A research group from Kobe University has demonstrated that the heat generated by the impact of a small astronomical body could enable aqueous alteration and organic solid formation to occur on the surface of an asteroid. These results have significantly increased the number of prospective astronomical bodies that could have brought water and the origins of life to Earth.
Scientists are developing data assimilation methods for Numerical Weather Prediction models that will increase the quality of initialization data from satellites. The Observing System Simulation Experiment (OSSE) is designed to use data assimilation to investigate the potential impact of future atmospheric observing systems. Traditional OSSE processes require significant effort to compute, simulate, and calibrate information, then assimilate the data to produce a forecast. Therefore, model meteorologists are working to make this process more efficient.
A highly-detailed VLA image indicates that the jets of material propelled outward by young stars much more massive than the Sun may be very different from those ejected by less-massive young stars.
Scientists have gained the best view yet of the brightest explosions in the universe: A specialised observatory in Namibia has recorded the most energetic radiation and longest gamma-ray afterglow of a so-called gamma-ray burst to date. The observations with the High Energy Stereoscopic System (H.E.S.S.) challenge the idea of how gamma-rays are produced in these colossal stellar explosions which are the birth cries of black holes, as the international team reports in the journal Science.
The biggest shark attack in history did not involve humans.
A new study by Earth scientists from Yale and the College of the Atlantic has turned up a massive die-off of sharks roughly 19 million years ago. It came at a period in history when there were more than 10 times more sharks patrolling the world s oceans than there are today.