Scientists Find a New Way To Search for Habitable Exoplanets

An anonymous reader shares a report: Earthlings are lucky to live near a relatively stable Sun, which has enabled life on our planet to emerge and thrive over the past four billion years. While many worlds in our galaxy might contain the right ingredients to support life, though, a lot of them could be stuck with a more volatile star that…

Tips for watching N. Taurid meteors

The nominal peak of the North Taurid meteor shower is on the night of November 11-12, 2020. Source: https://earthsky.org/sky-archive/peak-night-for-n-taurid-meteor-shower-on-november-1112…

A Few Trick-or-Treaters in Canada Receive a Surprising Treat: Bitcoin

Cointelegraph reports: While many children dressed as ghosts, goblins, and witches last night may have been disappointed to find an inedible thin piece of cardboard left out in a goodie bag, a lucky few recognized the treat as a Bitcoin prize. According to an October 31 tweet from Brad Mills, the crypto user filled a Halloween candy box with more than…

Software Engineer Reverse-Engineers McDonald’s Ordering API To Find Locations With a Broken Ice Cream Machine

Software engineer Rashiq Zahid debuted a web app today that uses a reverse-engineered version of McDonald’s ordering API to query every single McDonald’s in the United States. “Assuming a store has correctly indicated that ice cream is unavailable and that its ice cream machine isn’t working, it’ll show up as a little red dot on the McBroken map,” reports Lifehacker. From…

Aquarius? Here’s your constellation

Aquarius lies in a “watery” part of the sky, near Pisces the Fish, Cetus the Whale, Eridanus the River, and Piscis Austrinus the Southern Fish. Source: https://earthsky.org/constellations/aquarius-heres-your-constellation…

A Chicken Nugget Was Just Launched Into Space

A British supermarket celebrated its 50th anniversary by playing with its food — specifically, one lucky piece of breaded protein: The grocery store chain hired Sent Into Space to launch the chicken nugget into space. According to its website, Sent Into Space is the “world’s leading space marketing company, specialising in space-themed marketing campaigns and publicity stunts.” “From a site in…

Spinach Gives Fuel Cells a Power Up

Researchers at the Department of Chemistry, American University, used spinach to make a carbon-rich catalyst that can be used to improve the performance of fuel cells and metal-air batteries. IEEE Spectrum reports: The spinach was a used a precursor for high-performance catalysts required for the oxygen reduction reactions (ORRs) in fuel cells. Traditionally, fuel cells have used platinum-based catalysts, but not…

Favorite photos of 2020’s Harvest Moon

Every year at this time, people in the Northern Hemisphere witness the legendary Harvest Moon. Bookmark this post. This is where we’ll be posting new Harvest Moon photos from the EarthSky community. Source: https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/photos-2020-harvest-moon-earthsky-community…

Learn how Vishnu went from small village tech hobbyist to IT professional

We’d like you to meet Vishnu Mohankumar from Kerala, India. A tech enthusiast from a young age, Vishnu has always loved helping neighbors in his village by fixing any and all technology-related issues. Today, he is a Desktop Support Engineer at Astreya Consultancy. Below, he shares his learning journey and discusses how earning his Google […]
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Young moon after sunset September 18 to 21

After sunset these next several days – September 18, 19, 20 and 21, 2020 – watch for the waxing crescent moon’s return to the evening sky. Source: https://earthsky.org/tonight/young-moon-after-sunset-september-18-21…