Smallest Rocky Exoplanet Found

Astronomers have discovered the smallest exoplanet yet found, a rocky world named Kepler 10b, 560 light years distant with a diameter about 1.4 times that of Earth and about 4.6 times greater mass but that orbits its star too closely to provide an environment suitable for life.

Glassy Metal Strong as Steel

A new amorphous metal alloy of palladium, silver and other elements has been developed at Caltech that combines the toughness of glass and the material strength of steel, promising new fatigue-resistant building materials for construction and manufacturing.

Flying "Vampire" Tree Frog

A new frog species (Rhacophorus vampyrus) discovered in Vietnam uses its webbed feet to glide from tree to tree and, unique to the species, its tadpoles possess hard black fang-like hooks whose purpse has yet to be determined.

Green Blob in Space

The Hubble Space Telescope has spotted a green blob (illuminated by a quasar in a nearby galaxy) of mostly hydrogen gas acting as a stellar nursery in a remote area of the universe outside of any galaxy, named Hanny's Voorwerp after its amateur Dutch discoverer.

Giant Tree-Like Molecule

A team of chemists has produced the largest stable synthetic molecule ever made (PG5), with a tree-like structure and diameter of 10 nm and a mass equal to 200 million hydrogen atoms, in the hopes of finding new applications such as drug delivery.

Crab Nebula Particle Accelerator

New observations by two telescopes have found the Crab Nebula to be a source of high-energy gamma-ray flares from mechanisms hidden within it that are not clearly understood, producing "the highest particle energies ever associated with a single source."

Between Brown Dwarf and Planet

A new astronomical study has found a large gap in the sizes of planetary objects between 25 and 40 times the mass of Jupiter, providing a natural and usable demarcation in the classification of these objects into gas giants (planets) or brown dwarfs (stars).

Plasma Jets Explain Corona

Plasma jets erupting from within the Sun cause hot coronal temperature fronts ahead of them, explaining the mystery of why the corona is orders of magnitude hotter than the chromosphere itself.

Wreckage from "Pristine Star"

Astronomers have detected the remnants of a star that exploded more than 13 billion years ago, likely one of the very first generation of stars to exist in our universe, whose chemical constituents were almost only hydrogen and helium.

Oxygen Crash and Extinction

Analysis of rock samples around the world reveal an oxygen crash in the world's oceans about 499 million years ago that led to rising levels of toxic hydrogen sulfide and a mass extinction of Cambrian species, the cause of which is still unknown.

Superconductors and Alcohol

For reasons still unclear, laboratory substances such as an iron tellurium sulphur sample are turned into superconducting materials by mulling them in a water-alcohol (ethanol) mix, with the best results obtained using ordinary red wine.

Comet in Disguise

A newly discovered comet spotted last month turns out to be an known asteroid (596 Scheila, 1906), one of a category of hybrid objects called main belt comets with stable inner-solar system orbits that are "dormant" for long periods of time.

Bee Virus Spreads

Recent studies have identified the Israeli acute paralysis virus (IAPV), spread through pollen transfer, as a factor contributing to colony collapse disorder of American honeybees.

Fossil Crocodile Found

Fossils of a new ancient reptile species related to modern crocodiles (Neptunidraco ammoniticus) were discovered in limestone slabs from Ferrara, Italy, destined for kitchen countertops, warehoused in 1955 and only recently examined in 2009.