Scientists trying to work out whether a star exploded and the resulting debris crashed into Earth 10 million years ago may be one step closer to solving the mystery. They discovered an unusual amount of Beryllium-10 (10Be) ...
What's the link between an exploding star, climate change and human evolution? Francis Thackeray, who has researched ancient environments and fossils for many years, sets out his ideas about what happened in the distant past—with ...
Evolution
Sep 2, 2025
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Answers to some of cosmology's most pressing questions are obscured by simple dust. It concerns the Cosmic Noon, a period of time that began around 2 billion years after the Big Bang, when nearly all galaxies experienced ...
Astronomy
Aug 18, 2025
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A new study from NYU Abu Dhabi has found that high-energy particles from space, known as cosmic rays, could create the energy needed to support life underground on planets and moons in our solar system.
Astrobiology
Jul 28, 2025
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Neutrinos are subatomic particles with no charge and very little mass that are known to weakly interact with other matter in the universe. Due to their weak interactions with other particles, these particles are notoriously ...
Though scientists have long understood how lightning strikes, the precise atmospheric events that trigger it within thunderclouds have remained a perplexing mystery. The mystery may now be solved, thanks to a team of researchers ...
Earth Sciences
Jul 28, 2025
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Dark matter, a type of matter that does not emit, absorb, or reflect light, is predicted to account for most of the universe's mass. While theoretical predictions hint at its abundance, detecting this elusive matter has so ...
University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa researchers in the Department of Chemistry have created a molecule once thought too unstable to exist called methanetetrol using extreme, space-like conditions. The discovery could reshape ...
Analytical Chemistry
Jul 21, 2025
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Stars don't form out of nothing, but tracking the gas and dust that do eventually form stars is hard. They float around the galaxy at almost absolute zero, emitting essentially no light, and generally making life difficult ...
Astronomy
Jul 14, 2025
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Scientists have used ultracold atoms to successfully demonstrate a novel method of particle acceleration that could unlock a new understanding of how cosmic rays behave, a new study reveals.
General Physics
Jul 9, 2025
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Cosmic rays are energetic particles originating from outer space that impinge on Earth's atmosphere. Almost 90% of all the incoming cosmic ray particles are protons, almost 10% are helium nuclei (alpha particles), and slightly under 1% are heavier elements and electrons (beta minus particles). The term ray is a misnomer, as cosmic particles arrive individually, not in the form of a ray or beam of particles.
The variety of particle energies reflects the wide variety of sources. The origins of these particles range from energetic processes on the Sun all the way to as yet unknown events in the farthest reaches of the visible universe. Cosmic rays can have energies of over 1020 eV, far higher than the 1012 to 1013 eV that man-made particle accelerators can produce. (See Ultra-high-energy cosmic rays for a description of the detection of a single particle with an energy of about 50 J, the same as a well-hit tennis ball at 42 m/s [about 94 mph].) There has been interest in investigating cosmic rays of even greater energies.
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