Free Republic

'If the moons had benefited from long-term heating, then they could have maintained a thick ocean.' NASA's James Webb Space Telescope captured this shot of Uranus and six of its 27 known moons. A number of background objects, including distant galaxies, are also visible. (Image credit: SCIENCE: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI IMAGE PROCESSING: Joseph DePasquale (STScI)) The four biggest moons of Uranus may harbor salty oceans below their frozen surfaces, a new study suggests. Scientists taking a fresh look at 40-year-old data sent home by NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft say that the satellites Titania and Oberon, which orbit the farthest...

Explanation: What's that moving across the sky? A planet just a bit too faint to see with the unaided eye: Uranus. The gas giant out past Saturn was tracked earlier this month near opposition -- when it was closest to Earth and at its brightest. The featured video captured by the Bayfordbury Observatory in Hertfordshire, UK is a four-hour time-lapse showing Uranus with its four largest moons in tow: Titania, Oberon, Umbriel and Ariel. Uranus' apparent motion past background stars is really dominated by Earth's own orbital motion around our Sun. The cross seen centered on Uranus is called a...

Gigantic dinosaurs frolicked and splashed some 170 million years ago in the lagoons of what is now Scotland. That’s what a team of paleontologists has determined after discovering dozens of jumbo-sized footprints belonging to long-necked sauropods on the Isle of Skye. Mixed with the herbivores’ tracks were a few clawed impressions left behind by two-legged meat-eaters known as theropods. The footprints present a snapshot of life during an important period in dinosaur history that has yielded relatively few fossil remains. In the mid-Jurassic, sauropods necks grew longer and the first birds were figuring out flight.Identifying two types of footprints in...

Explanation: From the early hours of October 8, over the Santa Cruz Mountains near Los Gatos, California, the totally eclipsed Moon shows a range of color across this well-exposed telescopic view of the lunar eclipse. Of course, a lunar eclipse can only occur when the Moon is opposite the Sun in Earth's sky and gliding through the planet's shadow. But also near opposition during this eclipse, and remarkably only half a degree or so from the lunar limb, distant Uranus is faint but easy to spot at the lower right. Fainter still are the ice giant's moons. To find them,...

Bell's Brewery Inc. beers are headed back to the Windy City nearly two years after the company pulled its brands out of the Chicago market following a nasty dispute with a distributor.

Secret spy missions forced to the surface Brendan Nicholson September 8, 2006 AUSTRALIAN submarines carried out top secret Cold War spying missions on Russia and China that came to an abrupt end when a submarine was forced to surface in view of the foreign fleet after becoming entangled in fishing nets. News of the inglorious end to 14 years of high-risk secret missions in 1992, and the fact that they even occurred, has emerged because the sailors involved want their missions officially designated "warlike operations" Warlike or not, the missions carried out between 1978 and 1992 were certainly dangerous, with...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2003 January 15 Ringed Planet Uranus Credit: E. Lellouch, T. Encrenaz (Obs. Paris), J. Cuby , A. Jaunsen (ESO-Chile), VLT Antu, ESO Explanation: Yes it does look like Saturn, but Saturn is one of only four giant ringed planets in our Solar System. And while Saturn has the brightest rings, this system of rings and moons actually belongs to planet Uranus, imaged here in near-infrared light by the...