Science Glance
Scientists have found Earth's oldest fossils in Australia and say their microscopic discovery is convincing evidence that cells and bacteria were able to thrive in an oxygen-free world more than 3.4 billion years ago.
The finding suggests early life was sulphur-based -- living off and metabolizing sulphur rather than oxygen for energy -- and supports the idea that similar life forms could exist on other planets where oxygen levels are low or non-existent.
Life on Mars? Fossil find shows it's possible
NASA reports breakthrough in space weather monitoring
Thanks to data collected from NASA's Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO) and advances in modeling, scientists can for the first time watch a coronal mass ejection from its formation on the sun to its impact with the Earth's magnetosphere.
The most powerful CMEs, enormous magnetized clouds of electrified gas emitted from the sun, that hit the Earth's protective magnetic field can disrupt satellites, radio signals and even the electric grid.
Oxygen May Have Existed Undersea 300 Million Years Before Its Atmosphere Debut: MIT Scientists
Oxygen may have been present on Earth 300 million years before it was breathed into the atmosphere, scientists concluded from a new research.
Researchers from Massachusetts Institute of Technology discovered evidence that small aerobic organisms could have evolved to survive on extremely low levels of the gas in undersea "oxygen oases," keeping a low profile in the oceans before its debut in the atmosphere.
Darkest Planet Found: Coal-Black, It Reflects Almost No Light
It may be hard to imagine a planet blacker than coal, but that's what astronomers say they've discovered in our home galaxy with NASA's Kepler space telescope.
Orbiting only about three million miles out from its star, the Jupiter-size gas giant planet, dubbed TrES-2b, is heated to 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit (980 degrees Celsius). Yet the apparently inky world appears to reflect almost none of the starlight that shines on it, according to a new study.
Oxygen molecules discovered in space for the very first time
We've discovered evidence of just about every gas imaginable out in space, but one we'd never seen was molecular oxygen, the stuff we breathe everyday. Now, thanks to powerful infrared telescopes, we've found the very first traces of space oxygen.
While individual oxygen atoms are found throughout space, that's not what we breathe. Instead, we inhale O2, which is a molecule composed of two oxygen atoms bonded together. This particular gas is very common on Earth - it accounts for about 20% of the air around us - but we had never found molecular oxygen in space... until now.
Is an asteroid stalking Earth?
Scientists have known for many years that asteroids often follow planets, moving in the same orbit around the sun. These so-called "Trojan asteroids" have been spotted tagging alongside Jupiter, Mars, and Neptune.
Earth, however, was believed to be free of these celestial stalkers — until now. Astronomers from Athabasca University in Canada, using data from an infrared NASA telescope that's orbiting the Earth, discovered an asteroid tracking us from just 50 million miles away.
Scientists spot Pluto's fourth moon
Astronomers looking for rings around Pluto have instead made an unexpected find: a fourth moon circling the dwarf planet.
The object, temporarily designated P4, is probably the most dwarvish of Pluto's moons: It's estimated to be just 8 to 21 miles (13 to 34 kilometers) in diameter. In comparison, Pluto's diameter is about 1,400 miles, and its other three moons range in diameter from 648 miles (for Charon) to between 20 and 70 miles (for Nix and Hydra, discovered in 2005). The newfound moon orbits in a region between Nix and Hydra, and makes a complete circuit roughly every 31 Earth days.
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