Science

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NASA’s IBEX Charts 11 Years of Change at Boundary to Interstellar Space

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As the Sun wades through the interstellar medium, it generates a hot, dense wave like the wave at the front of a boat coursing through the sea. In this illustration, this is the boundary in darker blue. IBEX has helped scientists determine the shape of the heliosphere, which has a comet-like tail.

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HOPS 383: X-rays From a Newborn Star Hint at Our Sun's Earliest Days

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X-ray: NASA/CXC/Aix-Marseille University/N. Grosso et al.; Illustration: NASA/CXC/M. Weiss

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A Cosmic Baby Is Discovered, and It's Brilliant

Born from an exploded star, the infant magnetar belongs to a family of extreme objects called neutron stars. Its discovery may lend insight into these strange phenomena.

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This illustration shows magnetic field lines protruding from a highly magnetic neutron star, or a dense nugget left over after a star goes supernova and explodes. Known as magnetars, these objects generate bright bursts of light that might be powered by their strong magnetic fields.

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A Super View of a Supergiant

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A Super View of a Supergiant

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Future Space Travelers May Follow Cosmic Lighthouses

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An image of NICER on the exterior of the space station with one of the station’s solar panels in the background.

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Solar Orbiter makes first close approach to the Sun

ESA’s Sun-exploring mission Solar Orbiter has made its first close approach to the star on June 15, getting as close as 77 million kilometres to its surface, about half the distance between the Sun and Earth.

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Solar Orbiter reaches first perihelion

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ExoMars spots unique green glow at the Red Planet

ESA’s ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter has detected glowing green oxygen in Mars’ atmosphere – the first time that this emission has been seen around a planet other than Earth

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ExoMars Trace Gas orbiter spots daylight green oxygen at Mars

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NASA's Cold Atom Lab Takes One Giant Leap for Quantum Science

A new study describes how the mission became the first to make a fifth state of matter in Earth orbit, and the advantages of studying atoms in space.

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This animated video shows six finely tuned lasers used inside NASA's Cold Atom Lab to slow down atoms, lowering their temperature. This is step one in a three-step cooling process.

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Tiny sand grains trigger massive glacial surges

New model answers longstanding question of how these sudden flows happen; may expand understanding of Antarctic ice sheets.

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Tiny sand grains trigger massive glacial surges

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Could the Answer to Groundwater Resources Come From High in the Sky?

Berkeley Lab scientists pair satellite data with high-resolution monitoring to estimate groundwater depletion across California’s Central Valley

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A new technique developed by Berkeley Lab researchers pairs high-resolution images derived by satellite with advanced computer modeling to estimate aquifer volume change from observed ground deformation. The method could be particularly helpful to managing groundwater resources in drought-prone agricultural regions such as California’s Central Valley.