They might not look like much, but these blurry flickers of light - right there in the middle - are the oldest stars ever to be observed by the human eye.
Discovered by a team of astronomers at the Australian National University (ANU), these ancient stars were born when our Universe was a youthful 300 million years old.
"These pristine stars are among the oldest surviving stars in the Universe, and certainly the oldest stars we have ever seen," said Louise Howes, lead author of the study published in the latest issue of Nature.
The oldest ever stars are hiding in the center of our galaxy
Utah judge reverses his ruling on lesbian parents
A Utah judge has reversed his decision to move a baby from its lesbian foster parents and place it with a heterosexual couple.
Judge Scott Johansen had said it was for the eight-month-old girl's "well-being" that she be with heterosexual parents.
Officials from the Utah Division of Child and Family Services had said they would fight Mr Johansen's ruling. His prior decision spurred criticism across the country.
The child could have been taken from its parents, April Hoagland and Beckie Pierce, within a week.
How the Bush administration ignored this warning from the CIA months before 9/11
Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.” The CIA’s famous Presidential Daily Brief, presented to George W. Bush on August 6, 2001, has always been Exhibit A in the case that his administration shrugged off warnings of an Al Qaeda attack. But months earlier, starting in the spring of 2001, the CIA repeatedly and urgently began to warn the White House that an attack was coming.
By May of 2001, says Cofer Black, then chief of the CIA’s counterterrorism center, “it was very evident that we were going to be struck, we were gonna be struck hard and lots of Americans were going to die.” “There were real plots being manifested,” Cofer’s former boss, George Tenet, told me in his first interview in eight years. “The world felt like it was on the edge of eruption. In this time period of June and July, the threat continues to rise.
NSA whistleblower Thomas Drake: ‘I’ve had to create a whole new life’
Five years after becoming the first American to be charged for espionage in nearly four decades, Thomas Drake is still trying to rebuild his life.
In 2010, Drake, a senior executive with the National Security Agency from 2001 to 2008, was indicted by the Obama administration for leaking classified information under the Espionage Act after speaking out on secret mass surveillance programs, multibillion-dollar fraud and intelligence failures from 9/11.
Judge denies new trial bid for ex-US guards in Iraq shooting
A federal judge won't give a new trial to four former security contractors convicted in a mass shooting of Iraqi civilians in 2007.
U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth denied the request in an order dated Tuesday, saying the "weight of evidence is heavily against the men."
The guards — State Department contractors for the Blackwater Worldwide security firm — were convicted last year in federal court and given long prison sentences in April.
Fracking Boom Bonus: Oklahoma Now No. 1 in Earthquakes
Oklahoma may be only No. 12 in college football this year, but the Sooner State is now No. 1 in earthquakes.
A spokesperson for the Oklahoma Corporation Commission — a regulatory body tasked with ensuring the safety of oil and gas exploration in the state — told the Enid Rotary Club that Oklahoma now experiences more earthquakes than anywhere else on planet Earth.
"We have had 15 [earthquakes] in Medford since 5 o'clock Saturday morning," spokesman Matt Skinner said Monday, according to the Enid News. “We’ve got an earthquake issue.”
Earth-like world could be 'most important planet found outside solar system'
A rocky Earth-sized planet that circles a small, nearby star could be the most important world ever found beyond the solar system, astronomers say.
The planet lies in the constellation of Vela in the southern sky and is close enough for telescopes to observe any atmosphere it has, a procedure that could help spot life on other planets in the future.
Inside Virginia's Church-Burning Werewolf White Supremacist Cult
Viking-inspired white supremacists trying to terrorize black Christians in the South: not as rare as you think.
News broke yesterday that the FBI arrested two young men under the suspicion that they were planning to start a race war by bombing black churches in their home state of Virginia. The men, Robert Doyle and Ronald Chaney, allegedly ascribe to an Icelandic pagan faith called Asatru that has a disturbingly large following among white supremacists.
The faith itself doesn’t seek to endorse or promulgate racist or anti-Semitic views. But you could be forgiven for thinking it does, given its strange appeal to Nazis and other sundry bigots.
Decades After Disappearing From Australia, a CIA-Linked Fugitive is Found in Idaho
It was one of the greatest disappearing acts of modern times. Amidst a swirl of allegations and rumors that the Nugan Hand bank was involved in arms smuggling, drug-running, and covert operations for the CIA, the institution’s American founder vanished from Australia. Thirty-five years later, that man, Michael Jon Hand, was tracked to a small town in Idaho where he has been living under the name of Michael Jon Fuller.
Hand was found by an Australian writer, Peter Butt, whose just-released book, “Merchants of Menace,” discloses Hand’s whereabouts after decades of mystery.
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