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Explanation: At left, a dramatic image sequence follows late September's total lunar eclipse above a rugged landscape and sea of clouds from the Canary island of La Palma. Composited in a circular fisheye projection, the brightness of the Full Perigee Moon changes drastically in transition from outside the total eclipse phase compared to its dim glow during the 72 minute long totality. At right, a single frame captures the dark red lunar disk in a moment during the total eclipse phase, the Moon deep within Earth's shadow. In fact, the size of the eclipsed Moon image at right approximately illustrates...

Scientists say the rat is part of an "amazing group of rodents" only found in a remote part of Sulawesi Island in Indonesia.A new species of rat has been discovered on an island in Indonesia. The previously unknown hog-nosed shrew rat (Hyorhinomys stuempkei) was found in a remote and mountainous region of Sulawesi Island located about two days' hike from the closest village. Scientists consider the rat so exceptional that they have described it not only as a new species but a new genus - a step up from the "new species" label. The rat was discovered by an international...

A Japanese scientist has won this year's Nobel Prize in Physics. Takaaki Kajita proved that neutrinos have mass. The neutrino is an elementary particle consisting of matter. Kajita observed neutrinos at a facility deep underground. He was part of a team that detected that some of the particles change to different types of neutrino. That proved neutrinos have mass. The discoveries were revealed at an international conference in 1998. His work surprised researchers all around the world because it disproved the established theory that neutrinos do not have mass. Kajita is the 24th Nobel Prize winner born in Japan. And...

Explanation: What would it look like to fly past Pluto? The robotic New Horizons spacecraft did just this in late July and continues to return stunning pictures of the dwarf planet. Some well-chosen flyby images have now been digitally sequenced to create the featured video. The animation begins by showing New Horizon's approach to the Pluto system, with Pluto and its largest moon Charon orbiting a common center of mass. As the spacecraft bears down on Pluto uniquely, surprising surface features are nearly resolved that, unfortunately, quickly rotate out of view. New Horizons then passes just above and near a...

Explanation: This night was so serene you could see Orion rise downwards. The unusual spectacle was captured in this single-exposure image, featuring a deep sky around the famous constellation of Orion that appeared both above -- and reflected in -- a peaceful lake in the Gyirong Valley of Tibet, China. Taken last year at this time, the three belt stars of Orion can be seen lined up almost vertically above and below the Himalayan Mountains. The complex Orion Nebula can be seen to the belt stars' right, while the red-glowing circular structure surrounding Orion is Barnard's Loop. Also, the bright...

Can churches engage transhumanism, which may very well be the next big science vs. religion battle, positively or should they absolutely resist this movement, an academic institution in Alabama asked during a multi-day event focused on whether Christianity and Transhumanism could co-exist. Samford University's Center for Science and Religion held the event, titled "Transhumanism and the Church," which took place from Sept. 24-26 and featured 27 presentations with approximately 120 attendees for the opening lecture alone. Transhumanism is the theory that science and technology can be used to advance the evolution of human beings beyond current physical and mental limitations....

Waves the size of the Chrysler building may seem like they belong in a movie trailer, but scientists have recently found that megatsunamis are all too real. Scientists say that 73,000 years ago, a large flank (or slope) from the volcanic island Fogo in the Cape Verde islands off the coast of Africa fell into the ocean and triggered a tsunami that could – quite literally – move mountains. “You’re displacing a huge mass, which must generate movement of water,” Ricardo Ramalho, the lead researcher behind the study, told The Washington Post. “And in the case of volcanic flank collapses...

Explanation: This floating ring is the size of a galaxy. In fact, it is a galaxy -- or at least part of one: the photogenic Sombrero Galaxy, one of the largest galaxies in the nearby Virgo Cluster of Galaxies. The dark band of dust that obscures the mid-section of the Sombrero Galaxy in optical light actually glows brightly in infrared light. The above image, digitally sharpened, shows the infrared glow, recently recorded by the orbiting Spitzer Space Telescope, superposed in false-color on an existing image taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope in optical light. The Sombrero Galaxy, also known as...

Explanation: This sharp telescopic snapshot caught late September's Harvest Moon completely immersed in Earth's dark umbral shadow, at the beginning of a total lunar eclipse. It was the final eclipse in a tetrad, a string of four consecutive total lunar eclipses. A dark apparition of the Full Moon near perigee, this total eclipse's color was a deep blood red, the lunar surface reflecting light within Earth's shadow filtered through the lower atmosphere. Seen from a lunar perspective, the reddened light comes from all the sunsets and sunrises around the edges of a silhouetted Earth. But close to the shadow's edge,...

Explanation: A darkened and mysterious north polar region informally known as Mordor Macula caps this premier high-resolution portrait of Charon, Pluto's largest moon. Captured by New Horizons near its closest approach on July 14, the image data was transmitted to Earth on September 21. The combined blue, red, and infrared data is processed to enhance colors, following variations in surface properties with a resolution of about 2.9 kilometers (1.8 miles). In fact, Charon is 1,214 kilometers (754 miles) across, about 1/10th the size of planet Earth but a whopping 1/2 the diameter of Pluto itself. That makes it the largest...

Explanation: This stunning panorama in southern skies was recorded on the colorful night of September 27/28 from Carngegie Las Campanas Observatory. A diffuse glow and dark rifts of the central Milky Way hang over domes of the twin 6.5 meter Magellan telescopes. But most eye-catching is the deep red glow of the Moon. Immersed in Earth's shadow during the much anticipated perigee-total-lunar eclipse, the Moon's surface reflects the light of sunsets and sunrises scattered and refracted into the planet's cone-shaped umbra. Along with the dramatic hue of the eclipsed Moon, other colors of that night captured by the sensitive digital...

Explanation: What creates these changing streaks on Mars? Called Recurring Slope Linea (RSL), these dark features start on the slopes of hills and craters but don't usually extend to the bottom. What's even more unusual is that these streaks appear to change with the season, appearing fresh and growing during warm weather and disappearing during the winter. After much study, including a recent chemical analyses, a leading hypothesis has emerged that these streaks are likely created by new occurrences of liquid salty water that evaporates as it flows. The source for the briny water is still unclear, with two possibilities...

Explanation: What's more rare than a supermoon total lunar eclipse? How about a supermoon total lunar eclipse over a lightning storm. Such an electrifying sequence was captured yesterday from Ibiza, an island in southeastern Spain. After planning the location for beauty, and the timing to capture the entire eclipse sequence, the only thing that had to cooperate for this astrophotographer to capture a memorable eclipse sequence was the weather. What looked to be a bother on the horizon, though, turned out to be a blessing. The composite picture features over 200 digitally combined images from the same location over the...

Bill Nye is supposed to be “the science guy.” Recently he published a video on YouTube purporting to inform viewers of what science tells us about abortion. Nye claims that laws against abortion reflect “a deep scientific lack of understanding.” But it turns out that it is Nye himself who doesn’t understand the science. “I really encourage you to look at the facts,” he says. But then he misrepresents the facts from top to bottom in an embarrassingly transparent effort to hijack science in the cause of pro-abortion ideology. Nye’s video is so breathtakingly arrogant and incompetently argued that...

I was seeing tease lines in the news over the weekend and on the NASA twitter feed hinting at a major announcement which would come out today. That spurred the usual rounds of speculation with the most popular candidate being that they turned up some form of life or perhaps a fossil or something along those lines. (Personally I was pitching for a large black obelisk of some sort full of stars, but you can only ask for so much.) I honestly wasn’t getting my hopes up too far because they’ve played these games before. Rather than just announcing what...

Scientists have discovered the strongest evidence yet that "flowing liquid water" exists on Mars, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration said Monday morning.

Explanation: Recorded in 2014 April, this total lunar eclipse sequence looks south down icy Waterton Lake from the Waterton Lakes National Park in Alberta, Canada, planet Earth. The most distant horizon includes peaks in Glacier National Park, USA. An exposure every 10 minutes captured the Moon's position and eclipse phase, as it arced, left to right, above the rugged skyline and Waterton town lights. In fact, the sequence effectively measures the roughly 80 minute duration of the total phase of the eclipse. Around 270 BC, the Greek astronomer Aristarchus also measured the duration of lunar eclipses - though probably without...

Be sure you know the right date and time of the eclipse. For example, the eclipse of September 27-28, 2015 begins at 1:07 UTC. For us in North America, that is 9:07 p.m.. EDT on September 27, 2015. Be careful. Watch the times. Note that the times are often given in what is called Universal Time, or UTC. Here’s how to translate Universal Time to your local time zone. ...

Explanation: Tonight a bright full Moon will fade to red. Tonight's moon will be particularly bright because it is reaching its fully lit phase when it is relatively close to the Earth in its elliptical orbit. In fact, by some measures of size and brightness, tonight's full Moon is designated a supermoon, although perhaps the "super" is overstated because it will be only a few percent larger and brighter than the average full Moon. However, our Moon will fade to a dim red because it will also undergo a total lunar eclipse -- an episode when the Moon becomes completely...

Explanation: Separated by about 14 degrees (28 Full Moons) in planet Earth's sky, spiral galaxies M31 at left, and M33 are both large members of the Local Group, along with our own Milky Way galaxy. This narrow- and wide-angle, multi-camera composite finds details of spiral structure in both, while the massive neighboring galaxies seem to be balanced in starry fields either side of bright Mirach, beta star in the constellation Andromeda. Mirach is just 200 light-years from the Sun. But M31, the Andromeda Galaxy, is really 2.5 million light-years distant and M33, the Triangulum Galaxy, is also about 3 million...