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An international team of astronomers announced the discovery of a rare molecule — phosphine — in the clouds of Venus. On Earth, this gas is only made industrially or by microbes that thrive in oxygen-free environments. Astronomers have speculated for decades that high clouds on Venus could offer a home for microbes — floating free of the scorching surface but needing to tolerate very high acidity. The detection of phosphine could point to such extra-terrestrial “aerial” life.

In this illustration, WD 1856 b, a potential Jupiter-size planet, orbits its much smaller host star, a dim white dwarf.

In this illustration, WD 1856 b, a potential Jupiter-size planet, orbits its much smaller host star, a dim white dwarf.

NASA’s flying observatory, the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, has returned to science operations with a new series of flights designed to study the chemistry of galaxies.

STS-120 Commander Pamela Melroy talked to media and guests on the Shuttle Landing Facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center after landing Space Shuttle Discovery. Behind her from left are mission specialist Stephanie Wilson, pilot George Zamka and mission specialists Doug Wheelock and Scott Parazynski. Mission STS-120 continued the construction of the station with the installation of the Harmony Node 2 module and the relocation of the P6 truss.

Eureka

Patrick Degrosse, engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, shows the guts of the ventilator that a team of NASA engineers designed in just over five weeks. The machine uses none of the parts used in traditional ventilators, so as not to compete for supply lines.

This illustration depicts the gaseous halo of the Andromeda galaxy if it could be seen with the naked eye. At a distance of 2.5 million light-years, the majestic spiral Andromeda galaxy is so close to us that it appears as a cigar-shaped smudge of light high in the autumn sky. If its gaseous halo could be seen with the naked eye, it would be about three times the width of the Big Dipper—easily the biggest feature on the nighttime sky.

The Quantum Systems Accelerator will optimize a wide range of advanced qubit technologies available on August 26. Berkeley Lab uses sophisticated dilution refrigerators to cool and operate superconducting quantum processor circuits.

Residual map of the recovered velocity parameter in the Southwest field of M33. The residual was calculated by taking the difference between the network's estimate and that of the ORCS fitting software.

California grows more tomatoes than any other state. Many of the areas where they have traditionally been grown, however, are predicted to become too warm even for this warm-season crop.