Washington, D.C. - Using revolutionary new techniques, a team led by Carnegie's Malcolm Guthrie has made a striking discovery about how ice behaves under pressure, changing ideas that date back almost 50 years. Their findings could alter our understanding of how the water molecule responds to conditions found deep within planets and could have implications for energy science. Their work is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

When water freezes into ice, its molecules are bound together in a crystalline lattice held together by hydrogen bonds. Hydrogen bonds are highly versatile and, as a result, crystalline ice reveals a striking diversity of at least 16 different structures.

In all of these forms of ice, the simple H₂O molecule is the universal building block. However, in 1964 it was predicted that, under sufficient pressure, the hydrogen bonds could strengthen to the point where they might actually break the water molecule apart.

The possibility of directly observing a disassociated water molecule in ice has proven a fascinating lure for scientists and has driven extensive research for the last 50 years. In the mid-1990s several teams, including a Carnegie group, observed the transition using spectroscopic techniques. However, these techniques are indirect and could only reveal part of the picture.

A preferred method is to "see" the hydrogen atoms - or protons - directly. This can be done by bouncing neutrons off the ice and then carefully measuring how they are scattered.

However, applying this technique at high enough pressures to see the water molecule dissociate had simply not been possible in the past. Guthrie explained that: "you can only reach these extreme pressures if your samples of ice are really small. But, unfortunately, this makes the hydrogen atoms very hard to see."

Discovery: Date May 9, 2013

Magnitude: 19.3 mag

Discoverer: R. A. Kowalski (Catalina Sky Survey)

The orbital elements are published on M.P.E.C. 2013-K31.

Every summer, something strange and wonderful happens high above the north pole. Ice crystals begin to cling to the smoky remains of meteors, forming electric-blue clouds with tendrils that ripple hypnotically against the sunset sky. Noctilucent clouds - a.k.a. "NLCs"--are a delight for high-latitude sky watchers, and around the Arctic Circle their season of visibility is always eagerly anticipated.

News flash: This year, NLCs are getting an early start. NASA's AIM spacecraft, which is orbiting Earth on a mission to study noctilucent clouds, started seeing them on May 13th.

"The 2013 season is remarkable because it started in the northern hemisphere a week earlier than any other season that AIM has observed," reports Cora Randall of the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado. "This is quite possibly earlier than ever before."

Scientists using images from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) have estimated that the planet is bombarded by more than 200 small asteroids or bits of comets per year forming craters at least 12.8 feet (3.9 meters) across. Researchers have identified 248 new impact sites on parts of the Martian surface in the past decade, using images from the spacecraft to determine when the craters appeared. The 200-per-year planetwide estimate is a calculation based on the number found in a systematic survey of a portion of the planet.

MRO's High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera took pictures of the fresh craters at sites where before-and-after images by other cameras bracketed when the impacts occurred. This combination provided a new way to make direct measurements of the impact rate on Mars. This will lead to better age estimates of recent features on Mars, some of which may have been the result of climate change.
"It's exciting to find these new craters right after they form," said Ingrid Daubar of the University of Arizona, Tucson, lead author of the paper published online this month by the journal Icarus. "It reminds you Mars is an active planet, and we can study processes that are happening today."

These asteroids or comet fragments typically are no more than 3 to 6 feet (1 to 2 meters) in diameter. Space rocks too small to reach the ground on Earth cause craters on Mars because the Red Planet has a much thinner atmosphere.

The developers of a new mobile app may have just caught a break - and found a new group of potential customers - with the revelation that government is secretly snooping on Verizon cell phone users.

Developers in South Africa have developed an app called Seecrypt, which they say protects cell phone users from having their calls and texts tracked.

It was revealed Wednesday that the National Security Agency has forced Verizon to turn over phone records of customers inside the United States in the name of fighting terrorism.

But the developers of Seecrypt say you can get around the NSA with their app.

Users, according to the developers, don't have to worry about the government knowing who they are talking with.

For the app to work, both people wanting to text or call each other must have the application. But when the application is used, the phone company will not know the identity or phone number of the other person on the line. It will only know that the caller used Seecrypt.

Keeping top-secret tabs on your phone calls
The U.S. government is secretly collecting and analyzing the phone records of millions of Americans. One operation, authorized by a secret court order, requires a subsidiary of telecom giant Verizon to give the National Security Agency extensive data on phone calls of customers from April 25 to July 19. One possible process of how the NSA and Verizon are operating:

© Kevin A. Kepple, Jeff Dionise and George Petras, USA Today

Not so long ago, there was quite a bit of skepticism about the panspermia hypothesis - the idea that life on Earth got started by using alien molecules deposited by stellar travelers like comets or asteroids. At the time, this was presented as the somewhat harebrained imagining of overzealous science fiction fans. The more grounded alternative was to assume that all molecules necessary for life sprung exclusively from the conditions on ancient Earth. These days, however, there is significantly more credence given to the idea that life got a kickstart from alien molecules, and the support is beginning to come from all corners of the scientific world.

Now, even supercomputers are getting in on the action. A forthcoming study from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) claims that new supercomputer simulations of comet impacts predict the formation of some of the most crucial organic compounds for life. By making use of new and highly efficient computational models, the researchers were able to look into a comet impact for much longer than ever before - in this case, up to several hundred picoseconds. That might not sound like much, but it's enough to see a wide array of organic molecules come together.

The famous Miller-Urey experiment tried to replicate the conditions of early Earth, and produced many complex organic molecules.

NSA surveillance is legal.

True, as was slavery in the U.S., the Holocaust under Nazi Germany, Apartheid in South Africa and so forth. Laws mean very little when they are manipulated for evil.

I'm not doing anything wrong, so why should I care? If you're doing nothing wrong, then you've got nothing to hide!

See above. The definition of "wrong" can change very quickly.

I trust Obama on this.

All of your personal data is in the hands of the same people that run the TSA, the IRS and likely the DMV. Do you trust all of them all the time to never make mistakes or act on personal grudges or political biases? Do you believe none of them would ever sell your data for personal profit ever? In fact, the NSA is already sharing your data with, at minimum, British intelligence. That's a foreign government that your American government is informing on you to, FYI.

I really trust Obama on this.

Scientists may not know for certain whether life exists in outer space, but new research from a team of scientists led by a University of South Florida astrobiologist now shows that one key element that produced life on Earth was carried here on meteorites.

In an article published in the new edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USF Assistant Professor of Geology Matthew Pasek and researchers from the University of Washington and the Edinburg Centre for Carbon Innovation, revealed new findings that explain how the reactive phosphorus that was an essential component for creating the earliest life forms came to Earth.

The scientists found that during the Hadean and Archean eons -- the first of the four principal eons of Earth's earliest history -- the heavy bombardment of meteorites provided reactive phosphorus that when released in water could be incorporated into prebiotic molecules. The scientists documented the phosphorus in early Archean limestone, showing it was abundant some 3.5 billion years ago.

The scientists concluded that the meteorites delivered phosphorus in minerals that are not seen on the surface of Earth, and these minerals corroded in water to release phosphorus in a form seen only on the early Earth.

The discovery answers one of the key questions for scientist trying to unlock the processes that gave rise to early life forms: Why don't we see new life forms today?

Discovery Date: April 19, 2013

Magnitude: 17.7 mag

Discoverer: J. Nomen (La Sagra Sky Survey)

The orbital elements are published on M.P.E.C. 2013-K38.