SCIENCE IN THE NEWS WEEKLY
On the Moon, 600 Million Tonnes of Ice
It was reported last week that India's Chandrayaan-1 lunar spacecraft detected thick deposits of water-ice near the moon's north pole in more than 40 small craters.
In other space news, satellite images that allow assessment of drought conditions have led to the novel development of weather-indexed insurance for cattle herders in northern Kenya, in an effort to help fend off poverty.
In a new study, astronomers have discovered how stars drag swirling gases toward a galaxy's center until they get sucked in by black holes.
Scientists have also found that the gamma-ray fog that fills the cosmos is even more of a mystery than anticipated. It turns out that black hole jets, thought to be the source of all or most of the radiation, account for only about 30 percent of it.
And cosmologist Craig Hogan has some mind-boggling ideas about a noise he believes is generated by a minuscule graininess in the otherwise smooth structure of spacetime. If his hunch is right, it could mean that the entire universe is nothing more than a giant hologram.
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