Help confirm exoplanets
The SETI Institute and Unistellar Optics are asking back-garden astronomers and citizen scientists to help confirm exoplanet candidates found by NASA’s TESS mission. Visit science.unistellaroptics.com to find out how you can use your eVscope or other telescope to help characterise new worlds.
Small nursery, big planet
Thin planetary nurseries lead to a glut of large worlds. A new study has shown that if the gas and dust disc around a young star is super-thin, the dust settles into dense regions at its centre. This makes the grains clump together faster, leading to a higher portion of big planets.
MOXIE breathes easy
The MOXIE experiment on board the Perseverance rover has successfully generated breathable oxygen from Mars’s thin atmosphere, it’s been confirmed. A potential prototype for future life support systems, MOXIE created as much oxygen as a single modest tree during both the day and night, and across different Martian seasons.
Rising temperatures on Jupiter
‘Heat waves’ of 700°C have been discovered extending 130,000km (about 10 Earth diameters) above Jupiter’s atmosphere. They are thought to be trigged by pulses of intense solar wind plasma hitting Jupiter’s magnetic field, causing aurorae that deliver heat into the atmosphere. The hot gas then expands, spilling out across the planet.
Space Debate in UAE
The United Arab Emirates is hosting its first ever Space Debate in Abu Dhabi on 5–6 December. The event will gather leaders in spaceflight together to define the future of space and address the industry’s most pressing challenges.
Pale brown dot?
Earth’s ‘pale blue dot’ might be a rarity, if new simulations are to be believed. Looking into how the geological cycle shapes terrestrial planets, these suggest most rocky worlds would be almost entirely covered in land, 20 percent would be mostly water, and less than one percent would have an Earthlike balance of both.