Wow! Stunning picture of Milky Way taken from Northern Chile

image thumb981

NASA published this stunning photograph today featuring the road that connects the Northern Cross and Southern Cross – the central band of our Milky Way Galaxy. Taken from Laguna Cejar in Northern Chile by Nicholas Buer, the photo was shot in October, just after sunset. Included in the photo are the Moon, Venus (above/left of…

Read more

Wave your hands in the air and dance like the Peacock Spider

image thumb951

This festive little critter knows how to party. It’s fancy name is Maratus volans but we prefer the more descriptive term, peacock spider (or “gliding spider”), a species of jumping spider with colorful red, blue, black, and green flap-like extensions on its abdomen that it raises for display during mating. The colorful little showboat’s artistic…

Read more

Nearby record-breaking M82 supernova continues to grow brighter

image thumb761

Three days ago, a white dwarf exploded in the nearby M82 galaxy (aka Messier 82, Starburst Galaxy, or the Cigar Galaxy), the closest galaxy to our own. The explosion created the closest, and brightest, supernova seen by man in over a quarter of a century. In fact, the explosion is so bright, backyard astronomers are…

Read more

Astronomers may have found the impossible – a star within a star

image thumb691

Seemingly impossible, the idea of a nested star has been proposed before – it’s just nobody has ever found an example of the cosmic oddity. That may be about to change though. Scientists are keeping the name of the star a secret right now – at least until their peers can validate their findings –…

Read more

For first time in history, dinosaur fossils found in Saudi Arabia

image thumb681

For the first time in history, confirmed dinosaur fossils have been found in Saudi Arabia. Rare in the Arabian Peninsula, the finding of the 72-million-year-old tail-bones of the plant-eating titanosaur and a fossilized teeth of a sharp-toothed theropod were discovered in the Adaffa formation, a pile of sandstone and conglomerates deposited during the Late Cretaceous…

Read more