The 1st sign of intelligent life beyond Earth?

Physicist Avi Loeb of Harvard believes we should take seriously the idea that ‘Oumuamua – the 1st known object to pass through our solar system from interstellar space – might have been created by an alien civilization. His new book is called “Extraterrestrial.” Source: https://earthsky.org/space/book-avi-loeb-extraterrestrial-1st-sign-of-intelligent-life…

UAE’s Hope mission to Mars arrives today: How to watch

The Emirates Mars Mission “Hope” is a United Arab Emirates Space Agency uncrewed mission to Mars. It’s slated to enter Mars orbit on February 9, 2021. It’ll be followed on February 10 by China’s Tianwen-1 mission and, on February 18, by NASA’s Perseverance mission. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/missions-to-mars-uae-hope-china-tianwen-1…

Facebook Says It Plans To Remove Posts With False Vaccine Claims.

Facebook said on Monday that it plans to remove posts with erroneous claims about vaccines from across its platform, including taking down assertions that vaccines cause autism or that it is safer for people to contract Covid-19 than to receive the vaccinations. From a report: The social network has increasingly changed its content policies over the past year as the coronavirus…

Highly Educated People More Likely to Fall For QAnon’s Conspiracy Theories

The more educated people are, the more likely they are to believe claims made by QAnon, according to a tracking poll by polling firm Morning Consult. From Politico: Twenty-seven percent of people with a postgraduate degree responded that QAnon claims are either very accurate or somewhat accurate. That compared to 20% of those with a bachelor’s degree and 14% of those…

SpaceX Says Its Starlink Satellite Internet Service Now Has Over 10,000 Users

SpaceX disclosed in a public filing on Thursday that its Starlink satellite internet service now has “over 10,000 users in the United States and abroad.” From a report: “Starlink’s performance is not theoretical or experimental … [and] is rapidly accelerating in real time as part of its public beta program,” SpaceX wrote in a filing with the Federal Communications Commission. Elon…

How Mars 2020 will help bring part of the red planet back to Earth

Out in the cold, empty void beyond Earth, NASA’s latest Mars mission is hurtling at 43,000 miles per hour toward the Red Planet. The mission, Mars 2020, passed the halfway point of its journey in October 2020 and is expected to touch down on solid ground on February 18. Source: https://phys.org/news/2021-02-mars-red-planet-earth.html…

When will Betelgeuse explode?

The red supergiant star will explode in a supernova, close enough to shine brightly during the day but far enough away that Earth won’t be in danger. Source: https://earthsky.org/brightest-stars/betelgeuse-will-explode-someday…

JADES will go deeper than the Hubble Deep Fields

Astronomers announced this month that a new deep-field survey called JADES will be carried out with the James Webb Space Telescope, Hubble’s much-anticipated successor. The Webb is due to launch later this year. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/jades-deep-field-surveys-epoch-of-1st-galaxies…

Top 12 brightest objects in the solar system

Can you name the top 12 brightest objects in the solar system? How many have you seen without the aid of binoculars or a telescope? Source: https://earthsky.org/space/what-are-the-brightest-objects-in-our-solar-system…

Browser Makers Launch New Project For Writing Documentation For Web APIs

A coalition of tech companies announced today the launch of Open Web Docs, a new initiative to help write documentation for Web APIs, JavaScript, and other web tooling and platforms. From a report: The new project does not view itself as a replacement for MDN Web Docs, a website hosted by Mozilla, where all browser makers agreed to move the official…