The full-duration hot fire of more than eight minutes (500 seconds) was conducted on the A-1 Test Stand at NASA’s Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis. It is part of a scheduled seven-test series designed to provide valuable data for Aerojet Rocketdyne, lead contractor for the SLS engines, as it begins production of new RS-25 engines for use after the first four SLS flights. Four RS-25 engines help power SLS at launch, firing simultaneously to generate a combined 1....

‘Oumuamua was too faint for Spitzer to detect when it looked more than two months after the object’s closest approach to Earth in early September. However, the “non-detection” puts a new limit on how large the strange object can be. The results are reported in a new study published today in the Astronomical Journal and co-authored by scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. The new size limit is consistent with the findings of a research paper published earlier this year, which suggested that outgassing was responsible for the slight changes in ‘Oumuamua’s speed and direction as it was tracked last year: The authors of that paper concluded the expelled gas acted like a small thruster gently pushing the object....

Light Echoes from V838 Mon What caused this outburst of V838 Mon? For reasons unknown, star V838 Mon’s outer surface suddenly greatly expanded with the result that it became the brightest star in the entire Milky Way Galaxy in January 2002. Then, just as suddenly, it faded. A stellar flash like this had never been seen before — supernovas and novas expel matter out into space. Although the V838 Mon flash appears to expel material into space, what is seen in the above image from the Hubble Space Telescope is actually an outwardly moving light echo of the bright flash....

NASA’s New Horizons Spacecraft continues to travel towards the outer regions of the solar system on a path to Kuiper Belt object (KBO) 2014 MU69, which it will fly past on January 1, 2019. New Horizons recently passed the midway point between Pluto – its storied first target – and MU69, reaching that milestone at midnight on 8 p.m. ET on April 2 when it was 486.19 million miles (782....

The rocket that will launch humans farther into space than ever before passed a major NASA review Wednesday. The Space Launch System (SLS) Program completed a combined System Requirements Review and System Definition Review, which set requirements of the overall launch vehicle system. SLS now moves ahead to its preliminary design phase. The SLS will launch NASA’s Orion spacecraft and other payloads, and provide an entirely new capability for human exploration beyond low Earth orbit....

Images from the telescope have revealed millions of dusty black hole candidates across the universe and about 1,000 even dustier objects thought to be among the brightest galaxies ever found. These powerful galaxies, which burn brightly with infrared light, are nicknamed hot DOGs. “WISE has exposed a menagerie of hidden objects,” said Hashima Hasan, WISE program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “We’ve found an asteroid dancing ahead of Earth in its orbit, the coldest star-like orbs known and now, supermassive black holes and galaxies hiding behind cloaks of dust....

In late 2017, the agency asked the global science community to submit ideas leveraging the gateway in lunar orbit to advance scientific discoveries in a wide range of fields. NASA received more than 190 abstracts covering topics human health and performance, Earth observation, astrophysics, heliophysics, and lunar and planetary sciences, as well as infrastructure suggestions to support breakthrough science. Although it is too early to select specific research for the gateway, the workshop marks the first time in more than a decade the agency’s human spaceflight program brought scientists from a variety of disciplines together to discuss future exploration....

A NASA Earth-observing satellite has helped researchers track carbon dioxide emissions for more than 100 countries around the world. The pilot project offers a powerful new look at the carbon dioxide being emitted in these countries and how much of it is removed from the atmosphere by forests and other carbon-absorbing “sinks” within their borders. The findings demonstrate how space-based tools can support insights on Earth as nations work to achieve climate goals....

A near-Earth asteroid named Kamooalewa could be a fragment of our moon, according to a new paper published in Nature Communications Earth and Environment by a team of astronomers led by the University of Arizona. Kamooalewa is a quasi-satellite – a subcategory of near-Earth asteroids that orbit the sun but remain relatively close to Earth. Little is known about these objects because they are faint and difficult to observe. Kamooalewa was discovered by the PanSTARRS telescope in Hawaii in 2016, and the name – found in a Hawaiian creation chant – alludes to an offspring that travels on its own....

Neurological and psychiatric symptoms such as fatigue and depression are common among people with COVID-19 and may be just as likely in people with mild cases, according to a new review study led by a UCL researcher. By reviewing evidence from 215 studies of COVID-19, the meta-analysis published in the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry reports a wide range of ways that COVID-19 can affect mental health and the brain....

In a new paper published July 5 in the journal Science, Yale researchers describe how this compact but highly mobile structure is achieved. They found that synaptic vesicles organize themselves into a liquid compartment within interior of the cell, much as oil does when mixed with water. The new research shows groups of synaptic vesicles can “demix” in the presence of a common nerve terminal protein synapsin, explaining how vesicles can both remain tightly clustered yet rapidly fuse with membrane of neurons when activated, said Yale’s Dragomir Milovanovic, lead author of the study and postdoctoral researcher in the lab of Pietro De Camilli....

Now the lab of UCSF neuroscientist Susanna Rosi, Ph.D., has identified the first potential treatment for the brain damage caused by exposure to cosmic rays–a drug that prevents memory impairment in mice exposed to simulated space radiation. The study was published on May 18, 2018 in Scientific Reports. Humans venturing beyond the Earth’s protective magnetic fields will be exposed to levels of cosmic radiation estimated to be 1000 times higher than what we experience on Earth or even in the International Space Station’s low-earth orbit....

Named after the Greek goddess who spun the thread of life, Klotho proteins play an important role in the regulation of longevity and metabolism. In a recent Yale-led study, researchers revealed the three-dimensional structure of one of these proteins, beta-Klotho, illuminating its intricate mechanism and therapeutic potential. The study findings, published in Nature, could have implications for therapies developed to treat a wide range of medical conditions, including diabetes, obesity, and certain cancers, the researchers said....

Metal-air batteries are one of the lightest and most compact types of batteries available, but they can have a major limitation: When not in use, they degrade quickly, as corrosion eats away at their metal electrodes. Now, MIT researchers have found a way to substantially reduce that corrosion, making it possible for such batteries to have much longer shelf lives. While typical rechargeable lithium-ion batteries only lose about 5 percent of their charge after a month of storage, they are too costly, bulky, or heavy for many applications....

A research team led by Prof. Dr. Michael Sommer, Professorship of Polymer Chemistry at Chemnitz University of Technology, and PD Dr. Michael Walter, project leader at the Cluster Of Excellence Living, Adaptive, and Energy-autonomous Materials Systems (livMatS) at the University of Freiburg, has succeeded in constructing a new dye molecule from the area of so-called mechanophores. Thanks to this molecule, stress of different magnitude in plastic components can be visualized continuously by color changes....

An evocative new image from ESO shows a dark cloud where new stars are forming, along with a cluster of brilliant stars that have already emerged from their dusty stellar nursery. The new picture was taken with the MPG/ESO 2.2-meter telescope at the La Silla Observatory in Chile and is the best image ever taken in visible light of this little-known object. On the left of this new image there is a dark column resembling a cloud of smoke....

A Velcro-like fastener with a microscopic design that looks like tiny mushrooms could mean advances for everyday consumers and scientific fields like robotics. In Biointerphases, published by AIP Publishing, researchers from Wageningen University in the Netherlands show how the design can use softer materials and still be strong enough to work. Probabilistic fasteners work, because they are designed with a tiny pattern on one surface that interlocks with features on the other surface....

“I’m not aware of any case where two such species so much alike and so close in age have been found in both Pacific Russia and Pacific Canada, and that’s pretty great,” said Archibald. He notes that the insect’s only living relative is found in the temperate forest of central Chile, which has a climate that is similar in ways to B.C.’s 53 million years ago. The new Canadian species was named Eomerope eonearctica, and its Russian doppelganger is Eomerope asiatica, described in 1974....

The novel of the same name used actual locations on Mars for the landing sites for its “Ares 3” and “Ares 4” missions. The landing sites for “Ares 3” is on a Martian plain named Acidalia Planitia. The base for the “Ares 4” mission was set inside a crater named Schiaparelli. (Left: In the novel and movie “The Martian,” an astronaut’s adventures take him to the rim of Mawrth Crater....

The discovery of the complete skeletal remains of a spider monkey – an exotic curiosity in pre-Hispanic Mexico – provides new evidence of the social and political connections between the ancient civilizations of Teotihuacán and the Maya Indigenous rulers. The finding was made by Nawa Sugiyama, a University of California, Riverside anthropological archaeologist, and a team of archaeologists and anthropologists who since 2015 have been excavating at Plaza of Columns Complex, in Teotihuacán, Mexico....