Physics & Astronomy News

Astronomers Discover Planet That Shouldn't Be There
The discovery of a giant planet orbiting its star at 650 times the average Earth-Sun distance has astronomers puzzled over how such a strange system came to be.

You can’t get entangled without a wormhole
MIT physicist finds the creation of entanglement simultaneously gives rise to a wormhole.
Unusual rings of radiation in space explained
UCLA scientists explain the formation of unusual ring of radiation in space In pondering the mysterious ring in the Earth's Van Allen belts, researchers made a crucial discovery: Not all high-energy particles obey the same physics.

Earth habitable for at least another 1.75 billion years
Habitable conditions on Earth will be possible for at least another 1.75 billion years – according to astrobiologists at the University of East Anglia.

NASA's Deep Impact Produced Deep Results
Launched on a clear winter day in January 2005, NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft spanned 268 million miles (431 million kilometers) of deep space in 172 days, then reached out and touched comet Tempel 1.

more physics & astronomy news stories

Not Quite A Planet

by NASA Marshall Space Flight Center and ScienceIQ.com

An artist
An artist's concept of Kuiper Belt Object 2002 LM60, also known as Quaoar.
Image Courtesy NASA and G. Bacon (STScI)
Astronomers have dubbed it 'Quaoar' (pronounced kwa-whar) after a Native American god. It lies a billion kilometers beyond Pluto and moves around the Sun every 288 years in a near-perfect circle. Until recently it was just a curious point of light. That's all astronomers could see when they discovered it June, 2002 using a ground-based telescope. But now it's a world.

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has measured Quaoar and found it to be 1300 km wide. That's about 400 km wider than the biggest main-belt asteroid (Ceres) and more than half the diameter of Pluto itself. Indeed, it's the largest object in the solar system seen since the discovery of Pluto 72 years ago.

Quaoar is greater in volume than all known asteroids combined. Researchers suspect it's made mostly of low-density ices mixed with rock, not unlike the makeup of a comet. If so, Quaoar's mass is probably only one-third that of the asteroid belt. Quaoar is the record-holder - a tantalizing glimpse of perhaps bigger things to come.

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(1822-1895)
Science Sidebar | Science Education Articles
10 Ways to Keep Your Kids Interested In Science

Young children are natural scientists: they ask questions, pick up sticks and bugs outside, and are curious about the world around them. But as they get a bit older, many kids gradually lose their interest in science. They might see it as just another task at school, something that doesn't apply to their lives. Of course nothing could be further from the truth, so here are ten ways you can remind your kids that science is everywhere. Most of these are fun for adults, too! Continue reading ...

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