Arecibo telescope finds critical ingredients for the soup of life in a galaxy far, far away

This is just tomato soup, not the “soup of life.”

Astronomers from Arecibo Observatory radio telescope in Arecibo, Puerto Rico, have detected for the first time the molecules methanimine and hydrogen cyanide – two ingredients that build life-forming amino acids – in a galaxy some 250 million light years away.
“Just add water!” said Robert Minchin, an [...]

Supercomputer could throw light on ‘mysterious’ dark energy

Looks pretty cool, eh?

Cosmologists have run a series of huge computer simulations of the Universe that could ultimately help solve the mystery of dark energy.
Results of the simulations, carried out by Durham University’s world-leading Institute for Computational Cosmology (ICC), tell researchers how to measure dark energy – a repulsive force that counteracts gravity.
The findings, published [...]

Distant star sheds light on the birth of planets

Astronomers poring over a young star 180 light years from Earth have found evidence that stellar birth can lead to the formation of a planet only millions of years later, a mere blink on the cosmic timescale.

Parallel universes, could they really exist?

Just a couple parallel universes

An article published yesterday suggested the idea that our universe may be no more than a “speck of cosmic dust” amongst the infinite number of parallel worlds. This idea isn’t really anything new, however, an increasing number of scientists are beginning to at least warm up to the idea of [...]