SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launching from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla.
(Photo credit GEDI Science Team) On December 5, 2018, the SpaceX Commercial Resupply Mission 16 successfully launched from Cape Canaveral, carrying a groundbreaking payload in the Dragon capsule of its Falcon 9 rocket to the International… Read more
Jan. 4, 2019
A team of astronomers, including Northern Arizona University scientist Chad Trujillo, earlier this week announced their discovery of an object at about 120 astronomical units (AU) from Earth—the farthest observed object in the solar system. One AU represents the distance between the Earth and the Sun, approximately 93 million miles.
Nicknamed “Farout” by the discovery team—and formally designated 2018 VG18 by the International… Read more
Dec. 7, 2018
Predicting and managing the global carbon cycle requires understanding the ecosystem processes that control carbon uptake and storage.
Although scientists generally think of carbon cycling in terms of the uptake and exchange between ecosystem plant and soil pools and the atmosphere, a new study of animals and the zoogeochemistry of the carbon cycle published in the journal Science shows animals also… Read more
Dec. 3, 2018
The ancient Nasca civilization, which flourished hundreds of years before the Inca along the southern coast of Peru, could be considered one of the earliest examples of a culture adapting to climate change. The Nasca thrived in one of the driest deserts in the world by growing corn and potatoes to sustain them, building an impressive irrigation system of… Read more
Nov. 26, 2018
Indigenous people have the lowest rate of university enrollment and graduation rates of any group in the United States—and in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields, they represent only 0.5 percent of students nationwide. Professionals in STEM careers are underrepresented as well—Native Americans make up only 0.4 percent of the engineering workforce, according to the… Read more
Nov. 14, 2018
In November 2017, a team of scientists pointed NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope toward a comet-like object known as ’Oumuamua—the first interstellar body ever found in our solar system—but the object proved too faint for the infrared telescope to detect.
Though initially disappointing, this non-detection of ’Oumuamua eventually provided new information about the cosmic interloper, according to a new… Read more