could shed light on the 'missing' dark matter and dark energy that make up 95 percent of our universe and yet are wholly invisible to us.
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Mantle neon illuminates Earth's formation

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The Earth formed relatively quickly from the cloud of dust and gas around the Sun, trapping water and gases in the planet's mantle, based on neon isotopes from the depths of the Earth and deep space. Apart from settling Earth's origins, the work could help in identifying extrasolar systems that could support habitable planets.
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NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft arrives at asteroid Bennu

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NASA's Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) spacecraft completed its 1.2 billion-mile (2 billion-kilometer) journey to arrive at the asteroid Bennu Monday. The spacecraft executed a maneuver that transitioned it from flying toward Bennu to operating around the asteroid.
via Science Daily
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Mars new home 'a large sandbox'

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With InSight safely on the surface of Mars, the mission team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, is busy learning more about the spacecraft's landing site. They knew when InSight landed on Nov. 26 that the spacecraft had touched down on target, a lava plain named Elysium Planitia. Now they've determined that the vehicle sits slightly tilted (about 4 degrees) in a shallow dust- and sand-filled impact crater known as a "hollow." InSight has been engineered to operate on a surface with an inclination up to 15 degrees.
via Science Daily
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Macroscopic phenomena governed by microscopic physics

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Researchers have observed a magnetic reconnection driven by electron dynamics in laser-produced plasmas. Magnetic reconnections are often observed in the magnetic flux on the Sun and the Earth's magnetosphere. It has been highly challenging to reveal the electron scale, microscopic information in the vast universe. Applying a weak magnetic field, where only electrons are directly coupled with the magnetic field, we observed a plasmoid and cusp-like features typical to magnetic reconnections.
via Science Daily
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Combination of space-based and ground-based telescopes reveals more than 100 exoplanets

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Astronomers using a combination of ground and space based telescopes have reported more than 100 extrasolar planets (exoplanets) in only three months. These planets are quite diverse and expected to play a large role in developing the research field of exoplanets and life in the Universe.
via Science Daily
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To image leaky atmosphere, NASA rocket team heads north

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Earth's atmosphere is leaking, but how does oxygen get the energy to escape to space? NASA's VISIONS-2 rocket will soon launch into the unique magnetic environment near the North Pole in pursuit of an answer.
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Newly discovered supernova complicates origin story theories

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A supernova discovered by an international group of astronomers provides an unprecedented look at the first moments of a violent stellar explosion. The light from the explosion's first hours showed an unexpected pattern, which astronomers analyzed to reveal that the genesis of these phenomena is even more mysterious than previously thought.
via Science Daily
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All of the starlight ever produced by the observable universe measured

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From their laboratories on a rocky planet dwarfed by the vastness of space, scientists have collaborated to measure all of the starlight ever produced throughout the history of the observable universe.
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Hubble uncovers thousands of globular star clusters scattered among galaxies

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Astronomers using Hubble found a whopping 22,426 globular star clusters in a nearby neighborhood of galaxies.
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Gas clouds whirling around black hole form heart of distant astronomical object

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Astronomers have concluded that gas clouds rapidly moving around a central black hole form the very heart of the 3C 327 quasar, confirming earlier measurements.
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