New images from ESO’s Very Large Telescope show that asteroid Hygiea is round, meaning that it may now be classified as the smallest-known dwarf planet in our solar system. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/asteroid-hygiea-smallest-known-dwarf-planet-very-large-telescope-eso…
Tag: comparison
Giant planet HR 5183b would look 15 times brighter than Venus
Contrary to previous thought, a giant planet in a wild orbit doesn’t mean there can’t be an Earth-like planet in the same system. What’s more, the view from that Earth-like world as its giant neighbor moves past would be unlike anything we’ve ever seen. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/giant-planet-hr5183b-15-times-brighter-venus…
Voyager 2 sends back insights on interstellar space
Voyager 2 left the realm of the sun’s influence a year ago today, becoming the 2nd craft ever to do so. This week, the journal Nature Astronomy published 5 new papers describing what Voyager 2 has been seeing on its journey into the unknown. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/voyager-2-new-published-papers-boundary-interstellar-space…
NASA studies plan to send an orbiter to Pluto
Remember when New Horizons swept past Pluto in 2015? That was exciting! Who knew Pluto had a heart? Now scientists are proposing a new Pluto orbiter mission. It would gather details on Pluto’s heart and the rest of its youthful surface, its hazy bluish nitrogen atmosphere, and its system of 5 known moons. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/nasa-studies-plan-to-send-an-orbiter-to-pluto…
How small is the smallest habitable exoplanet?
Where can we expect to find life beyond Earth? A new study has redefined the lower limit in mass for habitable exoworlds. It suggests that low-mass waterworlds might exist and might be a place to look. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/small-rocky-exoplanets-can-still-be-habitable…
Listen to the world’s loudest bird
Biologists report that the white bellbird, which lives in the mountains of the Amazon, has shattered the record for the world’s loudest bird. Source: https://earthsky.org/earth/listen-to-the-worlds-loudest-bird…
Did the Viking landers find life on Mars in 1976?
For a brief time in 1976, it seemed as if NASA’s Viking landers had found microbes on Mars! Those results have been soundly disputed in the years since, but the original experiment’s principal investigator, Gilbert Levin, still maintains they really did detect Martian microbes. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/viking-lander-life-on-mars-gilbert-levin…
Is Andrew Yang Wrong About Robots Taking Our Jobs?
U.S. presidential candidate Andrew Yang “is full of it,” argues Slate’s senior business and economics correspondent, challenging Yang’s contention (in a debate Tuesday) that American jobs were being lost to automation: Following the debate, a “fact check” by the AP claimed that Yang was right and Warren wrong. “Economists mostly blame [manufacturing] job losses on automation and robots, not trade deals,”…