In April 2024 a study was published in the journal Planetary and Space Science looking at one of the lesser-known meteor streams. In this study a team of astronomers and astrophysicists from the Institute of Astrophysics of the National Academy of Sciences of Tajikistan and the Astronomical Observatory Institute, A. M. University in Poland, examined evidence for a meteor stream whose radiant point was in the constellation Virgo, hence bearing the name the Virginid stream. The authors begin their report by establishing a context for their research. (If their wording is somewhat awkward, bear in mind that English is not their first language.) I have made minor editing and grammatical changes for clarity.

"Besides major planets a lot of smaller bodies are moving in the solar system. This population consists of comets, asteroids, and meteoroids. Comets and asteroids are parents of meteoroids. A huge number of meteoroids generated by a parent body form a meteoroid stream. The stream meteoroids are moving in interplanetary space in similar orbits close to the orbit of the parent. It is accepted that the activity of comets or their destruction are responsible for formation of meteoroid streams. Forming of a stable long-lived meteoroid stream can be provided by a periodic normal gas- and dust producing activity of comet which is observed during passage of the perihelion. (perihelion is the closest passage of the object to the Sun.) . . . A concept of the formation of meteoroid streams as a result of the cometary activity, as well the circumstances of their evolution and structure are described in a lot of papers. When the Earth crosses the meteoroid stream orbits, meteor showers occur. As was shown by Babadzhanov and Obrubov, 1992, one stream might produce from four to eight meteor showers observable on the Earth. Note, quadruple crossings are the most common among meteoroid streams. For instance, the Taurid meteoroid stream consists of four meteor showers. At the per-perihelion crossing with the Earth's orbit they are the Northern and Southern Taurids . . . which are observable on the Earth annually in September-November, as well as the Daytime beta-Taurids and Daytime zeta-Perseids observable in June-July which are occurring at the post-perihelion crossing. The well-known parent body of the Taurid stream is comet 2P/Encke; however, it turned out that more than 40 near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) relate to this family. The dynamical association of these objects was found and the family was called the Taurid asteroid-meteoroid complex. It was determined that asteroids of the Taurid complex very likely are extinct cometary nuclei or dead fragments of the larger comet-progenitor."

I would note that there is a widely held opinion that comet Encke is not the original progenitor comet of the Taurid stream, rather it is a fragment of the original nucleus which was much larger. As many enthusiasts of this work and research are aware, the Taurid meteor streams have likely played a profound role in both Earth and human history over the past 25 to 30 thousand years. It has been proposed that impact events at the lower Younger Dryas boundary were associated with the Taurid stream. It is likely that the Tunguska event of 1908 was caused by a fragment of the stream as well. It is probable that many more events involving the Taurids remain to be discovered.

Scientists have uncovered the properties of a rare earth element that was first discovered 80 years ago at the very same laboratory, opening a new pathway for the exploration of elements critical in modern technology, from medicine to space travel.

Promethium was discovered in 1945 at Clinton Laboratories, now the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and continues to be produced at ORNL in minute quantities. Some of its properties have remained elusive despite the rare earth element's use in medical studies and long-lived nuclear batteries. It is named after the mythological Titan who delivered fire to humans and whose name symbolizes human striving.

"The whole idea was to explore this very rare element to gain new knowledge," said Alex Ivanov, an ORNL scientist who co-led the research. "Once we realized it was discovered at this national lab and the place where we work, we felt an obligation to conduct this research to uphold the ORNL legacy."

HELSINKI — China's Chang'e-6 mission lander made a successful soft landing on the far side of the moon late Saturday and will soon begin collecting unique lunar samples.

The Chang'e-6 lander made a soft landing at 6:23 p.m. Eastern June 1 (2223 UTC), the China National Space Administration (CNSA) announced shortly after the event. The lander targeted a southern portion of Apollo crater within the South Pole-Aitken (SPA) Basin on the lunar far side.

The landing is a critical step towards bringing unique and scientifically invaluable lunar samples to Earth for analysis. U.S. decadal surveys have highlighted an SPA sample return as a highest priority science objective.

The Chang'e-6 lander used a variable 7,500-newton-thrust engine to slow its velocity in lunar orbit and begin its descent. The lander was scheduled to make rapid positional adjustments at an altitude of around 2.5 kilometers above the lunar surface before continuing its descent. The spacecraft entered a hovering phase for fine hazard avoidance at approximately 100 meters above the surface. It used light detection and ranging (LiDAR) and optical cameras to find a safe landing spot.

Chang'e-6 is China's fourth successful lunar landing from four attempts, and the second on the far side of the moon. It is also the third lunar landing in 2024. It follows Japan's SLIM in January and Intuitive Machines' IM-1 Odysseus lander in February.

This month, the Sun produced the most intense geomagnetic storms in 20 years and Northern Lights as far south as the southern U.S. Now, active Sun regions are facing Earth, putting Earth in the line of fire once again.

Sunspot regions 3663 and 3664, which caused the G5-level geomagnetic storms in mid-May, are back but with new names as they emerge from the other side of the Sun. Old region 3663 is now 3691, and old region 3664 is now 3697. On the other side of the Sun, the areas were facing toward Mars, sending space weather toward the Red Planet.

NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center has been busy tracking activity in these regions, including a long-duration strong flare and associated coronal mass ejection prompting a Geomagnetic Storm Watch through this weekend.

Cancer is often regarded as a disease of the modern age. However, medical texts from ancient Egypt indicate that healers of the time were aware of the condition. Now, new evidence from a skull more than 4,000 years old has revealed that ancient Egyptian physicians may have tried to treat certain cancers with surgery.

The skull belonged to a man who was about 30 to 35 years old when he died, and it resides in the Duckworth Laboratory collection at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom. Since the mid-19th century, scientists have studied the skull's scarred surface, including multiple lesions thought to represent bone damage from malignant tumors. Archaeologists regard the skull, labeled 236 in the collection, as one of the oldest examples of malignancy in the ancient world, dating back to between 2686 BC and 2345 BC.

But when researchers recently peered more closely at the tumor scars with a digital microscope and micro-computed tomography (CT) scans, they detected signs of cut marks around the tumors, suggesting that sharp metal instruments had been used to remove the growths. The scientists reported the findings Wednesday in the journal Frontiers in Medicine.

In a new study published in the journal iScience, researchers from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and the Institut Botànic de Barcelona (IBB-CSIC) in Spain present a new record-holder for the largest amount of DNA stored in the nucleus of any living organism on the planet.

Coming in at more than 100 meters of unraveled DNA, the New Caledonian fork fern species Tmesipteris oblanceolata was found to contain more than 50 times more DNA than humans and has dethroned the Japanese flowering plant species Paris japonica, which has held this record since 2010.

In addition, the plant has achieved three Guinness World Records titles for Largest plant genome, Largest Genome, and Largest fern genome for the amount of DNA in the nucleus.

Update (1245ET):


The Boeing-Lockheed Martin joint venture United Launch Alliance wrote on X, "Hold. The countdown has been stopped. Safing of the Atlas V, Starliner and launch pad systems is underway."


"The launch of Boeing's Starliner spacecraft has been delayed. Ground controllers called a hold with 3 minutes and 50 seconds left in the countdown. No reason for the delay was immediately given. There is another launch opportunity Sunday," Washington Post's Christian Davenport wrote in a blog update.

If you wanted evidence that a giant comet wiped out the wooly mammoth, you might look for a giant crater.

But so far, you'd be out of luck.

"Some of our critics have said, 'Where's the crater?'" says Christopher Moore, an archaeologist at the University of South Carolina. "As of now, we don't have a crater or craters."

But Moore says that by looking below the surface, you can find strong evidence for the Younger-Dryas impact hypothesis, which states that large comet fragments hit Earth or exploded in the atmosphere shortly after the last ice age, setting off cataclysmic changes in the environment, crater or not.

The People's Liberation Army of China has demonstrated some of its most advanced military capabilities during joint drills with Cambodia scheduled to end on Thursday. The list of weapons employed by soldiers included several types of military robots, including a dog-like, remotely operated device equipped with an assault rifle.

"Intelligent equipment," including all sorts of robots and unmanned aerial vehicles, were the focus of the Golden Dragon 2024 drills, Chinese state broadcaster CCTV said in a video report published this week. The clip demonstrated several types of remotely controlled robots used for a wide range of tasks, including reconnaissance, target detection, and even assault operations.

Reconnaissance robot 'dogs' weighing 15 kilograms (33lbs) could operate for between two and four hours, providing real-time video transmission to troops, a device operator told CCTV. The robot was shown to be capable of rapidly lying down, of jumping and of moving in various directions on flat terrain. According to Chinese media, such devices are capable of planning their routes and of avoiding obstacles without additional input from their operators.

A new analysis of data collected on Venus more than 30 years ago suggests the planet may currently be volcanically active.

A research group from Italy led by David Sulcanese of the Università d'Annunzio in Pescara, Italy, has used data from a radar mapping of Venus's surface taken in the early 1990s to search for volcanic lava flow, finding it in two regions.

The discovery suggests that volcanic activity may be currently active and more widespread than was previously thought, supporting previous indirect evidence that there is volcanic activity on Venus.

The work is published in the journal Nature Astronomy.

Venus is sometimes called "Earth's twin sister." Though only slightly smaller than Earth, its CO₂-dominated atmosphere has a massive greenhouse effect that bakes its surface at about 465°C (870°F).