Why does this galaxy spin so fast? To start, even identifying which type of galaxy UGC 12591 is difficult -- it has dark dust lanes like a spiral galaxy but a large diffuse bulge of stars like a lenticular. Surprisingly... Continue Reading →
Depending on your genetic make-up, you might be able to drink coffee right before bed or feel wired after just one cup, ongoing research shows. In previous work, Marilyn Cornelis, assistant professor in preventive medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School... Continue Reading →
An odd thing about the group of lights near the center is that four of them are the same distant quasar. This is because the foreground galaxy -- in the center of the quasar images and the featured image --... Continue Reading →
When it comes to perceiving music, the human brain is much more tuned in to certain types of rhythms than others, according to a new study from MIT. A team of neuroscientists has found that people are biased toward hearing... Continue Reading →
What's happening to the rings of Saturn? Nothing much, just a little moon making waves. The moon is 8-kilometer Daphnis and it is making waves in the Keeler Gap of Saturn's rings using just its gravity -- as it bobs... Continue Reading →
An international research team led by Carnegie Mellon University has found that when the brain “reads” or decodes a sentence in English or Portuguese, its neural activation patterns are the same. Published in NeuroImage, the study is the first to... Continue Reading →
Buried within the archives of a museum in Missouri, an essay on the search alien life has come to light, 78 years after it was penned. Written on the brink of the Second World War, its unlikely author is the... Continue Reading →
NGC 660 is featured in this cosmic snapshot. Over 40 million light-years away and swimming within the boundaries of the constellation Pisces, NGC 660's peculiar appearance marks it as a polar ring galaxy. A rare galaxy type, polar ring galaxies... Continue Reading →
Fast expanding gas clouds mark the end for a central star in the Calabash Nebula. The once-normal star has run out of nuclear fuel, causing the central regions to contract into a white dwarf. Some of the liberated energy causes... Continue Reading →
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