Credit: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

It may be tiny, slimy, and blind, but the human fish has one thing going for it: It's one of the longest-lived animals around. Named for its fleshy color, the popsicle-sized amphibian, also known as the olm (Proteus anguinus) or the cave salamander, can live to be more than 100 and has an average life span of 69 years. That's about three times older than expected for its weight, researchers report online tomorrow in Biology Letters, as larger species tend to live longer. The team suggests that the human fish's unusual life span might be the result of an inactive lifestyle: The creatures don't move around much, and they reproduce only once every 12 years. Although, with looks like that, who could blame them?

What is WWT?

The WorldWide Telescope (WWT) is a Web 2.0 visualization software environment that enables your computer to function as a virtual telescope - bringing together imagery from the world's best ground- and space-based telescopes for the exploration of the universe. WWT blends terabytes of images, information, and stories from multiple sources into a seamless, immersive, rich media experience delivered over the Internet. Students of all ages will feel empowered to explore and understand the cosmos using WWT's simple and powerful user interface.

Discover the Red Planet with WWT | Mars

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By Wulffmorgenthaler.com

Credit: ESO/L. Calcada

Hurricane Katrina would be regarded as a gentle breeze on HD 209458b. The giant planet, located about 150 light-years away in the constellation Pegasus, is a hot Jupiter - nearly as big as our own gas giant, but orbiting very close to its parent star. Like Mercury and our moon, the planet is tidally locked, meaning it always shows the same face to its sun. As a result, HD 209458b's dayside surface temperature never dips below 1000°C, while its night side temperatures are hundreds of degrees cooler. Such a large temperature gradient generates eye-popping wind speeds. How fast? By carefully analyzing the spectra of starlight streaming through its atmosphere when the planet passes in front of its star, researchers report online today in Nature that HD 209458b generates winds of toxic carbon monoxide reaching 7000 kilometers per hour. That's twice as fast as any aircraft has ever flown - not that anyone would want to fly across this world.

Something strange has happened to Mars's polar ice cap. Instead of a uniform, roughly circular blob, like on Earth, the Martian version resembles a pinwheel (left), with dry, spiral troughs separating the ice sheets. There's also Chasma Boreale, the deep, dagger-shaped gouge that cuts across the pinwheel. Scientists had thought that the canyon, which is 2 kilometers deep, was carved by some catastrophic flood in the distant past. Now in two papers published tomorrow in Nature, researchers think they have solved both mysteries. Using a radar survey of the pole (right), which peered under the ice, they conclude that Chasma Boreale wasn't dug out at all. Instead, Martian winds built up the steep, canyon-like walls over millions of years. As for the pinwheel, the team reports that it likewise formed over many millennia, as strong winds pushed apart the dry ice crystals on the surface, much like winds on Earth create sand dunes.

One of NASA's three probes on the red planet has cashed in. Two years ago tomorrow, the Phoenix Mars Lander plopped down near the north pole, and for 5 months it transmitted data indicating the onetime presence of water beneath the frozen surface. Then the long and dark Martian winter interrupted communications. When spring returned last year, NASA mission controllers attempted to reestablish contact with the solar-powered probe, but 211 tries failed to detect a signal. Now, images taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter tell the tale. Not only is the lander buried by hundreds of kilograms of frozen carbon dioxide, but most likely, scientists reported today, the weight of the ice has broken off the solar panels, rendering Phoenix a relic - and maybe a candidate for display in a Martian museum by residents in some future, distant year.

Looking for long-term real estate investments? Avoid WASP-12b. The giant exoplanet, located about 600 light-years away in the constellation Auriga, is not long for its solar system. WASP-12 circles so close to its sun - it takes only a little more than an Earth day to complete one orbit - that its surface temperature exceeds 1500°C, making it the hottest alien world ever found. What's more, astronomers report in the 10 May issue of The Astrophysical Journal Letters, the planet's atmosphere is being slowly ripped away by the star's gravity. In only 10 million years or so, barely the wink of an eye on astronomical timescales, WASP-12b will boil away entirely.

See more ScienceShots.

Water, water everywhere?but where did it come from? From icy comets to Earth's vast oceans, our solar system is chock full of water, yet so far no one has been able to demonstrate how it formed in the first place. Getting atomic oxygen and molecular hydrogen to combine in the deep, cold vacuum of space is nearly impossible. Scientists think the answer may lie in a dusty interstellar cloud, like the one shown here. A team reports today at a meeting of the Royal Astronomical Society in Glasgow, United Kingdom, that each grain of interstellar dust provides a reactive surface on which wayward hydrogen and oxygen can combine into H2O. Eventually the two elements form an icy coating on the grain, the grains in the cloud condense gravitationally, and presto! Comets, icy moons, and seas galore.

From *Science*/AAAS

If you were standing in the southern hemisphere of Triton right now, you'd be enjoying the peak of summer. But forget the sunblock and leave the beach chairs at home. Summer temperatures on Neptune's largest moon don't get much warmer than -230°C. Still, astronomers have confirmed that, even though it's 4.5-billion-kilometers away, the sun can generate seasonal changes in the Neptunian system. In Triton's case, the summer sun sublimates a filmy surface layer of frozen carbon monoxide into gas. Winter will come to the region in another 70 years, when temperatures will drop to about -240°C. in the southern hemisphere, and atmospheric carbon monoxide will crystallize and fall back to the surface. In the meantime, you can make a virtual visit to Triton, thanks to this video from the European Southern Observatory.

Credit: NASA/Tod Strohmeyer (GSFC)/Dana Berry (Chandra X-ray Observatory)

Talk about cheek to cheek. These two ancient stars are both burned-out relics of suns once about the size of our own. And they've spiraled in so close that they orbit each other every 5.4 minutes and occupy a space only about 100,000 kilometers wide - about a quarter the distance between Earth and the Moon. Astronomers report this week in The Astrophysical Journal Letters that the pair, called HM Cancri and located about 16,000 light-years away, represents the smallest and closest-orbiting binary system ever found. The team also suspects that HM Cancri might help them confirm the existence of gravity waves, an elusive phenomenon that Einstein theorized can happen when rapidly spinning massive objects generate ripples through space-time.

• Archive

• Tiny Amphibian, Long Life
  2010-07-21 16:22:51 - 16 views - 0 reactions
  Credit: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique It may be...
• WorldWide Telescope
  2010-07-13 18:26:24 - 22 views - 0 reactions
  What is WWT? The WorldWide Telescope (WWT) is a Web 2.0...
• Paperclip
  2010-07-02 08:18:58 - 30 views - 0 reactions
  By Wulffmorgenthaler.com
• Supersonic Winds Rip Alien World
  2010-06-24 08:20:45 - 32 views - 0 reactions
  Credit: ESO/L. Calcada Hurricane Katrina would be regarded as...
• Mystery of Mars Polar Pinwheel Unraveled
  2010-05-26 22:43:35 - 88 views - 0 reactions
  Something strange has happened to Mars's polar ice cap. Instead...

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