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Categories: Ecology: Invasive Species, Space: Astronomy

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The Hobby-Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment (HETDEX) announced their first publicly released catalog of astronomical objects. Over 200,000 astronomical objects including distant stars and galaxies have been mapped in 3D for the first time. Astronomers will use the data to better determine the Hubble constant, used to gauge the expansion of the universe. Possible 'naked black hole' early highlight of science results from HETDEX survey. TACC systems Corral, Stampede2, and Maverick were used in the data analysis and storage. Data publicly available through JupyterHub notebooks.

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Since their discovery by NASA's Voyager mission in the 1980s, temporary 'spoke' features across Saturn's rings have fascinated scientists, yet eluded explanation. They have been observed in the years preceding and following the planet's equinox, becoming more prominent as the date approaches. Saturn's upcoming autumnal equinox of the northern hemisphere on May 6, 2025, means that spoke season has come again. NASA's Hubble Space Telescope will be on the job studying the spokes, thanks to time dedicated to Saturn in the mission's ongoing Outer Planet Atmospheres Legacy (OPAL) program. Are the smudgy features related to Saturn's magnetic field and its interaction with the solar wind, as prevailing theory suggests? Confirmation could come in this spoke season, as scientists combine archival data from NASA's Cassini mission with new Hubble observations.

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The endangered Bahama Warbler may be surviving on just one island following Hurricane Dorian's devastation in 2019, according to researchers. A new study shows the bird's distribution and ecology on Grand Bahama before the hurricane struck. But the team says that the warbler may now only survive on neighboring Abaco island, after hurricane Dorian destroyed the bird's forest habitat on Grand Bahama. The research comes from the same team that found what is thought to have been the last living Bahama Nuthatch, previously thought to have been extinct.

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Dust launched from the moon's surface or from a space station positioned between Earth and the sun could reduce enough solar radiation to mitigate the impacts of climate change.

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Scientists have discovered a new ring system around a dwarf planet on the edge of the Solar System. The ring system orbits much further out than is typical for other ring systems, calling into question current theories of how ring systems are formed.

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Astronomers have uncovered striking new evidence for a mass migration of stars into the Andromeda Galaxy. Intricate patterns in the motions of stars reveal an immigration history very similar to that of the Milky Way.

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New research reveals that artificial intelligence can be used to find planets outside of our solar system. The recent study demonstrated that machine learning can be used to find exoplanets, information that could reshape how scientists detect and identify new planets very far from Earth.

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New research shows that degraded savanna ecosystems can reap lasting benefits from a single seeding of native understory plants. Once a diverse understory of savanna plants became established, its long-term persistence was relatively unaffected by environmental factors -- with one exception. Higher temperatures during the height of the growing season were associated with poorer long-term survival among some species, indicating one threat posed by a warming climate.

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A new examination of ancient and current species of reptiles conducted by paleobiologists reveals the serious impact of the disappearance of even a few species of reptiles in some island areas. The study has startling conclusions about how, on smaller islands in the Caribbean where human impact was greatest, extinctions have led to the loss of up to two-thirds of the supports for the ecosystem that native reptile species once provided there.

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Thanks to the James Webb Space Telescope's first images of galaxy clusters, researchers have, for the very first time, been able to examine very compact structures of star clusters inside galaxies, so-called clumps.

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Roughly 500 million light-years away, near the constellation Delphinus, two galaxies are colliding. Known as merging galaxy IIZw096, the luminous phenomenon is obscured by cosmic dust, but researchers first identified a bright, energetic source of light 12 years ago. Now, with a more advanced telescope, the team has pinpointed the precise location of what they have dubbed the 'engine' of the merging galaxy.

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Researchers discovered a new species of frog in Africa that has an unusual trait: it's completely silent. The Ukaguru spiny-throated reed frog does not croak, sing or ribbit. Found in Tanzania's Ukaguru Mountains for which it is named, Hyperolius ukaguruensis is among the few frogs around the world that do not vocalize to other frogs.

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Astronomers have directly measured the mass of a single, isolated white dwarf -- the surviving core of a burned-out, Sun-like star. Researchers found that the white dwarf is 56 percent the mass of our Sun. This agrees with earlier theoretical predictions of the white dwarf's mass and corroborates current theories of how white dwarfs evolve as the end product of a typical star's evolution. The unique observation yields insights into theories of the structure and composition of white dwarfs.

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A study found that under more severe climate warming scenarios, the inventory of trees used for timber in the continental United States could decline by as much as 23% by 2100. The largest inventory losses would occur in two of the leading timber regions in the U.S., which are both in the South.

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Insects play crucial roles in almost every ecosystem -- they pollinate more than 80% of plants and are a major source of food for thousands of vertebrate species -- but insect populations are collapsing around the globe, and they continue to be overlooked by conservation efforts. Protected areas can safeguard threatened species but only if these threatened species actually live within the areas we protect. A new study found that 76% of insect species are not adequately covered by protected areas.

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Astronomers using data from the SMARTS 1.5-meter Telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO), have made the first confirmed detection of a star system that will one day form a kilonova -- the ultra-powerful, gold-producing explosion created by merging neutron stars. These systems are so phenomenally rare that only about 10 such systems are thought to exist in the entire Milky Way.

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In a new study, a research team discovered evidence that browsing by white-tailed deer had relatively little long-term impact on two tree species in a northern forest.

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A group of scientists have released one of the most precise measurements ever made of how matter is distributed across the universe today.

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A new conceptual framework for incorporating the way plants use carbon and water, or plant dynamics, into fine-scale computer models of wildland fire provides a critical first step toward improved global fire forecasting.

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Researchers have completed the first real-world study of Martian dust dynamics based on Ingenuity's historic first flights on the Red Planet, paving the way for future extraterrestrial rotorcraft missions. The work could support NASA's Mars Sample Return Program, which will retrieve samples collected by Perseverance, or the Dragonfly mission that will set course for Titan, Saturn's largest moon, in 2027.