The Big Bang produced lots of hydrogen and helium and a smidgen of lithium. All heavier elements found on the periodic table have been produced by stars over the last 13.7 billion years. Astronomers analyze starlight to determine the chemical makeup of stars, the origin of the elements, the ages of stars, and the [continue reading]

  The origin of brown dwarfs is one of the great unsolved mysteries facing astrophysicists today. In a new study published in The Astrophysical Journal, Western’s Shantanu Basu and University of Vienna’s Eduard Vorobyov present a new model of brown dwarf formation that unites the best parts of existing theories and has far-reaching implications for understanding [continue reading]

  Alpine and polar lichens could also survive on Mars. Planetary researchers at the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) simulated the conditions on Mars for 34 days and exposed various microorganisms to this environment. Surviving lichen in the German experiment. Credit: German Aerospace Center (DLR) “During this period, the lichens [continue reading]

  Russia is planning to send a manned mission to the moon by 2030, Russian space agency Roscosmos said on its website. Russia to Send Manned Mission to Moon by 2030 According to the Russian space strategy published on the Roscosmos website, Moscow has set several waypoints for its space exploration activities: 2015, 2020, 2030 [continue reading]

  Research by NASA and international scientists concludes giant asteroids, similar or larger than the one believed to have killed the dinosaurs, hit Earth billions of years ago with more frequency than previously thought. To cause the dinosaur extinction, the killer asteroid that impacted Earth 65 million years ago would have been almost 6 miles [continue reading]

  Seyfert galaxies are similar to normal galaxies like our own Milky Way except in one critical respect: their nuclei are fantastically bright, in extreme instances as luminous as 100 billion suns. Astronomers think that these huge energies are generated in such active galactic nuclei by processes around their massive black holes. Matter, as it [continue reading]