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New Horizons Phones Home, Sends Back First Amazing Pictures of Pluto

The country celebrated yesterday when New Horizons finally reached Pluto after traveling nine years and three billion miles. Yesterday morning, the probe came within 7,750 miles of Pluto's surface, and then phoned home last night to send us the most detailed photographs ever taken of our former ninth planet. 

Here are the most recent photographs of Pluto and its moon system, starting at the end of June and getting closer and closer until the final picture from Monday, 24 hours before the historic flyby, which was amazing enough that it commanded the attention of the President of the United States:

June 23-29:





Tuesday, July 7:



Wednesday, July 8:



Sunday, July 12:



Monday, July 13:

Coincidentally enough, the flyby occurred on the 50th anniversary of Mariner 4's first ever flyby of Mars, which also yielded the first detailed photographs of a planet in our solar system. 

"I think it's fitting that on that 50th anniversary, we complete the initial reconnaissance of the planets with the exploration of Pluto," said Alan Stern, the mission's principal investigator, told CNN.

At first, New Horizons was in data gathering mode, and was not in contact with Earth. The team waited with bated breath for the first contact, as there was a chance, however slight, that something could go wrong. Everything seemed to go according to plan during the flyby, but there was no way to know for sure that the craft was faring well.

“We always talk about the spacecraft as being a child, maybe a teenager,” missions operator Alice Bowman said during a news conference after the flyby. “There was absolutely nothing anybody on the operations team could do, just to trust that we had prepared it well to set off on its journey on its own.”

But it successfully phoned home last night at approximately 8:52 pm and sent back those initial photos, and is expected to send back photos from the closest approach sometime today, ten times the resolution of the photos released yesterday. The probe should be mostly done with the data-gathering phase by now, and beginning to send back all of the scientific data from the last 16 months as we speak.

Four Reasons Everyone Is Excited For NASA's Exploration Of Europa

NASA recently announced that they’re launching a mission to investigate Europa, an icy moon of Jupiter some 390million miles from Earth. The news has been met with widespread joy from just about everyone who possesses the remotest interest in science. So, what's the big deal? Put simply, recent scientific evidence appears to suggest that Europa represents our best chance of discovering alien life within our lifetimes. While NASA's first mission to Europa won't actually touch the surface, it is hoped that it will eventually lay the groundwork for the robotic and even human exploration of the moon's icy crust. It could be that some day in the next few decades, humanity will finally be able to answer the question of whether or not we're alone in the universe.

Liquid Water

Let's start with the obvious. Europa's outer crust is made up of solid ice a few miles thick, but it’s what’s beneath the crust that makes the moon so interesting. Scientists believe there is a liquid water ocean under the icy crust of Europa that reaches depths of over 100 miles, which is a big deal because as far as we know, life doesn’t exist without water. And not only is there lots of water, but it’s thought to be highly active water, constantly being churned, and therefore heated, thanks to Jupiter’s strong gravitational pull. “Nothing grows or reproduces when the water activity falls below some pretty high value, actually,” says NASA scientist Christopher McKay. “Microorganisms need surprisingly wet conditions.” It’s also worth noting that current estimates suggest that Europa has more liquid water than planet Earth, and last we checked Earth had a solid amount of life. 

Lots of Oxygen

Another key to life on Earth is oxygen; it would be pretty tough to breathe without it. When it comes to O2, Europa has us covered. A recent study by University of Arizona's Richard Greenberg revealed that Europa has roughly enough oxygen to support 3 million tons of alien fish. But before we start celebrating, there's the small issue of Europa potentially having too much oxygen. An abundance of O2 can actually end up inhibiting the chemical processes necessary for life to form, but Greenberg thinks he’s figured out this problem, too, arguing that the amount of time potential organisms would have had to figure out how to use the oxygen on Europa before it became too plentiful (over a billion years) is the same amount of time it took life on Earth to develop before oxygen levels became too high. We like that comparison. 

Cracks in the Ice

Ok, so there’s lots of water and oxygen, but is there a way for the oxygen and other chemicals to reach the water in the right amounts to sustain life? Thanks to deep cracks present in Europa's icy crust, there just might be. The Hubble Telescope has observed geysers of water bursting up from the surface of Europa, suggesting a pathway from the atmosphere through the ice to the ocean below. This could potentially allow chemicals to reach the ocean, something that excites Steve Vance, a member of NASA’s Europa mission science team. “When I think about the fluxes of oxygen to Europa's ocean, I wonder if Europa could have the kinds of vigorous biosphere that Earth has that supports larger forms of life,” Vance says. “And then the imagination can go wild thinking about fish and octopi and whatever else might live in an ocean that's 100 kilometers deep.”

Hydrothermal Vents

Despite all we’ve discussed, there’s still the issue of Europa’s harsh climate. The moon’s surface temperature never creeps above -260°F, which is, shall we say, a bit too chilly for life as we know it. But there may be a way around that. In the most hostile environments on Earth, we still find life deep underwater near hydrothermal vents, where heat rises from deep inside the planet and provides energy for life that doesn’t have access to sunlight. “It's the only system we know of on Earth where life can thrive in the complete absence of sunlight,” says scientist Bob Vrijenhoek of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute. Scientists believe the ocean floor of Europa has similar vents, and if it does, life could be there as well. It’s not little green men, but it’s a start.  

Why bedbugs are about to become even more horrifying

If you live in a big city, you're probably familiar — a little too familiar, perhaps — with bedbugs.

As their name suggests, they start by infesting the places we sleep.

Within weeks, the blood-sucking creatures have turned an entire apartment into an itchy nightmare.

Bedbugs didn't always used to be the terrifying critters we know today. For decades, we lived in peace, undisturbed by these tiny creatures of the night.

But bedbugs are back.

To Brooke Borel, the author of the new book "Infested," the recent return of bedbugs is part of a growing trend in which the things we try to eradicate come back, oftentimes with a vengeance.

The return of bed bugs, Borel writes, "isn't a fluke. It is a return to ­normal."

From cave to city

Thousands of years ago, our cave-dwelling ancestors got along perfectly fine with bedbugs. Back then, they were nearly an entirely different species.

As humans migrated out of caves and into cities, a process which took us thousands of years, we brought bedbugs along for the ride. Not surprisingly, the bugs with traits that made them better able to survive in their new digs outlived their friends and family members who weren't as well suited for the urban lifestyle.

These new bugs were more active at night, when humans sleep, and had longer, thinner legs for hopping away from us quickly.

But bedbugs' evolution is hardly a finished story. They're still evolving, and in the last few decades they've developed perhaps their worst trait of all: Resistance to bug poison.

Unbeatable bugs

The bedbugs of today have thicker, waxier exoskeletons, which helps shield them from the insecticides we try to poison them with, and faster metabolisms to beef-up their natural chemical defenses.

As a result, many scientists are searching for a new way to make them disappear.

Biologist Regine Gries of Simon Fraser University, for example, spent the better part of the last five years spending the night in a bedbug-infested lab. She and her team recently found the basic ingredients for a bug-alluring scent that people could potentially use to trap bed bugs.

Scientists still aren't entirely sure why bedbugs have only now started to come back so strongly, Borel writes, but people are playing an important role in their recent return.

During World War II, scientists discovered the insecticide DDT. With this poison, they succeeded in wiping out tons of insects, including bedbugs, Borel writes. But recently, it stopped working.

Here's Borel:

People used these pesticides for bed bugs in regions outside of the United States where the pest was still common, and also inadvertently dosed the bugs while treating for other insects. Bed bug insecticide resistance grew, for example, in malaria-ridden parts of Africa and Central America as the World Health Organization tried to curb mosquitoes by treating homes with DDT. All it would take for the bed bug to roar back would be a way for it to spread from those resistant hotspots to the rest of the world.

International travel provided that window for the bedbug, Borel writes. As the critters hitched a ride on everything from shoe soles to infested luggage, they spread across the globe. Today, they're an international scourge.

"In a way, we created the modern bed bug: it evolved to live on us and to follow us," Borel writes.

Just what we'll do about the critters remains to be seen.

Curiosity Finds First Evidence that There Is Currently Liquid Water on Mars

We may be one step closer to finding life on Mars, as NASA's Curiosity rover has just found evidence of extant liquid water just below the Red Planet's surface.

"The evidence so far is that any water would be in the form of permafrost," study co-author Andrew Coates told The Guardian. "It’s the first time we’ve had evidence of liquid water there now.”

Astrobiologists had already confirmed that Mars was once host to a sea of liquid water as large as the Arctic ocean, and that it currently has frozen water glaciers that could cover the planet with a meter of water. But until now, common wisdom in the scientific community has dictated that the atmospheric pressure is too low for liquid water to persist on the Red Planet; water molecules are rapidly compressed from gas to solid without becoming liquid as an intermediate step.

Now, Curiosity has detected a type of salt called perchlorates, which lower the freezing point of liquid water. Perchlorates have the ability to absorb water vapor from the atmosphere and turn it into a liquid brine. 

"These can decrease the freezing point of water by more than 70 degrees," study author Morten Bo Madsen told The Washington Post. "And they attract water quite violently. This can result in salty water moving up and down the surface."

The new study analyzes temperature and humidity data on Mars taken by Curiosity's weather-monitoring equipment, which shows that during certain times of day during the winter and spring, both factors would be calibrated to allow for liquid water to exist on Mars. The researchers believe that the water seeps down into the porous soil and lies just below the planet's surface.

This is groundbreaking news, as the presence of liquid water is generally cited as the most important factor for a planet's ability to house extraterrestrial life. But it doesn't necessarily mean that we'll be finding Martians anytime soon, as Mars's environment is still hostile to life for other reasons. “There are organisms on Earth, halophiles, that can survive in salty environments, but if it’s also very cold and very dry that’s a problem," said Madsen. “The radiation on Mars nails it – that environment is very hostile.”

A few unwanted goldfish turn into thousands and endanger a Colorado lake

Teller Lake #5 in Boulder, Colorado. (Courtesy of Colorado Parks and Wildlife)

A small lake in Boulder, Colo. has been overtaken by thousands of invasive goldfish.

The state agency responsible for managing Colorado’s state parks and wildlife believes it all started when a few “unwanted pet fish” were dumped into the lake and then multiplied into the thousands.

“These are domestic fish actually,” Colorado Parks and Wildlife spokeswoman Jennifer Churchill told USA Today “These are fish from a store, I imagine. They can out-compete the native fish.”

According to the state wildlife agency, the goldfish pose a threat to the natural ecosystem of the lake.

“Dumping your pets into a lake could bring diseases to native animals and plants as well as out-compete them for resources,” Churchill told ABC.  “Everything can be affected. Non-native species can potentially wipe out the fishery as we’ve put it together.”

Teller Lake #5 in Boulder, Colorado. (Courtesy of Colorado Parks and Wildlife)

To avoid wiping out the lake’s native fish — including blue gills, channel catfish and sun fish — the agency is considering two options to remove the goldfish: draining the lake or electroshock.

“With electroshocking, you go in the boat and stun the fish to paralyze and collect them,” Churchill told ABC. Shocking fish does not kill them, she explained. “The fish could also be collected if the lake is drained,” Churchill added.

Teller Lake #5 in Boulder, Colorado. (Courtesy of Colorado Parks and Wildlife)