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The Melting Point

Physical properties of a material fall into two categories: intrinsic properties determined by the structure of the particular molecule, and bulk properties characteristic of quantities of molecules together as bulk solids, liquids, or gases. The melting point of a pure substance is a bulk property and represents the point of transition of physical ...

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TheMeltingPoint
Astronomy

The Strange Spires of Callisto

When NASA's adventurous Galileo spacecraft skimmed a mere 138 km, (123 miles) above the surface of Jupiter's moon Callisto, onboard cameras captured the sharpest pictures ever of that moon's ... Continue reading

CallistoSpires
Geology

CALIPSO in 2004

From reports of increasing temperatures, thinning mountain glaciers and rising sea level, scientists know that Earth's climate is changing. But the processes behind these changes are not as clear. Two ... Continue reading

CALIPSOin2004
Biology

Pass the Iodized Salt Please

Have you ever wondered why common table salt contains iodine? It's because iodine is essential to your health. A diet lacking in sufficient quantities of iodine will lead to the production of a goiter ... Continue reading

IodizedSalt
Astronomy

Ancient Planet in a Globular Cluster Core

Long before our Sun and Earth ever existed, a Jupiter-sized planet formed around a sun-like star. Now, 13 billion years later, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has precisely measured the mass of this ... Continue reading

GlobularClusterCore

The First Starlight

FirstStarlightImagine being able to see our Universe 14 billion years ago when it was just a baby. If we had a time machine, we could go back and watch how its infant features emerged after the Big Bang. There are many questions about that early time: Which came first, stars or galaxies? Did stars appear one at a time, or in massive flurries of simultaneous creation? Scientists have theories, but how wonderful it would be to actually look back in time and see for certain.

Well believe it or not, time machines do exist -- they're called telescopes. Astronomers who peer through them see stars and galaxies not as they are now, but as they appeared when the starlight began its journey. Through telescopes, astronomers can 'travel' billions of years into the past.

Astronomer Richard Ellis of the California Institute of Technology recently used NASA's Hubble Space Telescope to travel backwards nearly to the time of the Big Bang itself. He and his colleagues went in search of newborn stars -- the first ones to appear in our Universe. Ellis explains: 'At some point a billion or so years after the Big Bang, gravitational attraction caused the gas that filled the Universe to collapse and form the first stars. Searching for signs of those stars, which we call First Light, is one of the most interesting challenges in modern astronomy.