Cultural Club/Hulton Art Collection/Art Images/Getty Images
Uraniborg Castle, built in the late 16th century by Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe on what is now the Swedish island of Ven, included an observatory and an alchemy laboratory.
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Experimentation is the basis of the scientific process – and it is at the heart of what it means to be human and to question the world around us.
Thousands of years ago, our ancestors made the first star maps and practiced alchemy, the precursor to chemistry.
Isaac Newton, considered the father of physics, was himself a passionate alchemist who wrote down the recipe for one of the main ingredients needed to make the legendary Philosopher’s Stone. This stone was believed to transform any metal into silver or gold.
In the 18th century, chemists sought to dismiss alchemy as a pseudoscience. But ancient alchemists actually developed technology and discovered chemical elements that are still widely used today.
Today, a new discovery links astronomy and alchemy through a fascinating figure who lived during the Renaissance.
Courtesy of Lund University Historical Museum
The researchers tested shards recovered from the site where Uraniborg once stood for chemical elements.
Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe changed the way people understood the heavens in the 1500s by spotting a supernova and suggesting that the Moon orbited Earth, all before telescopes existed.
But in the basement of his castle called Uraniborg, which included an observatory, the astronomer performed secret alchemical work for elite royal clients. Little is known about Brahe’s work, other than his commitment to developing medicinal recipes rather than gold.
A new analysis of glass shards from the demolished alchemy laboratory has revealed ingredients Brahe used in his mysterious concoctions, including tungsten, which was not formally described until more than 180 years after his death.
NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams have spent more than 50 days aboard the International Space Station after piloting the first crewed mission of Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft. And no date has yet been set for the astronauts to return to Earth.
But NASA and Boeing are now focusing on the “root cause” of the spacecraft’s problems during its journey, including helium leaks and thruster problems.
Engineers have been conducting ground tests for weeks to reproduce the anomalies, and additional testing this weekend should fully reveal the problems, said Mark Nappi, head of Boeing’s commercial crew program.
Meanwhile, SpaceX has received approval to continue launches of its Falcon 9 rocket, which recently failed during a routine flight. Once the Starliner mission is complete, SpaceX will carry a quartet of astronauts for NASA’s Crew-9 mission to the space station.
Courtesy of Craig Smith and Diva Amon, ABYSSLINE Project
The recently discovered species Relicanthus sp. lives on sponge stems attached to polymetallic nodules found on the sea floor.
Marine scientists have discovered an unusual type of oxygen produced without photosynthesis on the seafloor, more than 13,000 feet below the ocean’s surface, that could help uncover the origins of life.
When Andrew Sweetman, a professor at the Scottish Marine Science Association, first detected this unexpected phenomenon in the Pacific Ocean a decade ago, he thought the detection equipment was faulty. No light can reach the depths of the ocean and no organisms living on the seabed produce oxygen.
But now, new research by Sweetman and his team suggests that “dark” oxygen could be created by potato-sized metal nodules that act as “geobatteries” within the deep-sea ecosystem.
A camera attached to an endangered shark has captured the heartbreaking moment a boat collided with the marine animal, and it could be one of the first images to show just how common boat collisions are for the ocean dwellers.
Researchers are unsure whether the 23-foot-long basking shark, which lives in the waters of the Blasket Islands off the coast of Ireland, survived the collision. But the collision clearly left a large scratch and traces of paint on the shark’s spotted skin.
Scientists are trying to better understand this species, which is among the largest fish in the world. The images are intended to better understand the feeding habits of the basking shark, which feeds at the surface of the ocean with its jaws wide open.
Instead, the video highlights why the basking shark and other endangered sea creatures need protection.
Separately, cocaine has been detected in sharks living off the coast of Brazil, marking the first time the drug has been found in sharks in the wild.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
NASA’s Perseverance rover discovered “leopard spots” on a reddish rock dubbed Cheyava Falls in Mars’ Jezero Crater on July 18.
The Perseverance rover has discovered something that could indicate that Mars may have supported microbial life in the distant past.
The rover studied a rock dubbed Cheyava Falls. The rover used its instruments to analyze the leopard-spotted rock and discovered chemical signatures and structures that could have been formed by life billions of years ago, when water was present on the Red Planet.
“These spots are a big surprise,” said David Flannery, an astrobiologist on Perseverance’s science team. “On Earth, these types of features in rocks are often associated with fossilized traces of microbes living underground.”
These new discoveries might surprise you:
— Komodo dragons, the world’s largest lizards, have iron-tipped teeth that stain their serrated edges orange and help these deadly predators tear apart their prey, new research suggests.
— The Chandra X-ray Observatory just celebrated a quarter-century in space by releasing 25 never-before-seen images of the cosmos, but NASA budget cuts could put an early end to the mission.
— Humans aren’t the only ones who can blush. Domestic chickens have been observed blushing to express fear or excitement, and researchers working on a French farm have images of pink-tinged chickens to prove it.
Liked what you read? Oh, but there’s more. register here to receive the next issue of Wonder Theory, presented by the editors of CNN Space and Science, in your inbox Ashley Strickland And Katie HuntThey marvel at planets beyond our solar system and discover things from the ancient world.