Scientists have discovered what appear to be two new species –  
a tiny possum and a giant rat — in the “Lost World” area of  
western New Guinea. “It’s comforting to know that there is  
a place on Earth so isolated that it remains the absolute  
realm of wild nature,” said Conservation International Vice  
President Bruce Beehler, who led the expedition. “We were  
pleased to see that this little piece of Eden remains as  
pristine and enchanting as it was when we first visited.”  
During the June expedition that included researchers from the  
Indonesia Institute of Science, the team documented two mammals,  
a Cercartetus pygmy possum, one of the world’s smallest marsupials,  
and a Mallomys giant rat, both apparently new to science. “The  
giant rat is about five times the size of a typical city rat,”  
said Kristofer Helgen, a scientist with the Smithsonian  
Institution. “With no fear of humans, it apparently came into  
the camp several times during the trip.” The scientists said  
they plan to return to the area late next year or in 2009 and  
expect to find additional new species of frogs, mammals,  
butterflies and plants.

U.S. scientists say a powerful radiation- and particle-bearing  
jet from a black hole in a distant “death star” galaxy is  
blasting the edge of another galaxy. NASA said the galactic  
violence, which has never been witnessed before, may have a  
“profound effect on planets in the jet’s path and trigger a  
burst of star formation in its destructive wake,” the space  
agency said Tuesday in a news release. NASA said jets from  
super massive black holes produce high amounts of radiation,  
especially high-energy X-rays and gamma-rays, which can be  
lethal in large quantities. The system, known as 3C321,  
contains two galaxies in orbit around each other. Data from  
NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory show both galaxies contain  
super massive black holes at their centers. The data shows  
the smaller galaxy apparently has swung into the path of a  
jet emanating from the vicinity of the “death star” galaxy’s  
black hole, NASA said. “We’ve seen many jets produced by black  
holes, but this is the first time we’ve seen one punch into  
another galaxy like we’re seeing here,” said Dan Evans, a  
scientist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

U.S. researchers say they’ve discovered mountains on Saturn’s  
largest moon, Titan. The research team, led by geologist Jani  
Radebaugh of Brigham Young University, found the mountains  
while analyzing images from NASA’s Cassini Radar instrument.  
The findings were published in the December issue of the  
astronomy journal Icarus, the university said Thursday in a  
release. The discovery of mountains on Titan grew out of  
Radebaugh’s collaboration with a research team that recently  
found sand dunes and methane lakes on Titan. The report said  
Titan’s mountains are most likely made of water ice and are  
relatively small at about 1.25 miles from base to peak.

Scientists with the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space  
Administration said an asteroid has a good chance of colliding  
with Mars near the end of January. Researchers with NASA’s  
Near-Earth Object Program in La Canada Flintridge, Calif.,  
said the asteroid has about a 1-in-75 chance of hitting the  
fourth planet from the sun on Jan. 30, the Los Angeles Times  
reported Friday. The 1-in-75 shot is “wildly unusual,” said  
astronomer Steve Chesley with the Near-Earth Object office,  
which has been tracking the asteroid since it was sighted in  
November. “We’re used to dealing with odds like one-in-a-  
million,” Chesley said. “Something with a one-in-a-hundred  
chance makes us sit up straight in our chairs.” Asteroid 2007  
WD5 measures about 160 feet across, a comparable size to the  
asteroid that flattened Siberian forests in 1908, the  
scientists said. However, the asteroid that hit Siberia was  
broken up by the earth’s atmosphere before impact, while 2007  
WD5 would likely fall directly to the surface of Mars, leaving  
a half-mile-wide crater at the place of impact. “Normally,  
we’re rooting against the asteroid,” when Earth is the target,  
Chesley said. “This time we’re rooting for the asteroid to  
hit.” 

A team of London-based explorers discovered a new species of  
butterfly in the northern reaches of the Andes mountain range  
in South America. The team of explorers and scientists with  
London’s Natural History Museum discovered the coffee-colored  
insect, named Idioneurula donegani, during the first manned  
exploration to the peaks of the Serrania de los Yariguies  
mountain range in Columbia, The Independent reported Thursday.  
Blanca Huerta, butterfly curator at the museum, said the  
finding was “an amazing discovery.” “Discovery of unseen  
species of insect are more common than with many other types  
of animal,” she said. “But for any biologist it’s exhilarating  
to find an entirely new species — especially one that survives  
in environments where you wouldn’t expect to find them.”  
Scientists thought the high-altitude mountain range would not  
support butterfly habitats. Forty percent of the 20,000 known  
species of butterfly originate from South America.