An anonymous reader quotes a report from Phys.Org: Before life began on Earth, the environment likely contained a massive number of chemicals that reacted with each other more or less randomly, and it is unclear how the complexity of cells could have emerged from such chemical chaos. Now, a team led by Tony Z. Jia at the Tokyo Institute of Technology…
Tag: chemistry
Droplets of these simple molecules may have helped kick-start life on Earth
Simple molecules called alpha hydroxy acids form cell-sized structures in conditions mimicking early Earth chemistry. Source: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/droplets-acid-molecules-may-have-helped-kick-start-life-earth4…
Amazon Prime Day: Best Deals for Science Lovers
Here are some of the nerdiest science deals we’re watching for Amazon Prime Day, including DIY robots, chemistry sets, molecule jewelry and more. Source: https://www.livescience.com/59741-amazon-prime-day-science-deals.html
Moon dust is not to be sneezed at
When the astronauts of the Apollo 11 mission returned to Earth, they had almost 22 kilograms of rock from the surface of the moon in their baggage. Josef Zähringer from the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg was one of the first researchers allowed to analyze the material in the US. Two months later, Heinrich Wänke’s team at the…
Dragonfly aims for Saturn’s moon Titan
Scheduled for launch in 2026, the Dragonfly mission will look for clues to the origins of life, and possibly even evidence of life itself, on Saturn’s alien yet remarkably Earth-like moon Titan. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/dragonfly-mission-saturn-moon-titan…
Why Blue Fireworks Are So Rare
Here’s the chemistry behind those awesome fireworks shows. Source: https://www.livescience.com/65860-why-blue-fireworks-are-rare.html
Former NASA Flight Director Gene Kranz Restores Mission Control In Houston
Gene Kranz may be the most famous flight director in NASA’s history. He directed the actual landing portion of the first mission to put men on the moon, Apollo 11, and led Mission Control in saving the crew of Apollo 13 after an oxygen tank exploded on the way to the lunar surface. Now Kranz, 85, has completed another undertaking: the…
SuperCam instrument integrated on NASA’s Mars 2020 rover
The French/American SuperCam instrument has been delivered early June to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and has been integrated this week on NASA’s Mars 2020 rover. The French space agency, CNES, together with university institutes in France, developed the multi-purpose camera to remotely analyze minerals, chemistry, sounds, and test for compounds associated with life, together with the Los Alamos National Laboratory (US)….
See super-detailed images of Saturn’s rings
Textures and patterns, from clumpy to straw-like, pop out of these images from the Cassini mission. “It’s like turning the power up a notch on what we could see in the rings,” said a scientist. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/images-sculpting-saturns-rings-details-cassini…
Airplane Contrails Will Do Triple the Damage They Do Today By 2050, Study Finds
An anonymous reader quotes a report from New Scientist: The contrails left by airplanes last only hours. But they are now so widespread that their warming effect is greater than that of all the carbon dioxide emitted by airplanes that has accumulated in the atmosphere since the first flight of the Wright brothers. Worse still, this non-CO2 warming effect is set…