Four galaxies are slamming into each other and kicking up billions of stars in one of the largest cosmic smash-ups ever observed.
The clashing galaxies, spotted by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, will eventually merge into a single, behemoth galaxy up to 10 times as massive as our own Milky Way. This rare sighting provides an unprecedented look at how the most massive galaxies in the universe form.
"Most of the galaxy mergers we already knew about are like compact cars crashing together," said Kenneth Rines of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, Mass. "What we have here is like four sand trucks smashing together, flinging sand everywhere." Rines is lead author of a new paper accepted for publication in Astrophysical Journal Letters.
Collisions, or mergers, between galaxies are common in the universe. Gravity causes some galaxies that are close together to tangle and ultimately unite over a period of millions of years. Though stars in merging galaxies are tossed around like sand, they have a lot of space between them and survive the ride. Our Milky Way galaxy will team up with the Andromeda galaxy in five billion years.
Science & Technology
After 3.2 million years in East Africa, one of the world's most famous set of fossils was quietly flown out of Ethiopia overnight for a U.S. tour that some experts say is a dangerous gamble with an irreplaceable relic.
Although the fossil known as Lucy had been expected to leave the Ethiopian Natural History Museum this month, some in the nation's capital were surprised the departure took place under cover of darkness with no fanfare Sunday.
"This is a national treasure," said Kine Arega, a 29-year-old attorney in Addis Ababa. "How come the public has no inkling about this? It's amazing that we didn't even get to say goodbye."
Although the fossil known as Lucy had been expected to leave the Ethiopian Natural History Museum this month, some in the nation's capital were surprised the departure took place under cover of darkness with no fanfare Sunday.
"This is a national treasure," said Kine Arega, a 29-year-old attorney in Addis Ababa. "How come the public has no inkling about this? It's amazing that we didn't even get to say goodbye."
WASHINGTON - Microorganisms locked in Antarctic ice for 100,000 years and more came to life and resumed growing when given warmth and nutrients in a laboratory.
Early human-like residents of Europe may have arrived out of Asia, rather than just Africa.
An international team of researchers reports in Monday's online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that Asians appear to have played a larger part in the settlement of Europe than did Africans.
An international team of researchers reports in Monday's online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that Asians appear to have played a larger part in the settlement of Europe than did Africans.
Flipping one genetic switch in the brains of female mice makes them behave like sex-crazed males. The finding implies that females' brains have the same circuit that governs sexual behaviour in male mice - and that it's simple to convert one to the other
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| The 'Jetsons-like' flying machine is the size of a small car and boasts a top speed of 100mph |
Whizzing to work in a flying saucer seems like a futuristic fantasy reminiscent of George Jetson and his space-age pals.
But that reality may be one step closer after US company Moller International embarked on a wacky 30-year quest to build a personal flying pod.
Saying California's touch-screen electronic voting machines can not prevent hackers or partisans who want to alter vote counts, Secretary of State Debra Bowen announced late Friday that she will remove thousands of the machines from use in California's new early 2008 presidential primary next Feb. 5. Southern California - from San Diego to Orange County to Los Angeles - will most seriously affected.
By the time Rick Deacon was done Sunday showing hackers in Las Vegas how to commandeer MySpace profile pages, he was evicted from the social networking website and the weakness fixed.
The US college student uncovered a MySpace vulnerability months ago and shared his discovery at DefCon, the largest gathering of computer hackers in the world.
"Obviously they weren't happy about it," Deacon said after he finished his presentation, checked his e-mail and saw a message from MySpace telling him his account was deleted for "violating terms of service."
"In retrospect, I should have used a dummy account."
Deacon's attack relied on duping MySpace users into clicking rigged links, perhaps in online forums or bulletin boards, which routed them to a file that steals passwords and identifying information stored in software "cookies."
The US college student uncovered a MySpace vulnerability months ago and shared his discovery at DefCon, the largest gathering of computer hackers in the world.
"Obviously they weren't happy about it," Deacon said after he finished his presentation, checked his e-mail and saw a message from MySpace telling him his account was deleted for "violating terms of service."
"In retrospect, I should have used a dummy account."
Deacon's attack relied on duping MySpace users into clicking rigged links, perhaps in online forums or bulletin boards, which routed them to a file that steals passwords and identifying information stored in software "cookies."
A human skull from a Romanian bear cave is shaking up ideas about ancient sex.
The Homo sapiens skull has a distinctive feature previously found only in Neandertals, providing further evidence of interbreeding between the two species, according to a new study.
The human cranium was found during World War II mining operations in 1942, in a cave littered with Ice Age cave bear remains.
Recently the fossil was radiocarbon dated to 33,000 years ago and thoroughly examined, revealing the controversial anatomical feature.
The Homo sapiens skull has a distinctive feature previously found only in Neandertals, providing further evidence of interbreeding between the two species, according to a new study.
The human cranium was found during World War II mining operations in 1942, in a cave littered with Ice Age cave bear remains.
Recently the fossil was radiocarbon dated to 33,000 years ago and thoroughly examined, revealing the controversial anatomical feature.
Former astronaut Rusty Schweickart has already earned his place in the history books by flying in space on the Apollo 9 mission. However, should an asteroid crash into the Earth anytime soon, killing millions and causing catastrophic damage, he'll also be remembered as the guy whose warnings we ignored.
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