BEIJING, Feb 17, 2011 (AFP) - The largest solar flare in more than four years has caused disruptions to shortwave radio communications in China, state media has reported. The solar flare, a huge explosion on the sun's surface caused by magnetic activity, affected transmissions in southern China on Tuesday, Xinhua news agency has said, quoting the China Meteorological Administration. (MCT) The...

WASHINGTON, (AFP) - A NASA spacecraft is just hours from its long-anticipated encounter with a comet, and skywatchers hope the flyby will shed light on how the comet's surface has changed since it skimmed by the Sun in 2005. The US space agency's Stardust-NExT mission spacecraft "is within a quarter-million miles (402,336 kilometers) of its quarry, comet Tempel 1, which it will fly by tonight," ...

A U.S. spacecraft’s long-awaited rendezvous with a comet will finally be realized on Valentine’s Day. The comet explorer Stardust-NExT (New Exploration of Comet Temple 1) will approach the comet Temple 1 at a distance of only 200 kilometers at 8:37 p.m., PST, Feb. 14 (1:37 p.m., Feb. 15 in Korea) and NASA will broadcast the encounter live on NASA Television and the agency’s website from 8:30 p.m...

Just two years after Bravissimo, a lingerie maker for women with larger bust sizes, launched a KK-cup size, it recently introduced the L-cup to meet the growing demand for larger sizes. According to a report in the Daily Mail , the unprecedented demand for bigger bra sizes can be explained by three things. 1. Fat The average British bra size has increased dramatically. In the 1950s, the aver...

Remnants of a star that exploded more than 13 billion years ago could be the first star of the universe, BBC news reported. (MCT) All that is left of this pioneer is the gas cloud it threw out into space when it first exploded. The remains of the star are said to have been found when its contents were illuminated by brilliant light coming from the surroundings of a black hole. To identify t...

SBS is set to air a special program on UFOs on Saturday, drawing keen attention from those interested in the question of aliens’ existence. The broadcaster’s weekly investigative program, “We Want to Know,” plans to explore the issue that has long generated speculation, rumors and conspiracy theories across the world. For the latest episode, the program’s investigations team has decided to scru...

The most comprehensive view of the night sky has been released at the 217th annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Seattle, the BBC reported. The Sloan Digital Sky Survey has mapped the Milky Way Galaxy’s northern and southern hemispheres, represented as two big clusters in the newly-released image. The ongoing survey has already identified nearly half a billion astronomical obj...

The twelve zodiac signs, which have been in place for almost 3,000 years, are now different according to news reports. The Babylonians determined the dates of the zodiac, and since then the position of Earth in relation to the Sun has gradually altered, according to ABC News . The shifting of the Earth’s axis has also introduced a 13th zodiac sign -- Ophiuchus. The Huffington Post reported ...

Sofia Whitcombe began her day with the startling realization that she might not be exactly who she thought she was. "My whole life, I thought I was a Capricorn," the 25-year-old publicist said. "Now I'm a Sagittarius? I don't feel like a Sagittarius!" It felt, she said, like a rug had been pulled from under her feet. "Will my personality change?" she mused. "Capricorns are diligent and regiment...

Just a couple of days after the deaths of 5,000 birds in Arkansas on New Year’s Eve, about 500 birds were found dead in Louisiana on Monday. Thousands of dead red-winged blackbirds fell from the sky in an Arkansas town on New Year’s Eve after massive trauma, tests by Arkansas veterinary officials concluded Monday. Dead birds on a street of Lousiana, US (AP) “The birds suffered from acute physi...