26 January 2018
NASA launches GOLD to study Earth-space boundary
...ultraviolet light to determine the temperature and relative amounts of different particles, such as atomic oxygen and molecular nitrogen. It will then be able to provide a map of the Earth to reveal how atmospheric composition changes by location and...
31 January 2018
Surprise find of complex organic molecules in LMC
..., the LMC is referred to as a “low metallicity” galaxy because it lacks the rich abundance of heavy elements, like carbon, nitrogen and oxygen found in our galaxy. To become rich in heavy elements it can take several generations of the star...
07 March 2018
World's first firing for ESA's air-breathing electric thruster
... if the combined intake and thruster would work together or not. Finally, the xenon was replaced in stages by a nitrogen–oxygen air mixture until it could ignite solely from the collected atmospheric propellant. “This result means...
16 May 2018
Astronomers find stars forming just 250 million years after Big Bang
... were around in the Universe at that time; hydrogen and helium. Heavier elements such as carbon, oxygen and nitrogen only appeared after being created by fusion processes deep within the first stars. These atoms then...
03 August 2018
Plate tectonics not needed for life, but UV light is
... of plastics and nitrites and in conflict as a chemical warfare agent. Hydrogen cyanide on Earth was thought to be produced when nitrogen in the atmosphere interacted with carbon that slammed into the young Earth in the form of meteorites. Powered...
04 March 2019
Does life grow like this elsewhere in the cosmos?
... fundamental ingredients of life as we know it are amino acids; a simple organic compound containing carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, that build on one another to form proteins. To start the building process though, amino acids also need...
