Oct 14th, 2024 - working in the city of Petra, Jordan, uncovered a tomb containing at least 12 skeletons and a trove of artifacts which experts hail as "a hugely rare discovery," CNN reported . The tomb was located in the underground chambers of the famous Khaznah (or Treasure) monument, which scientists long theorized may contain precious historical relics. The site featured prominently in 1989's Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade in which it played, rather appropriately, the location of the Holy Grail. Dr. Pearce Paul Creasman, the executive director of the American Center of Research, and his team of ... [Read More]

Oct 14th, 2024 - , even within our own solar system. On Monday, the agency launched a spacecraft aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket toward Europa, a moon of Jupiter . Scientists believe Europa contains a vast saltwater ocean deep beneath its icy crust, with twice as much water as Earth. It's perhaps the most promising place in our solar system for active extraterrestrial life . The NASA mission, called Europa Clipper, aims to figure out whether the Jupiter moon and its ocean could support life. It's the largest interplanetary spacecraft NASA has ever built. The probe is about 16 feet tall and, when its vast ... [Read More]

Oct 14th, 2024 - If nothing fascinates like ancient civilizations, there's something uniquely captivating about the pyramids of Egypt. "I can't think of anywhere else on the planet with a greater density of palpable history: over 100 pyramids in the north, mind-boggling temples in the south, and plenty of tombs and museums overflowing with artifacts in between," says Eric Monkaba, who customizes travel itineraries for private clients through his company TripScaper and formerly lived in Cairo. Egypt is one of the world's oldest civilizations, but it's experiencing a tourism boom that's very much of the ... [Read More]

Oct 14th, 2024 - The European Space Agency has launched a spacecraft to search for signs that Jupiter's moons could support life in the oceans beneath their frozen surfaces. If they can, what would organisms look like? Recent discoveries have led astrobiologists to think that moons are the most promising places for alien life to exist in our Solar System. And now several major space missions are being planned over the next decade to search for hints of life there. Unlike our neighbouring planets, some of the moons have plenty of liquid water. Jupiter's moon, Europa, for example, is thought to contain more ... [Read More]

Oct 14th, 2024 - As XEC, the latest COVID variant takes hold , we are watching viral evolution play out on a time scale short enough to follow, with different strains of the SARS-CoV-2 virus independently acquiring similar or functionally similar mutations that improve its ability to infect us or to evade existing vaccines. This is the same process that occurs over tens of thousands, even millions of years in living creatures, from slugs to dogs to you and me, producing the incredible diversity we see in the tree of life along with startling replays of the same idea, known formally as convergent evolution . ... [Read More]

Oct 14th, 2024 - The most distant and thus earliest rotating disk galaxy ever spotted has surprised astronomers and could challenge our theories of galactic evolution. Not only does it seemingly exist too early in the cosmos to be strongly spinning, the galaxy also shows hints of spiral arms similar to highly evolved "modern" galaxies like our own Milky Way . The galaxy, designated REBELS-25, is seen as it was just 700 million years after the Big Bang , at a time when astronomers expect galaxies to have been small and messy. Living up to its name, this rebellious galaxy has defied that trend by appearing ... [Read More]

Oct 14th, 2024 - A 6000-kilogram spacecraft will embark on a six-year journey to Jupiter to explore whether its icy moon Europa has the conditions to support life The largest spacecraft ever created by NASA for an interplanetary mission will launch today to determine whether Europa, one of Jupiter's moons, has an environment that could support life. The Europa Clipper mission is expected to launch at 12:06 pm local time aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, having been delayed by several days as a precaution because of Hurricane Milton . Europa is the smallest of ... [Read More]

Oct 14th, 2024 - A NASA spacecraft is about to commence a six-year journey to the Jupiter moon of Europa to undertake the historic task of searching the icy ocean world for signs that it could sustain life. A NASA spacecraft is about to commence a six-year journey to the Jupiter moon of Europa to undertake the historic task of searching the icy ocean world for signs that it could sustain life. Years in the works, the launch of the Europa Clipper was initially on track for Thursday, Oct. 10 from Florida's Space Coast before Hurricane Milton barreled through the state . While the storm, which made landfall at ... [Read More]