Wired: Science
Understanding the latest research and theories.
‘Earth-like’ Exoplanet Could Have a Comet’s Tail
When the super-Earth COROT-7b was discovered in 2009, it was heralded as the rockiest, most truly Earth-like exoplanet yet. But a new study suggests it’s more like a comet.
In a paper to be published in the journal Icarus, an international team of astronomers led by Alessandro Mura of the Italian Institute for Interplanetary Space Physics [...]
Glint of Starlight Could Reveal Liquid Oceans on Exoplanets
The sparkle of starlight off water could be the clincher for finding oceans on extrasolar planets. And it could be observable with the tech that will be deployed in the next generation of space telescopes.
“A glinting planet looks different from a non-glinting planet, and it’s detectable with current technology,” said Tyler Robinson, a graduate student [...]
NASA Flies First Drone Over Hurricane
Hurricane Earl is waning as it moves northward up the east coast of the United States. Some of the first researchers to notice the weakening had front row seats, watching the eye of the hurricane via drone flights.
In addition to the usual cadre of satellites, NASA is using a small fleet of unmanned aircraft into, [...]
Baby Lion Cub Live Webcam Launched
The Smithsonian National Zoo has just launched a live webcam of the zoo’s four new baby African lion cubs and their mother. The cubs were born during the late night and early morning of Aug. 30 and 31 and will remain indoors until late fall.
The litter is the first for 5-year-old mother lion Shera, and [...]
Clustered Networks Spread Behavior Change Faster
Unlike infectious diseases and news, behavior change spreads faster through online networks that have many close connections instead of many distant ties. Redundancy is key, as people are more likely to engage in a behavior if they see many others doing it.
“There has been a lot of theory about the difference between information and behavior [...]
Exotic New Mars Images From Orbiting Telephoto Studio
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This Summer’s Sexiest Images From Saturn
Saturn’s Most Habitable Moon Offers Ice, Water, Killer Views
Exoplanet Shows Gas Giants Start as Dusty Behemoths
By Alasdair Wilkins, io9
The atmosphere of a young exoplanet didn’t fit any of our existing models for what gas giants should look like. But when astronomers added huge dust clouds, it was a perfect fit, perhaps revealing a larger truth about gas giants.
The planet in question is HR 8799 b, a gas giant about seven [...]
Earth’s Magnetic Field Flipped Superfast
Just north of a truck stop along Interstate 80 in Battle Mountain, Nevada, lies evidence that the Earth’s magnetic field once went haywire.
Magnetic minerals in 15-million-year-old rocks appear to preserve a moment when the magnetic north pole was rapidly on its way to becoming the south pole, and vice versa. Such “geomagnetic field reversals” [...]
Mass Extinctions Change the Rules of Evolution
A reinterpretation of the fossil record suggests a new answer to one of evolution’s existential questions: whether global mass extinctions are just short-term diversions in life’s preordained course, or send life careening down wholly new paths.
Some scientists have suggested the former. Rates of species diversification — the speed at which groups adapt and fill open [...]
String Theory Finally Does Something Useful
String theory has finally made a prediction that can be tested with experiments — but in a completely unexpected realm of physics.
The theory has long been touted as the best hope for a unified “theory of everything,” bringing together the physics of the vanishingly small and the mindbendingly large. But it has also been criticized [...]
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