All posts tagged: planets

Mysterious space signals may come from a dead star with a planet

Mysterious space signals may come from a dead star with a planet

Published by skeptic

Artist’s impression showing a fast radio burst travelling from a distant host galaxy to reach Earth ESO/M. Kornmesser One of the most puzzling phenomena in space may finally have an explanation. It might be caused by the interactions between a “dead” neutron star and a planet in tight orbit around it. The strange phenomenon in question is a repeating fast radio burst (FRB). These are series of powerful radio waves blasting at us from distant galaxies. FRB 121102, spotted in 2012, was the first one ever found to repeatedly send out radio… Source link

The Observer view on overtourism: sometimes, the planet’s hotspots are best left unvisited | Observer editorial

The Observer view on overtourism: sometimes, the planet’s hotspots are best left unvisited | Observer editorial

Published by skeptic

Climbing Everest used to be an even more dangerous pursuit than it is today, requiring huge bravery, endurance and skill. Even then the mountain could kill. A century ago, it claimed the lives of two of Britain’s finest climbers, George Mallory and Sandy Irvine. The world’s highest mountain eventually succumbed to human challenge when, almost three decades later, Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay carried the flags of Britain, the UN, and Nepal to its summit on 29 May 1953. Sporadic trips involving handfuls of explorers continued over succeeding years. But the slopes of Everest have been transformed in recent years. Its peaks and ridges are now regularly flooded with tourists vying to reach its 29,032ft (8,849 metre) summit. In 2023, more than 1,200 people – paying fees of around £40,000 a head – attempted the feat. Of these, more than 600 succeeded. A place once synonymous with remote, unsullied grandeur has become a high-end tourist trap, leaving its once pristine slopes littered with tattered tents, abandoned gear and human waste. Everest tourism may generate hundreds …

Hundreds of millions of planets in the Milky Way could support life, study finds

Hundreds of millions of planets in the Milky Way could support life, study finds

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Artist’s impression of a M dwarf star surrounded by planets. (CREDIT: NASA/JPL-CALTECH/MSSS) It’s easy to forget that our sun is a yellow dwarf star – a warm, cozy presence in our celestial neighborhood that is, in fact, a rarity in the vast expanse of the Milky Way galaxy. Dwarf stars, cooler and no larger than half the size of our sun, make up the majority of stellar bodies in our galaxy. A multitude of planets circle these common cosmic bodies, leading to intriguing possibilities for habitability. To be considered habitable, these planets need to be situated in close proximity to their stars, a positioning that leaves them vulnerable to strong tidal forces. In a groundbreaking study conducted by University of Florida astronomers, new data suggests that tidal extremes could render two-thirds of these planets inhabitable by causing extreme heat conditions, possibly sterilizing them. However, this revelation is not entirely bleak. With billions of these common dwarf stars in our galaxy, this statistic leaves a considerable one-third, amounting to hundreds of millions of planets, in a …

Alien planets might teem with purple — yes, purple — life

Alien planets might teem with purple — yes, purple — life

Published by skeptic

NASA has already spotted a diversity of rocky, Earth-like worlds in the cosmos. But unlike our verdant planet, many of these worlds may flourish with purple life — if life exists out there, that is. It’s easy to imagine organisms elsewhere resembling the colors of trees, algae, grasses, and beyond that dominate our Earthly reality. This green life soaks up certain light waves from the sun to fuel energy-creating photosynthesis, and the green-pigmented compound chlorophyll helps drive this profoundly successful process. New research from astrobiologists and microbiologists, however, suggests life elsewhere may likely make energy with different types of light from the sun, and use compounds with purple pigments rather than green. It’s not a far-fetched idea. After all, some microbes on Earth are purple. It’s just that on Earth, in our now oxygen-rich environment, green life (using “oxygenic photosynthesis”) has prevailed in most ecosystems. “But that doesn’t have to be the case on other planets,” Lígia Fonseca Coelho, a microbiologist at Cornell University’s Carl Sagan Institute who led the research, told Mashable. SEE ALSO: …

Planets that look alike might be a sign of spacefaring aliens

Planets that look alike might be a sign of spacefaring aliens

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Alien civilisations that have terraformed multiple planets may be detectable from afar dotted zebra/Alamy Nearby planets that look unusually alike could be a sign of spacefaring alien life that has travelled between stars, researchers have suggested. Astronomers searching for extraterrestrial life tend to look for specific signals, either in the form of “biosignatures” – molecules that are only produced by biological processes – or “technosignatures”, abnormal patterns of light that may have been produced by technologies. Both of these rely on assumptions… Source link

Eclipses aren’t just visual spectacles, they are at the heart of scientific efforts to understand distant planets

Eclipses aren’t just visual spectacles, they are at the heart of scientific efforts to understand distant planets

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The total solar eclipse across North America on April 8 2024 is a stunning and memorable event for everyone in its path. However, eclipses are not just valued for their visual impact, they are at the heart of cutting-edge science. Eclipses can tell us a vast amount about distant planets beyond our Solar System – or exoplanets. Since the first exoplanet was detected in 1992, astronomers have discovered more than 5,600 worlds orbiting stars other than the Sun. They have used a variety of powerful telescopes to observe them. However, as with the total solar eclipse, there is still a vital role to be played by amateur astronomers, through several citizen science projects designed to assist with observations of these distant worlds. A solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes between the Earth and the Sun. Although the Sun is 400 times bigger than the Moon, it is also about 400 times farther away. This is why it appears to be the same size in our sky. When an eclipse occurs, the Moon barely blocks …

Why there may be oceans inside dwarf planets beyond Pluto – and what this means for the likely abundance of life

Why there may be oceans inside dwarf planets beyond Pluto – and what this means for the likely abundance of life

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Earth was long thought to be the only planet in our Solar System with an ocean, but it is beginning to look as though there are underground oceans inside even the most surprising icy bodies. In fact, icy moons and dwarf planets in the outer Solar System appear to have liquid oceans below layers of thick ice. Recent research suggests there could even be oceans inside bodies beyond Pluto. That is surprising, as these bodies have surface temperatures way below -200°C. Seventy years ago, it seemed plausible that Venus’s steamy atmosphere was hiding a global ocean from our view. This idea was scuppered in 1962 when the spacecraft Mariner 2 flew past Venus and found that its surface is too hot for liquid water. It wasn’t long before we realised that any oceans that may once have been on Venus and also Mars vanished billions of years ago due to major changes in their climates. Tidal heating The revolution in thinking that paved the way for our new view of the Solar System’s oceans can …

Astrocomb breakthrough could help discover Earth-like planets | Science & Tech News

Astrocomb breakthrough could help discover Earth-like planets | Science & Tech News

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New Earth-like planets could soon be discovered after scientists made a technological breakthrough. Physicists have developed an astrocomb that can analyse the blue-green light emitted by stars. Astrocombs can detect tiny variations in a star’s light created by orbiting exoplanets (those beyond our own solar system) – potentially revealing one similar to Earth. They have been mainly limited to the green-red part of the light spectrum, but the new system offers the chance to uncover even more space secrets. The breakthrough was made by physicists at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh and Cambridge University. “This is a really exciting development that will enable us to study smaller planets on longer orbits than ever before – with the aim of discovering the first ‘Earth-like’ planet orbiting around a nearby sun-like star,” said Dr Samantha Thompson from Cambridge. Heriot-Watt Professor Derryck Reid said the shorter wavelength light the new system can examine is “rich in the atomic absorption features of interest to astronomers”. “Our new approach for the first time provides a continuous sequence of optical markers from …

Supercomputers predict the existence of even harder ‘Super Diamonds’ on alien planets

Supercomputers predict the existence of even harder ‘Super Diamonds’ on alien planets

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Diamond is renowned for its unparalleled strength, but another form of carbon that could potentially surpass it in toughness. (CREDIT: Creative Commons) Diamond is renowned for its unparalleled strength, but scientists have long speculated about another form of carbon that could potentially surpass it in toughness. This elusive material, known as the eight-atom body-centered cubic (BC8) crystal, has been predicted to exhibit even greater resistance to compression than diamond. However, the challenge lies in creating it here on Earth. BC8, while distinct from diamond, shares many similarities with it. Predicted to be 30% stronger than diamond, BC8 could be considered a super-diamond if it could be produced under normal conditions. Theoretically, BC8 is deemed the most stable phase of carbon under immense pressures exceeding 10 million atmospheres. “The BC8 phase of carbon at ambient conditions would be a new super-hard material that would likely be tougher than diamond,” explained Ivan Oleynik, a physics professor at the University of South Florida (USF). Supercomputer simulations predicting the synthesis pathways for the elusive BC8 “super-diamond”, involving shock compressions …