Most exoplanets orbiting close to their stars don’t have atmospheres. But Gliese 486b – orbiting a red dwarf star only 24 light-years away – does. It’s close enough to see well. Astronomers will be watching it! Source: https://earthsky.org/space/gliese-486b-hot-super-earth-with-atmosphere…
Tag: comparison
A Folding iPhone Could Be Coming In 2023
Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo says that Apple could be launching a folding iPhone in 2023, and that the phone could have a screen between 7.5 and eight inches. The Verge reports: There have been numerous reports about Apple prototyping a folding iPhone, but according to MacRumors, Kuo says that the product has “not yet officially kicked off.” According to Kuo, the screen…
The Perseverance Rover CPU Has Similar Specs To a Clamshell Ibook From 2001
An anonymous reader writes: NASA’s Perseverence rover, which is currently exploring Mars, has as it’s CPU a BAE Systems RAD 750 running at a 200 Mhz and featuring 256 Megabytes of RAM with 2 Gigabytes of storage. This is a radiation hardened version of the PowerPC G3, with specs roughly equivalent to the Clamshell Ibook that Reese Witherspoon used in Legally…
Evidence for white dwarfs consuming Earth-like worlds
For the first time, astronomers have detected the vaporized remains of the crusts of long-dead Earth-like and Mars-like planets in the atmospheres of white dwarf stars. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/vaporized-earth-like-mars-like-crusts-white-dwarf-stars…
‘Earth wind’ may generate water on the moon
Particles carried from Earth’s poles via our planet’s magnetosphere could be interacting with lunar rocks to create small quantities of water on the moon. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/earth-wind-may-generate-water-on-moon…
Astrophysicists design ‘radically different’ world map
You know the old problem of how to portray the round globe of Earth on a flat map? Now a trio of map experts has worked together to solve this problem. Their new map is 2-sided and round. Source: https://earthsky.org/earth/astrophysicists-new-design-world-map…
Can air pollution help us find alien life?
To find alien life in our universe, scientists have considered searches for optical lasers or even giant energy-harvesting structures known as Dyson spheres. Now they’re suggesting a more mundane sort of search, a hunt for air pollution in exoplanet atmospheres. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/can-pollution-help-us-find-alien-life…
James Webb Space Telescope – Hubble’s successor – to launch in October
The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s most complex infrared telescope, built for a wide range of research projects. NASA is now targeting October 31 for its launch on an Ariane 5 rocket from French Guiana. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/james-webb-telescope-hubble-successor-to-launch…
Cold dust cores in the central zone of the Milky Way
The Milky Way’s central molecular zone (CMZ) spans the innermost 1600 light-years of the galaxy (for comparison, the Sun is 26,600 light-years away from the galactic center) and includes a vast complex of molecular clouds containing about sixty million solar-masses of molecular gas. The gas in these clouds exists under more extreme physical conditions than elsewhere in the galaxy on average,…
Farthest known object in the solar system identified
Astronomers have confirmed that an object with the nickname of Farfarout is, to date, the farthest object we’ve seen in the solar system. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/farthest-known-object-solar-system-farfarout…