Get ready for Perseverance’s landing on Mars February 18

Some call attempts to land on Mars “7 minutes of terror.” The Perseverance mission will provide the most detailed video and photos of a landing yet. We’ll watch ourselves land on another planet, for the first time ever. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/get-ready-nasa-perseverance-landing-feb2021…

Hey, kids! Meet the new Hot Wheels Mars rover!

Mattel, maker of Hot Wheels, has just released a new Hot Wheels Mars Perseverance Rover to celebrate the landing of the NASA Perseverance rover on Mars on February 18. Source: https://earthsky.org/human-world/hot-wheels-mars-perseverance-rover-mattel…

Striped brown dwarf looks a lot like Jupiter

The surface features of brown dwarfs – objects midway in mass between planets and stars – can’t be seen. But researchers have found a way to reveal Jupiter-like stripes and bands in the atmosphere of the closest brown dwarf, Luhman 16B. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/brown-dwarf-luhman-16b-jupiter-like-stripes…

New study finds polyester fibers throughout the Arctic Ocean

A new study has found that pollution from microplastics is widespread in the Arctic Ocean, and 92% of those particles are minuscule synthetic fibers from our clothes. Source: https://earthsky.org/earth/polyester-fibers-arctic-ocean-microplastic-pollution…

The sky in 2020

A collection of astronomical photos of 2020 from southern British Columbia, Canada. The music is ‘Windswept’ by Kevin Macleod. Source: https://earthsky.org/human-world/video-the-sky-in-2020…

10 tips for watching the Geminids

We anticipate 2020 will be a great year for watching the Geminid meteor shower! Here are 10 tips. Source: https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/10-tips-for-watching-the-geminids…

Tips on choosing telescopes and binoculars for beginners

Tips for beginners: how to choose binoculars or your first telescope. Source: https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/how-to-choose-1st-telescope-binoculars…

The Pope Praises Medical Workers, Criticizes ‘Personal Freedom’ Protests

More Americans travelled Wednesday than on any other day in the last eight months — 1.1 million Americans — continuing the country’s long-standing annual tradition of gathering to give thanks. The same week the Pope apparently felt compelled to publish an opinion piece in one of the country’s largest newspapers to share his own thoughts about the pandemic. First, the Pope…

No Implants Needed For Precise Control Deep Into the Brain

An anonymous reader quotes a report from IEEE Spectrum: In April, Guoping Feng and colleagues at MIT, along with [Karl Deisseroth, a neuroscientist and bioengineer at Stanford University] demonstrated a minimally invasive optogenetic system that required drilling a small hole in the skull, then being able to control opsin-expressing neurons six millimeters deep into the brain using blue light. This approach…