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Astronomers have used the MeerKAT radio telescope to detect hydrogen gas billions of light-years away from us — from a period when the cosmos was billions of years younger than its current age of 13.8 billion years. The research may provide astronomers with a new way of mapping the large-scale structure of the universe . The technique would rely on charting out where hydrogen, the universe's lightest and most abundant element, is located across the cosmos. It's known as hydrogen intensity mapping. Neutral hydrogen emits a faint radio signal that astronomers call the 21-centimeter line. As the cosmos expands under the influence of dark energy , the wavelength of this radio signal is stretched, or " redshifted ." The extremity of the redshift allows astronomers to determine how long a particular signal has been travelling to us and thus what period of the universe the hydrogen tha...

Creator Gene Roddenberry's " Wagon Train To The Stars ," has certainly lived long and prospered since " Star Trek " first launched on the NBC Television Network on Sept. 8, 1966 with the hour-long debut episode titled "The Man Trap." Since then, this hopeful space fantasy franchise flourished and grew to encompass a total of 9 live-action series, 3 animated series, and 14 feature films across six decades, inspiring multiple generations with its adventurous spirit, enduring optimism, and thoughtful humanism. Now, as its 60th anniversary approaches, Paramount and its crew of worldwide partners are celebrating the milestone occasion with global fan events, theatrical screenings, special TV programming, and even a voyage into orbit. Here’s a short list of some of the more notable "Star Trek" festivities planned for Earth: Firstly, limited-release restored ...

Venus is something of a frustration for stargazers. It's the brightest planet and the easiest to see, while the sight of it close to a crescent moon is one of the most achingly beautiful sights in the sky. Yet it gives almost nothing away. Mars has its reddish color. Saturn rewards even a small telescope with its spectacular rings. Jupiter has moons, belts and an obvious disk. Venus , meanwhile, spends months blazing away in twilight looking exactly like what people who do not stargaze assume a star should look like — a brilliant white point. What we're seeing is sunlight reflected by its global cloud cover, which in turn makes it impossible to see in any detail. But every now and then, it does something revealing by becoming a crescent. That is when Venus, an inner planet relative to Earth, finally makes sense. Put a small telescope on Venus this week and its appearance is completely d...

Astronomers have identified a surprisingly young population of fading radio galaxies whose supermassive black holes have already switched off their powerful jets. The confirmed remnants range from about 8 to 42 million years old, suggesting many may disappear from view much faster than previously recognized. More distant remnants also seem to fade especially quickly, helping explain why they have been so difficult to detect. from Latest Science News -- ScienceDaily https://ift.tt/M74NGfP

Astronomers have witnessed a small, icy body that orbits the sun out beyond Jupiter transforming into a comet, providing a missing link between comets and inert bodies called centaurs. The object in question is called 450P/LONEOS and is named after the Lowell Observatory survey that found it back in 2004. It is a centaur, which is a breed of inactive body that orbits the sun between Jupiter and Neptune . These objects are thought to have wandered in from the Kuiper Belt beyond Pluto , their paths perhaps perturbed by distant gravitational interactions with the gas giant planets, or even a nudge from a passing star . Because a given centaur's orbit crosses the path of at least one of Jupiter, Saturn , Uranus and Neptune, a centaur's orbit is unstable over millions of years. Consequently, the giant planets can push them even closer to the sun or kick them out of the solar system entir...

It's hard to downplay excitement for Alien: Isolation 2 after a first menacing teaser and promising early previews. Alien video games are in a good spot right now thanks to bangers like Aliens Dark Descent and Fireteam Elite 2, but nothing has hit quite like Creative Assembly's 2014 survival horror classic. Now, after a thrilling Gamescom hands-on demo, it looks like the studio has nailed it once again, bringing Xenomorph -shaped scares to the next generation. At least that's what its breezy prologue section I played at Gamescom suggests. As the earliest possible section of the game, no new mechanics were present, and the larger ideas and structure are still a big mystery. Instead, Sega and Creative Assembly have bet on pure atmosphere, dread that runs deeper thanks to more detailed graphics and audio, and of course, letting everyone know the Xenomorph's dynamic AI has evolved ...