Smog Documentary Blocked by China After Becoming Hit

A hard-hitting video investigation into China's grave air pollution problem has been pulled from mainstream video sites, days after it garnered more than 150 million hits online.

"Under the Dome", an independent documentary produced by former Chinese state media journalist Chai Jing, was no longer available on popular mainland video sites, including Youku and iQiyi, as of Saturday afternoon.

A link on Youku's website that previously led to the video now prompts the message: "We're very sorry, Youku was unable to find the page you requested."

The 103-minute documentary ?- hailed by some as China's "Inconvenient Truth" -- remains available on YouTube, which is blocked in China.

Versions of the video had racked up more than 155 million views on mainland Chinese video streaming sites just one day after its release last Saturday.

In the video, Chai, who previously worked as an anchor for state-run China Central Television, detailed causes of atmospheric pollution in the country, including slack government supervision and lenient penalties for polluters.

She has described the video as her "personal battle" against air pollution after her daughter was born with a benign tumour.

The removal of the documentary underscores the ruling Communist Party's sensitivity to public debate over China's notorious smog problem.

It also represents a sharp turnaround by Chinese authorities, who only days ago encouraged ubiquitous coverage of the video in official print and broadcast media.

China's newly-appointed environmental protection minister, Chen Jining, praised the video earlier this week, telling Chinese reporters that it should "encourage efforts by individuals to improve air quality".

The video's disappearance comes as the country's top annual political meeting, the National People's Congress (NPC), is underway in Beijing, under thick white skies and with the city's air quality registering as "very unhealthy", according to a US embassy reading.

Online discussions related to the video remain unblocked on China's popular social networks, and users of China's Twitter-like Sina Weibo on Saturday voiced frustration with the government's abrupt censorship move.

"Chai Jing's documentary, 'Under the Dome', has already been 'harmonised' on all of the mainstream video sites," wrote one user on Sina Weibo, using an ironic term for authorities' blocking of objectionable content. "Why? Give us a reason first!"

"When will this country be able to face the attitudes of its own people?" another Sina Weibo user wrote.

- 'Iron hand' -

China's cities are often hit by heavy pollution, blamed on coal-burning by power stations and industry, as well as vehicle use, and it has become a major source of popular discontent with the Communist Party, leading the government to declare a "war on pollution" and vow to reduce the proportion of energy derived from fossil fuels.

Chen, the environmental protection minister, Chen held an hour-long news conference Saturday afternoon on the sidelines of the NPC.

But out of a dozen questions asked -- mostly by Chinese state-run media outlets -- not a single one focused on the documentary.

NPC press conferences are usually highly stage-managed by Chinese authorities, with organizers pre-approving both the order of questions as well as the questions themselves.

Chen did make a reference to "APEC blue" -- a tongue-in-cheek phrase that became popular online during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in November, when Beijing shut down factories and enacted strict regulations to ensure a blue sky for visiting dignitaries.

"From international experience and the process of bringing about 'APEC blue', we can see that if we want to significantly improve our air quality, we cannot rely on heaven alone; we must bring down our emissions levels," Chen said.

"Can it be done?" he asked. "It can, but it's very difficult indeed, and it will require us all to make an extra effort."

Read more at Discovery News

Rover Opportunity Has Found Some Odd Mars Rocks

Veteran Mars rover Opportunity is on the verge of completing a marathon on Mars, but before it crosses the imaginary finishing line at “Marathon Valley,” the plucky six-wheeled robot has found some odd rocks that require further investigation.

“We drove to the edge of a plateau to look down in the valley, and we found these big, dark-gray blocks along the ridgeline,” said Matt Golombek, Opportunity Project Scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. “We checked one and found its composition is different from any ever measured before on Mars. So, whoa! Let’s study these more before moving on.”

Marathon Valley is so-called as when the rover rolls into the area, it will have completed the distance of a marathon on Mars — 26 miles and 385 yards, or 42.195 kilometers. At its current location, Opportunity is a mere 128 meters from completing that distance.

Apart from being a momentous location for Opportunity’s epic 11 year-long exploration of the red planet, the valley also contains clay minerals as discerned from satellite spectroscopic data; clays that contain invaluable insights to Mars’ wet past. But it seems that the entrance to Marathon Valley is just as enticing as the valley itself promises.

One of the strange-looking blocks has been nicknamed “Jean-Baptiste Charbonneau” and, using its robotic arm-mounted Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer instrument, the rover has determined that the rock contains “relatively high concentrations of aluminum and silicon,” unlike any other rock sample analyzed by Opportunity or sister rover Spirit (that was sadly lost in 2010 after becoming stuck in a sand trap in Gusev Crater).

Opportunity’s science team has now selected another rock in the area, named “Sergeant Charles Floyd,” for additional analysis. The naming convention for these two rocks were inspired by the Lewis and Clark Expedition that ventured across Western portion of what is now the United States in the early 19th Century.

According to a NASA JPL news release, the rocks are gray, but the visible light spectrum of Charbonneau is more purple than most Mars rocks, whereas Floyd is more blue. The bluer rocks appear to lie higher on the ridge.

After analyzing Charbonneau, Opportunity’s mission team uploaded new software to the rover’s computer that is now instructing the rover to avoid writing data to a corrupt bank in the rover’s flash memory. It is now only writing data to 6 of the 7 banks in the hope that Opportunity’s “amnesia events” can be remedied.

Since late 2014, Opportunity has been in “no flash mode”, instead only using its volatile memory that is wiped every day. Lack of flash memory and frustrating rover resets have slowed progress in recent months, but with this new upgrade, mission engineers hope that Opportunity can shrug off these age-related issues and soldier on.

Read more at Discovery News

ISIS Militants 'Bulldoze' Ancient City in Iraq

The United Nations condemned as a "war crime" Friday the Islamic State group's bulldozing of the ancient city of Nimrud, the jihadists' latest demolition of Iraqi cultural treasures.

After rampaging through Mosul's museum with sledgehammers and torching its library last month, ISIS "bulldozed" the nearby ruins of Nimrud Thursday, the tourism and antiquities ministry said.

Antiquities officials said ISIS militants had moved trucks last week to the site, which overlooks the Tigris River, 30 kilometers (18 miles) southeast of their main hub of Mosul.

"Until now, we do not know to what extent it was destroyed," one official said.

Nimrud was the latest victim of what appears to be a systematic campaign by the jihadists to obliterate Iraq's rich heritage.

"I'm really devastated. But it was just a matter of time, now we're waiting for the video. It's sad," Abdulamir Hamdani, an Iraqi archaeologist from Stony Brook University in New York said of the propaganda film of the destruction that ISIS will likely release.

He said the site's guards were denied access to Nimrud, which was founded in the 13th century BC and was once considered the jewel of the Assyrian era.

Its stunning reliefs and colossal statues of winged bulls with human heads guarding palace gates filled the world's museums in the 19th century.

A collection of 613 pieces of gold jewelry, ornaments and precious stones discovered in a royal tomb in 1988 has been described as one of the greatest archaeological finds of the 20th century.

"Their plan is to destroy Iraqi heritage, one site at a time," said Hamdani.

"Hatra of course will be next," he added, referring to a 2,000-year-old UNESCO-listed site about 100 kilometers south of Mosul known for its beautifully preserved temples blending Hellenistic, Roman and Eastern influences.

Irina Bokova, the head of the UN's cultural body UNESCO, condemned the destruction of Nimrud "with the strongest force".

"We cannot stay silent. The deliberate destruction of cultural heritage constitutes a war crime, and I call on all political and religious leaders in the region to stand up against this new barbarity," she said Friday.

- 'Killing civilization' -

UNESCO has called for tougher action to protect the many heritage sites in one of the cradles of civilization but little can be done in areas under jihadist control.

The destruction was met with condemnation and sadness on Baghdad's Mutanabi Street, a favorite haunt of Iraqi intellectuals.

"After they killed the human spirit, they began killing civilization," Ibrahim Dawood, a writer and poet, said of IS.

"A civilization considered the pride of Iraq and the world was erased in minutes," said Adel Abdullah, a health ministry employee.

ISIS attempts to justify the destruction by saying the statues are idolatrous, but experts say the jihadists traffic antiquities to fund their self-proclaimed "caliphate" and only destroy the pieces that are too bulky to be smuggled.

Stuart Gibson, a UNESCO expert on museums, said pressure from the international community would have little effect on IS.

"We have also traditionally called upon the peoples of the region to recognize the irreplaceable value and cultural necessity in protecting their cultural heritage," he said.

"Unfortunately today the people in the region are exhausted and terrified. The remainder of us can only stand on the outside looking on in absolute despair."

ISIS still controls large parts of northern and western Iraq, but has been losing ground under mounting military pressure from Iraqi federal and Kurdish forces backed by a US-led coalition and by Iran.

Baghdad launched a huge offensive Monday to retake the city of Tikrit, in what commanders have said was a stepping stone toward an even larger operation to free Mosul.

Read more at Discovery News

New Recipe For 19th Century Shipwrecked Beer

Scientists have scrutinized the contents of four bottles of beer found in a Baltic Sea shipwreck from the 1840s, an amber ale that perhaps was brewed in Belgium and was on its way to ports in Russia or Scandinavia.

The new analysis found that bacteria inside the beer bottles survived 170 years until it was discovered by divers in 2010, according to Brian Gibson, senior scientist at the VTT Technical Research Centre in Espoo, Finland.

“These bacteria were still alive,” Gibson said. The analysis “gave us some insight into the way that beers were brewed. We have a reasonably good idea about what kind of hops were used, different ones than today. These hops would have been harsher, these days they are quite mild. The one surprising thing is the beers were quite mild. The original alcohol level was 4.5 percent, nothing extreme.”

Gibson and colleagues at the University of Munich published their chemical and microbiological analysis recently in the Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry.

While some breweries have recreated ancient beer recipes from colonial, medieval or even Egyptian eras, Gibson believes this is the oldest intact bottle of beer. Over time, seawater seeped through the cork and made the contents about 30 percent saltwater. As a result, the big tasting by beer experts in Finland was a bit of a bust.

“The beer was quite degraded, it had a sell by date and it appeared to be well past that,” he said. “For the analysis, it was difficult to pick out the original flavors. We invited some of the most experienced beer tasters in Finland. The flavors were from bacterial contamination and not the original flavors of the beer.”

The scientists turned to chemical analysis of the remaining sugars and alcohol compounds.

“We looked at esters, which give beer a fruity or flowery taste. Most of the compounds that we would expect were there. In terms of the fruitiness, probably similar to modern beers. High level of 2-phenyl ethanol which gives a rose or floral aroma.”

Compared to modern craft brews, Gibson said it was like an amber or lambic ale, modern styles that are brewed with wild hops, floral and have sour notes.

Sam Calagione, founder and president of Dogfish Head brewery in Milton, Del., had been brewing historic beers since 1998, using recipes from archaeological digs that are passed on by scientists.

Dogfish’s “Midas Touch,” which is brewed from evidence found in a 2,700-year-old tomb in Turkey, is comprised of barley, saffron and white muscat grapes.

Read more at Discovery News

Probe Enters Orbit Around Dwarf Planet Ceres

The year of the dwarf planet has begun.

NASA's Dawn probe arrived at Ceres today (March 6) at about 7:39 a.m. EST (1239 GMT), becoming the first spacecraft ever to orbit a dwarf planet. Dawn's observations over the next 16 months should lift the veil on Ceres, which has remained largely mysterious since its 1801 discovery, mission team members say.

"Since its discovery in 1801, Ceres was known as a planet, then an asteroid and later a dwarf planet," Dawn mission director and chief engineer Marc Rayman, who's based at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, said in a statement. "Now, after a journey of 3.1 billion miles (4.9 billion kilometers) and 7.5 years, Dawn calls Ceres, home."

NASA officials got a signal from Dawn confirming that it's healthy and in orbit at about 8:36 a.m. EST (1336 GMT) today.

The milestone comes just four months ahead of another highly anticipated dwarf-planet encounter: On July 14, NASA's New Horizons probe will zoom through the Pluto system, giving scientists their first good looks at that faraway dwarf planet and its five known moons.

Dawn of the solar system

The $473 million Dawn mission launched in September 2007 to study Vesta and Ceres, the two largest objects in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Vesta's diameter is 330 miles (530 kilometers), while Ceres is about 590 miles (950 km) wide.

Both Vesta and Ceres are leftovers from the solar system's early days, planetary building blocks that would likely have kept growing if not for the interfering influence of Jupiter's immense gravitational tug.

The two bodies are "intact protoplanets from the very dawn of the solar system," Dawn Deputy Principal Investigator Carol Raymond, also of JPL, said during a news conference Monday (March 2)." So they're literally fossils that we can investigate to really understand the processes that were going on at that time."

Dawn orbited Vesta from July 2011 through September 2012, when the probe departed for Ceres. So today's arrival made history in another way as well: Dawn became the first spacecraft ever to orbit two objects beyond the Earth-moon system.

The mission's spaceflight feats are made possible by Dawn's innovative propulsion system, which accelerates xenon ions out the back of the spacecraft. This process generates tiny amounts of thrust; it would take Dawn four days to go from 0 to 60 mph (97 km/h), team members have said.

But Dawn's ion drive is about 10 times more efficient than traditional chemical systems. So the engines can keep firing for weeks, months and years, accelerating Dawn to tremendous speeds.

"With the 1,000 lbs. of xenon propellant that was loaded on board, Dawn has already accomplished more than 24,000 mph of velocity change," Dawn project manager Robert Mase of JPL said during Monday's news conference. "To put that in context: That's more than it takes to get a vehicle from the surface of the Earth up to the International Space Station."

Thanks to ion propulsion, Dawn crept up on Ceres slowly and gradually. The probe eased into orbit today without the need for any harrowing make-or-break maneuvers.

The mysteries of Ceres

Ceres is an intriguing world that in many ways looks more like the icy moons of the outer solar system, such as Jupiter's satellite Europa and the Saturn moon Enceladus, than its rocky neighbors in the asteroid belt.

For example, the dwarf planet is thought to consist of 25 to 30 percent water by mass, mostly in the form of ice. Ceres may also once have had (and might even still possess) an ocean of liquid water beneath its surface, as Europa and Enceladus do. Indeed, some researchers think Ceres may be capable of supporting microbial life.

"It's really going to be exciting to see what this exotic, alien world looks like," Rayman told Space.com in late January. "We're finally going to learn about this place."

Dawn is not equipped to search for signs of life. But the probe might be able to spot evidence of an underground ocean (if it exists), if it burbles up in places to interact with surface rocks, Rayman said. Measurements of Ceres' surface temperatures, when coupled with models of heat transportation through Ceres, could also shed light on the question of underground liquid water, said Dawn principal investigator Chris Russell of UCLA.

Dawn will also investigate two Ceres mysteries that have cropped up in the past year or so. Mission scientists will try to figure out just what is producing Ceres' mysterious bright spots, and they'll attempt to confirm and characterize a tenuous water-vapor plume spotted recently by researchers using Europe's Herschel Space Observatory.

Overall, Dawn will characterize the dwarf planet in detail, mapping out its surface and determining what Ceres is made of.

"We'll do typical planetary geology, more similar to what we do on Mars than what we did with Vesta," Russell told Space.com.

This work will not start immediately; Dawn will spend the next six weeks spiraling down to its initial science orbit, getting there on April 23. The probe will then begin taking Ceres' measure from an altitude of 8,400 miles (13,500 km). Dawn will study the dwarf planet from a series of increasingly closer-in orbits until the mission ends in June 2016.

Sizing up dwarf planets

While Ceres and Pluto are both dwarf planets — a category created by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) in 2006, when it demoted Pluto from a full-fledged planet in a decision that remains controversial today — they're quite different from each other, Russell said.

"Pluto formed differently, formed at a different time and formed out of different materials" than Ceres, he said.

Read more at Discovery News

Ancient 'Blue' Mars Lost an Entire Ocean to Space

Mars was once a small, wet and blue world, but over the past 4 billion years, Mars dried up and became the red dust bowl we know today.

But how much water did Mars possess? According to research published in the journal Science, the Martian northern hemisphere was likely covered in an ocean, covering a region of the approximate area as Earth’s Atlantic Ocean, plunging, in some places, to 1.6 kilometers (1 mile) deep.

“Our study provides a solid estimate of how much water Mars once had, by determining how much water was lost to space,” said Geronimo Villanueva, of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and lead author of the new paper, in an ESO news release. “With this work, we can better understand the history of water on Mars.”

Over a 6-year period, Villanueva and his team used the ESO’s Very Large Telescope (in Chile) and instruments at the W. M. Keck Observatory and the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility (both on Mauna Kea in Hawaii) to study the distribution of water molecules in the Martian atmosphere. By building a comprehensive map of water distribution and seasonal changes, they were able to arrive at this startling conclusion.

It is becoming clear that, over the aeons, Mars lost the majority of its atmosphere to space. That also goes for its water. Though large quantities of water were likely frozen below the surface as the atmosphere thinned and cooled, the water contained in an ocean of this size must have gone elsewhere — it must have also been lost to space.

The water in Earth’s oceans contains molecules of H2O, the familiar oxygen atom bound with 2 hydrogen atoms, and, in smaller quantities, the not-so-familiar HDO molecule. HDO is a type of water molecule that contains 1 hydrogen atom, 1 oxygen atom and 1 deuterium atom. The deuterium atom is an isotope of hydrogen; whereas hydrogen consists of 1 proton and an electron, deuterium consists of 1 proton, 1 neutron and 1 electron. Therefore, due to the extra neutron the deuterium contains, HDO molecules are slightly heavier than the regular H2O molecules.

Also known as “semi-heavy water,” HDO is less susceptible to being evaporated away and being lost to space, so logic dictates that if water is boiled (or sublimated) away on Mars, the H2O molecules will be preferentially lost to space whereas a higher proportion of HDO will be left behind.

By using powerful ground-based observatories, the researchers were able to determine the distribution of HDO molecules and the H2O molecules and compare their ratios to liquid water that is found in its natural state.

Of particular interest is Mars’ north and south poles where icecaps containing water and carbon dioxide ice persist to modern times. The water those icecaps contain is thought to document the evolution of water since the red planet’s wet Noachian period (approximately 3.7 billion years ago) to today. It turns out that the water measured in these polar regions is enriched with HDO by a factor of 7 when compared with water in Earth’s oceans. This, according to the study, indicates that Mars has lost a volume of water 6.5 times larger than the water currently contained within the modern-day icecaps.

Therefore, the volume of Mars’ early ocean must have been at least 20 million cubic kilometers, writes the news release.

Taking into account the Martian global terrain, most of the water would have been concentrated around the northern plains, a region dominated by low-lying land. An ancient ocean, with this estimate volume of water, would have covered 19 percent of the Martian globe, a significant area considering the Atlantic Ocean covers 17 percent of the Earth’s surface.

Read more at Discovery News

Impressive Tomb of Celtic Prince Found in France

An Iron Age Celtic prince lay buried with his chariot at the center of a huge mound in the Champagne region of France, according to the country’s National Archaeological Research Institute (Inrap).

Standing near the small village of Lavau, in northwestern France, the mound, 130 feet across, has been dated to the 5th century BC. The 2,500-year-old tomb has at its center a 150-square-foot burial chamber, housing the deceased and his chariot.

“This exceptional tomb contains unique funerary artifacts, which are fitting for one of the highest elite of the end of the first Iron Age,” Inrap, who has been excavating the site since October last year, said in a statement.

The major find so far has been a large bronze-decorated wine cauldron, most likely made by Greek or Etruscan craftsmen.

The cauldron measures about 3.2 feet in diameter and has four circular handles which are decorated with bronze heads that depict the Greek god Acheloos. The river deity is represented horned, bearded, with ears of a bull and a triple mustache.

More decorations are found around the edge of the cauldron. These include eight lioness heads.

Inside the cauldron, the archaeologists found a ceramic wine vessel, called oniochoe, decorated with black figures. Decorations include the god Dionysus, lying under a vine and facing a woman.

“It’s likely a banqueting scene, which is a recurring theme in Greek iconography,” Inrap said.

The Greco-Latin wine set, the northernmost found so far, is typical of an aristocratic Celtic banquet.

The wine cauldron not only represents the deceased’s wealth and power — it also reflects the growing interaction between the Celtic elites and the Mediterranean world, Inrap said.

Read more at Discovery News

Jimmy Kimmel Taps Docs to Mock Anti-Vaccine Deniers

Late-night talk shows are better known for topical comedy and celebrities plugging their new movie or CD than they are for science education.

However, talk show host Jimmy Kimmel of ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live” recently gave the pro-science, pro-vaccination effort a boost with a segment titled “A Message for the Anti-Vaccination Movement,” in which he mocked parents who refuse to get their kids vaccinated (“Here in L.A. parents are more scared of gluten than they are of smallpox,” Kimmel noted) followed by a funny and poignant video segment featuring real doctors addressing the anti-vaccination claims and expressing their (often bleeped and surely sincere) exasperation with those who refuse to vaccinate their children despite overwhelming scientific consensus about their safety.

Kimmel’s shout-out to medical science on the subject of vaccines is important and especially timely given the recent news story about measles outbreaks in Disneyland caused by unvaccinated children. Last month, the Toronto Star, one of Canada’s most prestigious newspapers, published an article highlighting the dangers of the Gardasil anti-HPV vaccine.

The article told the stories of a dozen Canadian girls whose health failed after receiving the vaccine and suggested that it was dangerous. The high-profile article suggested -- contrary to the bulk of scientific evidence -- that the vaccines were dangerous. Medical doctors and epidemiologists were outraged and the newspaper later acknowledged that they had “failed” in their reporting and did not give proper weight to science. The newspaper eventually retracted the story and removed it from its website.

Science Popularizers

This sort of high-profile star power can be very effective. Bringing science literacy to popular culture is nothing new, of course; Carl Sagan and Bill Nye have done it for decades. Astrophysicist and “Cosmos” host Neil deGrasse Tyson, for example, appeared on Comedy Central’s “The Colbert Report” in 2011 to explain how the ocean’s tides work, a phenomena that evidently completely baffled Bill O’Reilly on his Fox show “The O’Reilly Factor.” Though the tone was humorous Tyson took the opportunity to give a science-based, factual explanation of the process.

Even real-life doctors give flawed and misleading medical information; a study published in the “British Medical Journal” in December 2014 examining the medical advice given on TV talk shows such as "The Dr. Oz Show" and "The Doctors" concluded that many of the scientific claims made on the shows are unproven or unsubstantiated. In fact there was adequate evidence for fewer than half of the medical statements appearing on "The Dr. Oz Show."

In 2011, a viral video titled “I’m a Climate Scientist” from a group called Hungry Beast took a similar approach as Kimmel. Beginning by noting that the vast majority of people in the news media who discuss climate change are not scientists, the video (available in both clean and slightly NSFW versions) features nearly a dozen real-life climate scientists who sing a catchy hip hop song about the reality of climate change and clueless critics (sample lyric: “We’re scientists, what we speak is true… Unlike (climate change denier) Andrew Bolt our work is peer reviewed!”).

Jimmy Kimmel’s introduction notes, “If you’re one of these anti-vaccine people you probably aren’t going to take medical advice from a talk show host. I wouldn’t expect you to, I wouldn’t either. But I would expect you to take medical advice from almost every doctor in the world… The thing about doctors is that they didn’t learn about the human body from their friend’s Facebook page -- they went to medical school.”

Read more at Discovery News

Fastest Star Ever Seen Will Escape from the Galaxy

The compact star US 708 hasn’t had an easy life. Paired with a domineering partner, 708’s mass was siphoned away, reducing it to a dense, helium-filled core.

But 708 didn’t go quietly into the night. Instead, scientists believe the feeding frenzy ended in a supernova explosion that catapulted the ravaged remains with such force it’s leaving the galaxy. Fast.

A new study shows that the star, classified as a hot subdwarf, is blasting through the Milky Way at about 750 miles per second, faster than any other star in the galaxy.

It's also the only one of about 20 similar runaways slingshot away by a supernova explosion, research published in this week’s Science shows.

The other stars traveling fast enough to leave the Milky Way’s gravitational fist are believed to have been booted by the supermassive black hole lurking in the center of the galaxy.

“US 708 does not come from the galactic center. We don't know any other supermassive black hole in our galaxy. One needs one of those. A smaller, stellar-mass black hole formed by the collapse of a massive star can't do the job,” astronomer Stephan Geier, with the European Southern Observatory, told Discovery News.

“It’s only one object so far,” he added, but if others can be found, scientists would have a way to directly study supernova.

US 708 will leave the Milky Way in roughly 25 million years, cooling over time and transforming into a white dwarf star.

Astronomers first found the star in 2005, but at that time could only determine the velocity, not the rapid spin, which later became evidence for its donor past.

In 2009, theorists developed computer models showing that stars could reach escape velocity by a supernova blasts.

“This motivated us to have a closer look at US 708 again,” Geier said.

Read more at Discovery News

Hubble Shows Mirror, Mirror, Mirror, Mirror of an Ancient Supernova

Researchers using the Hubble Space Telescope took advantage of a naturally occurring zoom lens in space to capture an unprecedented quadruple image of an ancient supernova.

Between the supernova and the Earth-orbiting Hubble observatory lies a massive galaxy cluster whose gravity bends the path of the traveling photons. The existence of so-called “gravitational lenses” was proposed 100 years ago by physicist Albert Einstein. The first cosmic lens was discovered in 1979.

“Einstein’s theory of general relativity says that massive objects bend space and time. Light traveling close to massive objects will have their paths’ bent,” said astronomer Jennifer Lotz, with the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore.

In addition to testing Einstein’s theory of relativity, this type of curved light could be used to measure how fast the universe is expanding.

Astronomer Patrick Kelly, with the University of California Berkeley, and colleagues report this week about four different routes light from an ancient supernova took to reach the Hubble telescope after being deflected around an intervening elliptical galaxy. The phenomenon is known as an Einstein cross.

“Basically, we get to see the supernova four times and measure the time delays between its arrival in the different images, hopefully learning something about the supernova and the kind of star it exploded from, as well as about the gravitational lenses,” Kelly said in a statement.

The supernova will appear again in the next 10 years, as its light takes different paths around and through the gravitational lens.

The research is published in this week’s Science.

From Discovery News