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Strange winds on seven hot Jupiters reveal strongest signs yet of exoplanet magnetic activity

A team of astronomers has found the strongest evidence yet that some planets outside our solar system may be magnetic. Using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT) and the Gemini North telescope, the researchers measured wind speeds on seven very hot, Jupiter-like exoplanets.

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Meteor as heavy as an elephant causes widespread speculation across New England

When the double boom rang out in New England over the weekend, shaking homes and sending pets fleeing, questions started flooding social media.

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Roman telescope’s massive infrared mirror is ready to fly

NASA has completed its final inspection of the primary mirror on the Roman Space Telescope, which measures 2.4 meters (7.9 feet) in diameter and contains a layer of silver hundreds of times thinner than a human hair, at 400 nanometers.

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ESA selects two new scout-class missions

When it comes to understanding Earth and our changing environment, space is the place. Not only does it give us an overall holistic view of the planet below, but satellite-based imagery can transcend national boundaries and give us an understanding of key changes that often go unseen at ground level.

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An 8,000-Year-Old Human Skeleton Discovered 200 Metres Inside a Flooded Yucatán Cave — And It Was Placed There Deliberately

Cave divers from Mexico INAH led by Octavio del Rio recovered an 8000-year-old human skeleton 200 metres inside a flooded Yucatan cenote near Tulum. Eleventh prehistoric burial from the same cave network. The body was placed there deliberately when the cave was still dry land.

The post An 8,000-Year-Old Human Skeleton Discovered 200 Metres Inside a Flooded Yucatán Cave — And It Was Placed There Deliberately appeared first on Infinity Explorers.

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Rovers, regolith, robots: The blueprint for the moon

The “soil” blanketing the moon’s surface isn’t actually soil. It’s a fine, lethal, abrasive powder of shattered rock and jagged glass that shreds gaskets, chews through seals, and hangs in an airless environment blasted by unfiltered radiation and temperature swings that can warp steel. Scientists call it lunar regolith.

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BWC: Suspect stabs Colo. officer in head multiple times before fatal OIS

As Aurora Police Officer Mark Moore was being stabbed in the head with a butcher knife, he fired multiple shots at the suspect, striking him

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Fiber optic components enable high-performance 2-µm fiber lasers

Laser systems operating in the 2-micrometer wavelength range open diverse opportunities in medical technology, agriculture, and plastics processing. In the Eurostars project DECOMP, Laser Zentrum Hannover e.V. (LZH) has developed novel fiber optic components that overcome previous technical barriers.

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How a giant moon and a steam atmosphere built the recipe for life

4.5 billion years ago was an interesting time for Earth. The atmosphere was thick and what we would now think of as toxic. The moon, which was freshly formed, looks much more massive than it does today and faintly glows with the residual heat from its own creation. And the floor was literally lava. Everywhere. If there were any children alive at the time, they would have no chance of winning that game. But for a long time, scientists had thought this molten phase of Earth didn’t last long. But according to a new paper, available on the arXiv preprint server by researchers at the Kapteyn Astronomical Institute, it might have lasted for upward of half a billion years.

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Matter may entangle with light far more easily near quantum critical points

Quantum entanglement is a state in which particles are entwined with each other. In this entwined state, the properties of one particle influence the other, even when they aren’t physically close to each other. This phenomenon has often been observed in small quantum systems with only a few particles in them, where researchers can use it to store and process quantum information. Rice University professor Qimiao Si is interested in understanding and applying quantum entanglement to macroscopic systems with vast numbers of particles.

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First direct view tracks planet-forming disk spinning around AB Aurigae

The rotation of a protoplanetary disk (a disk where planets are being formed) has been observed directly for the very first time by mapping the emissions from the dust grains within it. The disk in question surrounds the young star AB Aurigae. Although it appears to generally rotate in accordance with the laws of physics, certain regions close to the star show an unexpected departure from this behavior. A body of evidence suggests that this anomaly is caused by the presence of giant planets in the process of formation.

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Blue Origin’s lunar lander just passed its toughest test yet

There is a chamber at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston that is, in its own way, one of the most extraordinary rooms on Earth. Chamber A is one of the largest thermal vacuum facilities in the world, a vast steel vessel that can recreate the airless, temperature swinging brutality of space without leaving the ground. It has tested spacecraft destined for the moon, for the planets, and for the deep dark between them. Now it has tested Blue Origin’s Blue Moon Mark 1 lunar lander, known as Endurance, and the vehicle has passed with flying colors.

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BWC: N.Y. officer shot 6 times in encounter with suspect who said he would ‘kill everyone’

The Buffalo Police officer was shot once in each calf, once in the upper thigh and once in the upper arm, and two shots struck his ballistic vest

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Longest-period young transiting exoplanets discovered

It’s 2234, you’re on your annual class field trip touring exoplanets, and your teacher informs everyone they can pick one more exoplanetary system to explore before heading back to Earth. You and your classmates are exhausted from the day’s activities and you’re hungry. However, you get really excited because you already know what everyone will want. You and your classmates all shout in unison, “The young and far away puffy ones!”

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New study has shone a new light on searching for habitable worlds

When astronomers discovered the first planet outside our solar system, it was orbiting a pulsar, one of the most extreme, radiation-blasted environments imaginable. Not exactly the kind of place you’d expect to find a planet, let alone a representative one. The first confirmed exoplanet was an oddity, a product of the fact that pulsar timing is extraordinarily sensitive, not a reflection of what planets are typically like.

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