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Boldly going where we already went fifty years ago
January 24, 2020
Have some Proxima Centauri with ESPRESSO
January 20, 2020
“Proxima is our closest neighbor in an immense universe. How could we not be charmed by it?”
Well, the planet may or may not exist (the confirmation data won’t be publicly available for another couple years).
And it is most likely not inhabitable — despite being dubbed a “Super-Earth” (which really only refers to size and not whether it’s “Earth-like” or not).
Still, regardless of these facts, the most important part of this article in Scientific American is the science:
“We tried different tools to prove ourselves wrong, but we failed. However, we have to keep the doors open to all possible doubt and skepticism.”
Yes, the astronomers tried to prove their own discovery was a mistake. That’s how it works, folks. Challenge your assumptions, not jump to conclusions. Continue Reading
Two men make âEarth sandwichâ 20,000 kilometers apart
January 20, 2020
File under “strange reasons to study Earth science in school” and “things to do when you have far too much free time.”
99.9999999% of Your Body Is Empty Space
January 14, 2020
Are you sitting down for this? Well, youâre not really. Your butt isnât actually touching the chair youâre sitting on. Since the meat of your atoms is nestled away in nuclei, when you ‘touch’ someone (or something), you arenât actually feeling their atoms.
Nobody has ever really touched anything in their lives.
Sleep tight…
(Not exactly a new article, but still interesting; and, yes, I might be using this to justify an awful lot of my soon-to-be-beta-read new novel đ
Itâs a Nice Model youâve got there, Mars. Be a shame if something happened to it…
January 12, 2020
“Without this instability, Mars likely would have had a mass closer to Earthâs and would be a very different, perhaps more Earth-like, planet compared to what it is today.”
Damn you, Jupiter and Saturn! Why couldn’t you have just stayed in your orbits and left Mars alone? (Shakes fist futilely at night sky.)
â Read on www.universal-sci.com/headlines/2018/5/10/the-giant-planets-in-the-solar-system-stunted-the-growth-of-mars
New âhabitableâ Earth? đ
January 10, 2020
The newly discovered exoplanet, called TOI 700 d, is located about 100 light-years away from us and is roughly 20% larger than Earth.
Okay, not exactly close, but looking good…
A year on TOI 700 d takes 37 days.
Um. Wait. What?
One thing astronomers have discovered though is that TOI 700 d is tidally locked to its star, which means that one half bathes in eternal sunlight, and the other half always exists in darkness.
Oy.
And even better…
One of the burning questions is whether the planet has an atmosphere or not.
Is this really the best way to phrase this? đ
I vote we pass on this one…
PS I’ve been trying futilely to get WordPress not to screw up the formatting. To no avail.
Happy (Belated!) New Year’s 2020!
January 4, 2020
Hi, everyone. I guess I should have planned a little better â should have written a “new year’s post” and then saved it before the holiday season began, scheduled the post, and then enjoyed overeating, overdrinking, and sleeping in.
Except of course that’s not what actually happened. Continue Reading
