Science

The Perseid meteor shower peaks late Sunday night, and given that it will be paired with a dark sky due to the moon’s early setting, stargazers could be in for a show.NASA said on its website that the Perseid meteor shower is best viewed from midnight to dawn, adding that the greatest number of meteors are seen just before dawn, when the radiant point is high in the sky. But that does not mean sky watchers should stare toward the radiant point, because meteors can be seen anywhere in the sky.The annual meteor shower has been active since July and is considered one of the brightest and most easily viewed showers of the year because it produces "bright blue meteors, and lots of them," according to University of Warwick astronomer Don Pollacco.This shower happens every year when the Earth...

New research suggests Mars could have enough water under its surface to form a global ocean.On Monday, scientists released their findings, which are based on seismic measurements captured from NASA’s Mars InSight rover, which detected over 1,300 marsquakes before shutting down two years ago.The water is believed to be hiding in the cracks of rocks underground and could be seven to 12 miles beneath the Martian crust.The water may have seeped from the surface billions of years ago, when the red planet had rivers, lakes and possibly oceans, lead scientist Vashan Wright of the University of California San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography told The Associated Press.NASA'S PLAN TO BRING MARS SAMPLES TO EARTH UNDERGOES REVISION DUE TO BUDGET CUTS A view of Mars from NASA's Mars InS...

Scientists investigating the asteroid that wiped out dinosaurs after slamming into the Earth 66 million years ago have released a new study suggesting that it formed "beyond the orbit of Jupiter." The findings published in Science on Thursday say that the researchers made their determination after examining the geological remains of the impact in modern day Chicxulub, Mexico. The team, led by Mario Fischer-Gödde of the University of Cologne in Germany, "measured ruthenium isotopes in the impact deposits and compared them with multiple classes of meteorites, which represent potential impactor compositions," according to a summary of the study. "They found that the Chicxulub impactor was a carbonaceous asteroid that formed in the outer Solar System," it continued. "Additional measurement...

Critically endangered crocodiles hatch at Fort Worth Zoo The Fort Worth Zoo celebrated its first-ever repeated gharial breeding success with the emergence of two hatchlings this summer. The Texas zoo is the only institution in North America to have produced multiple offspring of this species. Researchers in Australia concerned about the sharp decline of freshwater crocodiles who eat a toxic, invasive toad species have come up with a stomach-churning way for the reptiles to help themselves. The scientists baited the crocodiles with dead cane toads that had the toxin removed, but added a "nausea-inducing chemical" inside that quickly made the reptiles want to avoid toads for dinner in the future, according to a study published in Royal Society Publishing. The invasive toads were first b...

Archaeologists in Iowa have unearthed an ancient mastodon skull in pristine condition, which they hope will provide clues about human interaction with the ancient animal. The bones were excavated earlier this month from a creek bank in Wayne, taking nearly two weeks to complete. The eroding site was first brought to the attention of Office of the State Archaeologist, Iowa (OSA) in 2022.  The excavation took nearly two weeks to complete.  (Office of the State Archaeologist, Iowa)EXCAVATIONS IN EGYPT UNEARTH TROVE OF ANCIENT ARTIFACTS FROM ITS FINAL DYNASTIESRadiocarbon dating showed that the mastodon is around 13,600 years old, which corresponds to when humans occupied the area. OSA will closely examine the bones to determine if there is any evidence of human activity, like cut marks. ...

A new carnivore has come to town — 165 million years ago at least. The Alpkarakush kyrgyzicus, a new species and genus of theropod dinosaur, has been discovered in Kyrgyzstan by an expedition team of German and Kyrgyz researchers, according to the Bavarian State Natural History Collections in Germany. Alpkarakush kyrgyzicus is the first theropod dinosaur found in Kyrgyzstan and the "find is one of the most significant in Central Asia," the institution said in a news release. Before the new species' discovery, no large Jurassic predatory dinosaurs had been known to live in the area around Kyrgyzstan between Central Europe and Eastern Asia, according to the institution. DINOSAUR-KILLING ASTEROID LIKELY CAME FROM BEYOND JUPITER, STUDY FINDS An artist's rendering of the Alpkarakush kyrgyz...

A NASA astronaut at the International Space Station (ISS) on Saturday reported hearing a "strange noise" coming from the Boeing Starliner spacecraft just days before it is set to leave the station and return to Earth on autopilot.The astronaut, Butch Wilmore, radioed Mission Control at Johnson Space Center in Houston to inquire about the noise. On an audio recording of the exchange, Wilmore holds up a phone to the speakers so that Mission Control could hear the noise he was referring to. A pulsating sound emanating at steady intervals can be heard through Wilmore’s device. "Butch, that one came through," Mission Control says after not hearing it the first time. "It was kind of like a pulsating noise, almost like a sonar ping." NASA PLANS TO SEND 2 ASTRONAUTS INSTEAD OF 3 TO ISS SO PAIR...

Boeing's Starliner spacecraft touched down on Earth early Saturday morning, with two test pilots left behind in space until next year over NASA's concerns that their return was too risky.Starliner parachuted into New Mexico's White Sands Missile Range six hours after leaving the International Space Station, landing at 12:01 a.m. ET."I am extremely proud of the work our collective team put into this entire flight test, and we are pleased to see Starliner’s safe return," Ken Bowersox, associate administrator of Space Operations Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington, said in a statement."Even though it was necessary to return the spacecraft uncrewed, NASA and Boeing learned an incredible amount about Starliner in the most extreme environment possible," he added. "NASA loo...

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is monitoring a "potentially hazardous" asteroid that is moving past Earth on Tuesday.NASA told Fox News Digital that the rocky object, which has been named 2024 ON, is 350 meters long by 180 meters wide, which roughly equals 1,150 feet by 590 feet – larger than previous estimates. NASA has deemed the asteroid "stadium-sized" and reported it was 621,000 miles away from Earth on Tuesday morning, which is considered relatively close. Davide Farnocchia, a navigation engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, told Fox News Digital that an asteroid of this size coming this close to Earth only happens every five to ten years.Farnocchia, who works at the laboratory's Center for Near-Earth Object Studies, said that the last time a lar...

Scientists in Albuquerque, New Mexico, say potentially dangerous asteroids could possibly be deflected by exploding a nuclear warhead more than a mile from its surface and showering it with X-rays to send it in a different direction.Previous methods, as seen in blockbuster movies like "Armageddon" and "Deep Impact," involved blowing up a nuclear warhead on an asteroid or comet and shattering it into multiple pieces.But scientists now say the method would change the space object from a lethal bullet headed toward Earth into a shotgun blast of multiple fragments.Last year, the National Academy of Sciences released a report calling planetary defense a national priority, and according to an ongoing NASA sky survey, the threat is credible.STADIUM-SIZED ASTEROID DEEMED ‘POTENTIALLY HAZARDOUS...