The shell of Jupiter's famous ice moon may be formed, in part, by pure underwater snow that floats up instead of falling down.

A new study, published in the August issue of the journal Astrobiology, finds that Europa's icy crust might be built partially by "frazil ice," a fluffy accumulation of ice crystals that also builds up beneath ice sheets on Earth. This frazil ice holds a fraction of the salt found in ice that grows from the ice shelf itself, suggesting that Europa's ice sheets may be less salty than previously believed.

A nuclear war between Russia and US would be detrimental. Scientists suggest fleeing to Argentina or Australia would have the highest chance of survival…

Following more than a decade of development, delays and testing, NASA's most powerful rocket ever now seems ready for liftoff. The Space Launch System and Orion spacecraft exited the vehicle assembly building yesterday, headed to the launchpad for a maiden journey around the Moon.

NASA laid out the potential launch windows for its uncrewed Artemis I demo last month, eyeing a series of dates on which the necessary elements would align for mission success. This involves timing the Moon's position in its lunar cycle for successful entry to orbit, mostly keeping the Orion spacecraft out of darkness and timing the capsule's return to Earth for a daytime splashdown.

Newly discovered crater suggests multiple asteroids killed dinosaurs

The Earth still bears the scar of the gigantic asteroid impact that wiped out the dinosaurs, along with three quarters of all life – but a new study suggests that killer rock wasn’t alone. Scientists have discovered a new crater in the seabed of the North Atlantic Ocean that seems to correspond to around the same time, suggesting the extinction event could have been triggered by multiple impacts.

Implantable "drug factory" beads destroy tumors in mice within days

Earlier this year, scientists at Rice University demonstrated a highly promising approach to tackling ovarian and colorectal cancer that centered on "drug factory" beads that could be implanted alongside tumors to destroy them in less than a week. By combining this technology with other immunotherapy drugs, the scientists have now explored the potential for this technique to tackle another form of cancer, and achieved very similar results.

The drug factory beads developed by the Rice University team are around the size of a pinhead and are loaded up with tens of thousands of cells genetically engineered to produce interleukin-2 (IL-2).

Scientists have demonstrated a form of printable wood-based ink that morphs into complex shapes as moisture evaporates

A lot of work goes into creating wooden objects like furniture, with the timber needing to be harvested, treated, cut into shape and finished. Some scientists are rethinking this process with some interesting results, and researchers from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have put forward a particularly creative example. The team's technology sees a wood-based ink 3D printed into flat shapes, which then morph into more complex 3D forms as they dry out.

The technology hinges on the way water content can influence the shape of wood, such as a tree deforming after it is cut down and begins to dry out. This is due to the configuration of fibers within the material, which vary in their orientation and cause the wood to shrink in a non-uniform manner as moisture evaporates. By leveraging this characteristic, the scientists were able to come up with a way of carefully manipulating this morphing process to produce desired three-dimensional shapes.

Scientists continue to make promising inroads around more durable forms of concrete, and engineers at Melbourne's RMIT University have been operating at the cutting edge of this research for some time. Their latest example simultaneously tackles the mounting waste generated by the ongoing pandemic, demonstrating a form of concrete that incorporates shredded personal protective equipment (PPE) for improved performance.

RMIT's researchers haven't been afraid to get creative when thinking up new approaches to concrete, turning to everything from tires, to lobster shells to steel slag for inspiration. Last year, they also showed how disposable face masks could be worked into stronger recycled concrete aggregate for road layering.

There is a clock that shows the exact position of the planets in the solar system. Planets move at the same speed as real planets, and the hands of the stars mark hours and minutes.

It is called the "Planetary Midnight". It costs a little over $210,000.

The Midnight Planetarium watch depicts the universe and captures the course of the planets. The planetary spectacle is portrayed by the dial, while the shooting star indicates the time.

A lucky star invites the wearer of the watch to register their lucky day on the starry dial.

The dial reproduces the sun in miniature, accompanied by the five planets visible to the naked eye from Earth: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn.

A unique module makes each planet move on its own disk, according to its actual rotation time.

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In a new experiment, scientists have managed to use a powerful X-ray laser to convert PET plastic into tiny diamonds, similar to those that might fall on ice giant planets like Neptune

Scientists have turned plastic into diamonds. Using high-powered lasers, the team zapped samples of PET, the common material used in plastic bottles, to produce intense heat and pressure to form tiny diamonds that may naturally rain down on planets like Uranus and Neptune.

Here on Earth, diamonds are prized for their rarity (even if that may be changing), but on other planets they may be seem as common as rocks. On ice giants like Uranus and Neptune, it’s thought that the extreme pressure would compress elements like hydrogen and carbon to form solid diamonds that then fall through the atmosphere like rain.
This phenomenon hasn’t been directly detected, but in 2017 a team of scientists reported that they had recreated the process in the lab. They did so by firing the world’s most powerful X-ray laser, the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS), at samples of hydrocarbon materials. This instantly heated them to temperatures of up to 6,000 °C (10,800 °F) and generated powerful shock waves of a few million atmospheres of pressure, forming tiny “nanodiamonds.”

A team of scientists using the James Webb Space Telescope have just released the largest image taken by the telescope so far. The image is a mosaic of 690 individual frames taken with the telescope’s Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam) and it covers an area of sky about eight times as large as JWST’s First Deep Field Image released on July 12. And it is absolutely FULL of stunning early galaxies, many never seen before. Additionally, the team may have photographed one of the most distant galaxies yet observed.

Sending materials into space is expensive, so the more astronauts can make on-site, the better. Engineers at Washington State University (WSU) have now demonstrated how crushed Martian rock could be mixed with a titanium alloy to make 3D-printable building materials.

Scientists have been experimenting with ways to make habitats, building materials, tools, parts and other things directly out of regolith, the rocky “soil” that covers the lunar and Martian surfaces. That could include making the desired shapes using 3D printers, high-powered lasers or concentrated sunlight to melt the material, or compressing it into bricks. A high-powered laser heated the mixed materials (Martian dust with a titanium alloy )to temperatures over 2,000 °C (3,632 °F) to melt them. The team then formed this molten fluid into components of different shapes and sizes, and cooled it into a kind of ceramic material. After it had cooled down, they tested its strength and durability.

Researchers discover a material that can learn like the brain

Vanadium Dioxide (VO2), a compound used in electronics, is capable of “remembering” the entire history of previous external stimuli. This is the first material to be identified as possessing this property, although there could be others.
In his experiments, Samizadeh Nikoo applied an electric current to a sample of VO2. “The current moved across the material, following a path until it exited on the other side,” he explains. As the current heated up the sample, it caused the VO2 to change state. And once the current had passed, the material returned to its initial state. Samizadeh Nikoo then applied a second current pulse to the material, and saw that the time it took to change state was directly linked to the history of the material. “The VO2 seemed to ‘remember’ the first phase transition and anticipate the next,” explains Prof. Elison Matioli, who heads the POWERlab. “We didn’t expect to see this kind of memory effect, and it has nothing to do with electronic states but rather with the physical structure of the material. It’s a novel discovery: no other material behaves in this way.”

Two overlapping spiral galaxies are pictured in this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. The two galaxies, which have the uninspiring names SDSS J115331 and LEDA 2073461, lie more than a billion light-years from Earth. Despite appearing to collide in this image, the alignment of the two galaxies is likely just by chance — the two are not actually interacting. While these two galaxies might simply be ships that pass in the night, Hubble has captured a dazzling array of interacting galaxies in the past.

This image is one of many Hubble observations delving into highlights of the Galaxy Zoo project. Originally established in 2007, the Galaxy Zoo project and its successors are massive citizen science projects which crowdsource galaxy classifications from a pool of hundreds of thousands of volunteers. These volunteers classify galaxies imaged by robotic telescopes and are often the first to ever set eyes on an astronomical object.

Over the course of the original Galaxy Zoo project, volunteers discovered a menagerie of weird and wonderful galaxies such as unusual 3-armed spiral galaxies and colliding ring galaxies. The astronomers coordinating the project applied for Hubble time to observe the most unusual inhabitants of the Galaxy Zoo — but true to the project’s crowdsourced roots, the list of targets was chosen by a public vote.

Credit:
ESA/Hubble & NASA, W. Keel

an incredible glimpse at mosquito larvae hatching shot underwater

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A new study proposes that Saturn got its rings and tilt from a long-lost moon

Saturn’s most striking feature is its rings, made mostly of small chunks of ice. It was long thought that these rings were leftover material from the formation of Saturn itself some 4.5 billion years ago, but recent studies suggest they’re much younger – between 10 and 100 million years old. If that’s the case, they could have formed from an icy comet or moon that wandered too close.

The planet also rotates tilted at a 27-degree angle, relative to the plane it follows as it orbits the Sun. This was long believed to be caused by the gravitational influence of the nearby Neptune, but closer inspection has revealed that Saturn is no longer in-step with its neighbor.

The astronomers on the new study have now proposed a story that explains both mysteries: Saturn used to have another moon.