This newly released Hubble image shows the aftermath of an exploding star that was located in the Large Magellanic Cloud. Several thousand years ago, a star some 160,000 light-years away from us exploded, scattering stellar shrapnel across the sky. The aftermath of this energetic detonation is shown here in this striking image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope’s Wide Field Camera 3. The exploding star was a white dwarf located in the Large Magellanic Cloud, one of our nearest neighboring galaxies....

Called the Veil Nebula, the debris is one of the best-known supernova remnants, deriving its name from its delicate, draped filamentary structures. The entire nebula is 110 light-years across, covering six full moons on the sky as seen from Earth, and resides about 2,100 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus, the Swan. The above view is a mosaic of six Hubble pictures of a small area roughly two light-years across, covering only a tiny fraction of the nebula’s vast structure....

Their incredible mass makes clusters very useful natural tools to test theories in astronomy, such as Einstein’s theory of general relativity. This tells us that objects with mass warp the fabric of spacetime around them; the more massive the object, the greater the distortion. An enormous galaxy cluster like this one, therefore, has a huge influence on the spacetime around it, even distorting the light from more distant galaxies to change a galaxy’s apparent shape, creating multiple images, and amplifying the galaxy’s light — a phenomenon called gravitational lensing....

The Universe is filled with mysterious objects. Many of them are as strange as they are beautiful. Among these, planetary nebulae are probably one of the most fascinating objects to behold in the night sky. No other type of object has such a large variety of shapes and structures. The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope provided us with a striking image of Hen 3-1475, a planetary nebula in the making. Planetary nebulae — the name arises because most of these objects resembled a planet when they were first discovered through early telescopes — are expanding, glowing shells of gas coming from sun-like stars at the ends of their lives....

Just in time for the release of the movie “Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens,” NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has photographed what looks like a cosmic, double-bladed lightsaber. “Science fiction has been an inspiration to generations of scientists and engineers, and the film series Star Wars is no exception,” said John Grunsfeld, astronaut and associate administrator for the NASA Science Mission directorate. “There is no stronger case for the motivational power of real science than the discoveries that come from the Hubble Space Telescope as it unravels the mysteries of the universe....

New research led by the University of Colorado Boulder indicates that these adventurers are inadvertently leaving behind a frozen signature of resilient microbes. These microorganisms can endure extreme conditions at high altitudes and remain dormant in the soil for decades, or potentially even centuries. The research not only highlights an invisible impact of tourism on the world’s highest mountain, but could also lead to a better understanding of environmental limits to life on Earth, as well as where life may exist on other planets or cold moons....

This breakthrough has been led by Professor Guntae Kim in the School of Energy and Chemical Engineering at UNIST in collaboration with Professor Tak-Hyoung Lim of Korea Institute of Energy Research (KIER) and Professor Jeeyoung Shin of Sookmyung Women’s University. A solid oxide electrolyzer cell (SOEC) consists of two electrodes and an electrolyte that are all in solid state. They are strongly desired as novel candidates for hydrogen production, as they require no need to replenish lost electrolytes, while eliminating corrosion problems....

Astronomers have discovered a pulsar that is moving between 2.5 million and 5 million miles per hour with a tail that stretches for 37 light years behind the pulsar. An extraordinary jet trailing behind a runaway pulsar is seen in this composite image that contains data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory (purple), radio data from the Australia Compact Telescope Array (green), and optical data from the 2MASS survey (red, green, and blue)....

Researchers at Queen Mary University of London have identified a peptide, or protein fragment, taken from the foot-and-mouth-disease virus that targets another protein, called ΑvΒ6 (alpha-v-beta-6). This protein is found at high levels on the surface of the majority of pancreatic cancer cells. Working jointly with Spirogen (now part of AstraZeneca) and ADC Therapeutics, the team have used the peptide to carry a highly potent drug, called tesirine, to the pancreatic cancer cells....

One possible indication of life, or biosignature, is the presence of oxygen in an exoplanet’s atmosphere. Oxygen is generated by life on Earth when organisms such as plants, algae, and cyanobacteria use photosynthesis to convert sunlight into chemical energy. UC Riverside helped develop the new technique, which will use NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to detect a strong signal that oxygen molecules produce when they collide. This signal could help scientists distinguish between living and nonliving planets....

The heaviest element on earth is uranium, which has the atomic number 92 in the periodic table. Although superheavy elements up to number 118 have been produced artificially, their atomic nuclei rapidly decay. A subtle quantum effect means that even heavier atomic nuclei above element 120 could exist for years, however. Physicists have been searching for this hypothetical “island of stability” for a long time. An international team that includes Klaus Blaum’s group at the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg has now taken a further crucial step in the right direction....

An innovative experiment design shows, in real time and at the scale of a single molecule, how stem cells slow their rolling inside the circulatory system by growing long tethers that attach to the inner surfaces of blood vessels. The strategy could help researchers to improve stem cell transplantations and to find new treatments for metastasizing cancers. Many cells in the human body travel through blood vessels from one organ to another to carry out specific functions....

On October 7, 2018, an astronaut aboard the International Space Station (ISS) shot this photograph while orbiting at an altitude of more than 250 miles (400 kilometers) over Australia. The orange hue enveloping Earth is known as airglow—diffuse bands of light that stretch 50 to 400 miles (80 to 640 kilometers) into our atmosphere. The phenomenon typically occurs when molecules (mostly nitrogen and oxygen) are energized by ultraviolet (UV) radiation from sunlight....

A key reaction in the slow neutron-capture process that forms elements occurs less frequently than previously thought. The Science The slow neutron-capture process (the s-process) is one of the nucleosynthesis processes that occurs in stars. It results in about half of the elements heavier than iron in the universe. Two important reactions involved in the s-process are Neon-22 (alpha, gamma) and Neon-22 (alpha, neutron). In these reactions, neutron-rich Neon-22 captures alpha-particles....

“The main result from our study is that massive amounts of artificially cooled water would be needed for only a modest weakening in hurricane intensity before landfall,” said the study’s lead author James Hlywiak, a graduate of the UM Rosenstiel School. “Plus, weakening the intensity by marginal amounts doesn’t necessarily mean that the likelihood for inland damages and safety risks would decrease as well. While any amount of weakening before landfall is a good thing, for these reasons it makes more sense to direct focus towards adaptation strategies such as reinforcing infrastructure, improving the efficiency of evacuation procedures, and advancing the science around detection and prediction of impending storms....

The Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson developed the investigational vaccine (also known as Ad.26.COV2.S) and is leading the clinical trial as regulatory sponsor. Janssen, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, and the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response, are funding the trial....

NASA’s Juno spacecraft has sent back the first-ever images of Jupiter’s north pole, taken during the spacecraft’s first flyby of the planet with its instruments switched on. The images show storm systems and weather activity unlike anything previously seen on any of our solar system’s gas-giant planets. Juno successfully executed the first of 36 orbital flybys on August 27th when the spacecraft came about 2,500 miles (4,200 kilometers) above Jupiter’s swirling clouds....

The only dinosaur bones ever found on the island of Ireland have been formally confirmed for the first time by a team of experts from the University of Portsmouth and Queen’s University Belfast, led by Dr. Mike Simms, a curator, and paleontologist at National Museums NI. The two fossil bones were found by the late Roger Byrne, a schoolteacher and fossil collector, who donated them along with many other fossils to Ulster Museum....

The scientists published their findings in the journal Science. Katydids are part of the family Tettigoniidae, which encompasses more than 6,400 species. A kind of rainforest katydid has ears that are remarkably similar to those of humans and other mammals. The ears are tucked in the crook of its front legs, and have components that echo the structures of the human middle and inner ear. In the human ear, the outer portion of the ear gathers sound waves and funnels them toward the tympanic membrane....

A newly published study reveals that killer whales (Orcinus orca) can engage in cross-species vocal learning, revealing that they shifted the types of sounds they made to more closely match the bottlenose dolphins they cross-socialized with. From barks to gobbles, the sounds that most animals use to communicate are innate, not learned. However, a few species, including humans, can imitate new sounds and use them in appropriate social contexts. This ability, known as vocal learning, is one of the underpinnings of language....