On the scorching hot planet, hundreds of light-years away, oceans are made of molten lava, winds reach supersonic speeds and rain is made of rocks. Scientists have referred to the bizarre, hellish exoplanet as one of the most “extreme” ever discovered.
According to NASA estimates there are at least 100 billion stars in the Milky Way, of which about 4 billion are sunlike. If only 7 percent of those stars have habitable planets — a seriously conservative estimate — there could be as many as 300 million potentially habitable Earths out there in the whole Milky Way alone.
It takes a while to collect, sort through, analyze, write up, endure peer review, and publish data from scientific projects.
That’s why finally we’re seeing this, 11 years after Kepler was launched to scour the galaxy for exoplanets.
Now the real challenge will be figuring out how to get there…
It’s time to move on the next factor in the Drake equation for extraterrestrial civilizations: the fraction of these worlds on which life emerges. The search for even a single slime mold on some alien rock would revolutionize biology, and it is a worthy agenda for the next half-century as humans continue the climb out of ourselves and into the universe in the endless quest to end our cosmic loneliness.
Cyclopropenylidene is the second cyclic or closed-loop molecule detected at Titan; the first was benzene in 2003. Benzene is an organic chemical compound composed of carbon and hydrogen atoms…Cyclic molecules are crucial because they form the backbone rings for the nucleobases of DNA, according to NASA.
Mars to the East, Jupiter to the South…hey, is that a Saturn?
Also, go over to https://www.theplanetstoday.com to see how Jupiter and Saturn are both currently in a heliocentric conjunction (i.e., lined up with the Sun) on November 2nd.
It’s possible our galaxy is filled to the brim with these rogue planets, but this one is particularly unusual for one special reason: it is the smallest found to date — even smaller than Earth — with a mass similar to Mars.
Leave it to USA Today—the paragon of journalistic integrity and unvarnished truth reporting—to grossly exaggerate “value.”
Imagine if someone dumped several hundred thousand tons of nickel and iron on the market?
It would immediately make nickel and iron worthless. Simple supply and demand. So it’s not monetary value that is important.
How do we create vehicles and domiciles for a space-faring future while avoiding the exorbitant cost of getting them into space in the first place? It’s the cost and weight of rocket fuel that’s the issue.
Solution: Build everything in space. No need to bring anything back to Earth.
The new research is especially topical given that NASA plans to land humans on the Moon in the 2020s and use lunar resources as part of its Artemis program, prompting thorny discussions about legal and ethical extraction of materials on the Moon.
Why are 3D objects always compared to the Empire State Building?
Researchers understand it to be what they call a carbonaceous asteroid, meaning its rocks still retain a lot of the chemistry that was present when the Sun and the planets came into being more than 4.5 billion years ago. Hence the desire to bring some of its material home for analysis in sophisticated Earth laboratories.
If it’s a spinning top, I don’t see how showing it in comparison to the Eiffel Tower will help us understand how big it is…
Then again, usually media compare things like this to a football field (US) or a football pitch (UK). Or they say things like “as long as [insert type of moving vehicle here] end to end.”
Honestly, just say “510 m3” and leave it at that. All we care about is what the probe will do: Vacuum up and bring back at least 60g of materials from the beginning of the solar system.
“Beam us down, Mr. O’Brien! No, wait, I didn’t meaaaannnnnnnnn……”
Some would argue that having one’s “molecules scrambled,” as Dr. McCoy would put it, is actually the surest way to die. Sure, after you’ve been taken apart by the transporter, you’re put back together somewhere else, good as new. But is it still you on the other side, or is it a copy? If the latter, does that mean the transporter is a suicide box?
An old article (2017, whose impetus was the imminent release of ST: Discovery) but a good one.
Is the copy of you, you? Or is it a brand new person with the same memories? Would it have ANY memories? Would it have the same consciousness? (Or ANY consciousness?)
Of course, you can always stick to the “David Brin Theory” of teleportation: “Some dude in the future will figure this all out.”
Lazy writers!
(This is why, in my novel, I stick to quantum teleportation of inanimate objects only. That includes quantum communication relays, chunks of asteroids…miniature nuclear bombs…you know, “realistic” things like that.)
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