A new study suggests that our Milky Way galaxy is filled with planets like Earth, containing continents and oceans. If so, life might be common in the Mlilky Way. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/water-common-on-planets-pebble-accretion-milky-way…
Tag: probability
What are your chances of a white Christmas this year?
Dreaming of a white Christmas? Here’s a map depicting which places in the US have the best chance of being snowy on Christmas Day 2020. Source: https://earthsky.org/earth/chances-of-white-christmas-us-2020…
Duck! Meteor! Oh, Maybe Don’t Bother – This Time…
RockDoctor (Slashdot reader #15,477) is a professional geologist, and asks: Did anyone feel a sudden wind through their hair at about 17:19+00:00 on Monday, particularly in the mid Pacific? No? Good. Nobody else did. Nobody noticed the asteroid whizzing past just above the Earth’s atmosphere (for certain values of “above” including “not very far” and “373km above ground”). That’s the closest…
This asteroid just skimmed Earth’s atmosphere
The asteroid – 2020 VT4 – is estimated to be between 16 and 36 feet (5-11 meters). It skimmed the top of our atmosphere on Friday, November 13, 2020. Astronomers spotted it one day later. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/asteroid-2020-vt4-skimmed-atmosphere-fri-nov-13-2020…
Astronomers measure a change in orbit for infamous asteroid Apophis
Astronomers in Hawaii have detected the Yarkovsky effect – a minuscule push imparted by sunlight – for asteroid Apophis. The effect is particularly important for Apophis, because it relates to the possibility of an Earth impact in 2068. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/asteroid-99942-apophis-encounters-2029-2036-2068…
Why You Can’t Rely on Election Forecasts
Zeynep Tufekci, writing at The New York Times: There’s a strong case for ignoring the predictions. Why do we have models? Why can’t we just consider polling averages? Well, presidents are not elected by a national vote total but by the electoral votes of each state, so national polls do not give us the information we need. As two of the…
Massive asteroid subject of new findings
A University of Hawaiʻi Institute for Astronomy (IfA) astronomer has revealed critical new findings linked to a large asteroid expected to pass extremely close to Earth. Dave Tholen and collaborators have announced the detection of Yarkovsky acceleration on the near-Earth asteroid Apophis. This acceleration arises from an extremely weak force on an object due to non-uniform thermal radiation. This force is…
Could Our Entire Reality Be Part of a Simulation Created by Some Other Beings?
Sam Baron, associate professor at Australian Catholic University, focuses on the connection between key topics in the philosophy of mathematics and the philosophy of time concerning temporal ontology. In a recent article in Gizmodo, he answers the ultimate question: Could our entire reality be part of a simulation created by some other beings? Let’s assume these extraterrestrial beings have a computer…
Scientist searches for stellar phosphorus to find potentially habitable exoplanets
A Southwest Research Institute scientist has identified stellar phosphorus as a probable marker in narrowing the search for life in the cosmos. She has developed techniques to identify stars likely to host exoplanets, based on the composition of stars known to have planets, and proposes that upcoming studies target stellar phosphorus to find systems with the greatest probability for hosting life…
Honeybees are able to calculate probability and use it to find food
In a lab test, honeybees were able to calculate the probability of an artificial flower dispensing sweetened water, then use this information to inform their foraging strategy Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2253394-honeybees-are-able-to-calculate-probability-and-use-it-to-find-food/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=home…