Craigievar Castle is named as Britain’s best-kept secret in Lonely Planet’s travel guide

A pink Scottish castle – so beautiful that it inspired Walt Disney – has been named as Britain’s best-kept secret in a top travel guide. Stunning Craigievar Castle, near Alford, Aberdeenshire, is believed to be the inspiration for Walt Disney’s Cinderella Castle. The fairy tale castle features as the centre point of the company’s logo … Read more

Third of the planet’s farmland has pesticides levels 1,000 times higher than what’s considered safe

Nearly a third of the farmland around the world is at high risk of pesticide pollution, according to a new report. Scientists in Australia examined how nearly 100 agricultural chemicals were used across 168 countries, to determine which pesticides surpassed recommended levels. Pointing to ‘widespread global pesticide pollution risk,’ the research found 64 percent of … Read more

Aliens from other planets will look ‘just like animals here on Earth’

Alien beings living on a distant world around another star would look ‘just like animals on Earth’ and be formed from the same processes, an astrobiologist claims. Arik Kershenbaum, author of a new book called ‘The Zoologist’s Guide to the Galaxy’, claims Darwinian natural selection would apply throughout the universe. This is the processes that … Read more

Earth, Venus and Mars among millions of ‘aquatic planets’ in Milky Way

How important is the presence of liquid water? It is now widely believed that Mars holds a reasonably large volume of water. However, the surface of the planet is so cold, this water exists only as ice. In order for life to exist on a planet, many scientists believe it is essential for the world … Read more

Dust of dead Earth-like planets found in atmospheres white dwarfs

The dust of dead Earth-like planets has been observed in the atmosphere of four nearby white dwarfs, the core of a dead star that is comparable to that of our sun. A team from the University of Warwick found outer layers containing up to up to 300,000 gigatonnes of rocky debris, which includes up to … Read more

NASA: NO2 pollution on planets would be sign of alien civilizations 

Discovery of pulsars British astronomer Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell was the first person to discover a pulsar in 1967 when she spotted a radio pulsar. Since then other types of pulsars that emit x-rays and gamma rays have also been spotted. Pulsars are essentially rotating, highly magnatised neutron stars but when they were first discovered … Read more

Astronomers discover six planets locked in an rhythmic motion as they orbit their central star 

A puzzling line up of six-exoplanets moving in a rhythmic dance as they orbit their star have been discovered in a system 200 light years from Earth. Researchers used the European Space Agency CHEOPS space telescope to detect the unusual explanatory formation – and it could shed light on how systems form.   University of St … Read more

Sweet surprise: Look inside Mars reveals the Red Planet’s crust resembles a three-layer cake

Sweet surprise: NASA Insight lander’s first look inside Mars reveals the Red Planet’s crust resembles a three-layer cake The lander’s seismometer has recorded over 480 marsquakes since April 2019 Differences in how seismic waves move lets scientists evaluate the crust’s size and composition They believe Mars’ crust is about 23 miles thick,  far thicker than … Read more

Scientists say intelligent life on other planets is ‘exceptionally rare’

Scientists say intelligent life on other planets is ‘exceptionally rare’ and that human-like civilisations are unlikely to exist away from Earth.  In a new paper, Oxford researchers theorise that, for life to have evolved the same way somewhere else, it would have taken longer than the whole of Earth’s projected lifespan.  Evolution on Earth from … Read more

Mars calling: NASA releases ‘out-of-this-world’ ringtone using data on the Red Planet’s weather

Mars calling: NASA releases ‘out-of-this-world’ ringtone made from data on the Red Planet’s weather patterns Experts used the Pleiades supercomputer to convert cloud motion into sound They did this by filtering patterns out of the data to map onto musical intervals Flautist and musicologist Alyssa Schwartz then brought this piece to life Snippets of her rendition were … Read more