Is there any theoretical limit to how accurate an optical telescope could be? We've already reached diminishing returns in terms of what it's practical to build and there will be better ways to get an idea of what these planets are like, but is there anything about the behaviour of light itself that makes it impossible to, say, take an accurate photo of the surface of a planet 39 light years away?
edit: nevermind, found an answer. Still don't exactly understand the answer.
Scientists from the University of Bristol Cabot Institute are hitting two birds with one stone, thanks to their lab-made diamond that can generate electricity and is made from upcycled radioactive waste ...
The nuclear diamond battery has an incredible lifetime, and will only be half used up by the year 7746. This makes it an ideal power solution for “situations where it is not feasible to charge or replace conventional batteries,” said Tom Scott, a materials science professor at Cabot Institute.
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SIBERIA’s enormous ‘hellmouth’ crater in the melting permafrost is growing fast — and it’s opening a portal to a 200,000-year-old world.
The Batgaika crater, known to the local Yakutian people as the ‘doorway to the underworld’, is one of the largest of a growing number of pits collapsing across the Siberian landscape as the ice beneath the surface turns to slush — and methane gas.
But this crater in particular offers some form of silver lining.
It’s revealing eons of climate change in the region, along with long-buried animal carcasses and petrified forests.
The 1km wide, 85m deep crater is growing at the rate of 10m to 30m a year as the ice about its edges gives way. Researchers say it’s also getting gradually deeper.
Private company sending up private satellites? Not sure there is any government collaboration/ownership there? Unless there is a national security risk, would it matter if it's Ukrainian or not?
Talk about a gang you want no part of (sweet picture though)
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The world is ending and only the whales know. At least, that’s one explanation. Humpback whales are normally pretty solitary—scientists used to call groups of 10 to 20 “large.” Now they’re congregating in groups of 20 to 200 off the coast of South Africa. Something is definitely going on here, but so far experts are stumped.
In fact, Humpback whales aren't supposed to be hanging out in that region in the first place. Humpbacks migrate up to tropical waters to breed, but they typically feed down south in the icy waters of Antarctica this time of year. Yet scientific expeditions keep seeing these super-pods (not to be confused with super PACs, which are equally giant but much more dangerous), which were finally compiled and published at the beginning of March in the journal PLOSone. The researchers have a few ideas about why the humpbacks are organizing, but no clear answers yet. So far the consensus seems to be: this is pretty freakin’ weird.
Most of the whales seem to be young, begging the question of whether the western coast of South Africa is like the humpback version of the local mall for tween whales. They’re just looking for a fishy Orange Julius, or perhaps a krill-based Panda Express to hang out at on a Saturday afternoon. Because it’s not like 200 whales—each weighing about 65,000 pounds—can feed just anywhere.
Congregations of whales usually indicate parts of the ocean that are especially productive. There has to be a dense concentration of prey to support that many humpbacks. And yes, the word “prey” might sound strange for a species known for singing songs and being friendly to other mammals. Lest we forget, humpback whales do hunt for their food. They’re not vegetarians. They eat everything from krill to plankton to small fish, regardless of whether they speak whale. They even have a specialized way of hunting where they gang up on schools of fish to try to eat them all at once. It’s called bubble net feeding. The humpbacks divide up, some swirling around a group of fish and some blowing air, such that the circling whales can drive their victims into a net made of bubbles. This confuses the fish, trapping them inside, until one whale sounds the call and they all rush in, mouths agape, swimming upwards through the teeming mass of fish
I don't know if this counts as ongoing science, but I have always just been amazed by chrysalis. Gross little caterpillars hatching and then wiggling around doing caterpillar stuff for a while until they find a private place to "die".
Then they get all crusty and a beautiful butterfly hatches and does totally unrelated butterfly stuff. It just blows my mind that some organisms can be born twice.
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"A pessimist thinks things can't get any worse. An optimist knows they can."
Last edited by FlamesAddiction; 03-25-2017 at 10:50 PM.
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While scientists have not found life on Enceladus, Saturn's moon, they have found the next best thing: food that could sustain potential life. The food source is in the form of molecular hydrogen, which could feed microbes as it does here on Earth.
Scientists detected the molecular hydrogen in plumes of water vapour erupting from beneath the moon's icy surface, a critical ingredient in a process known as methanogenesis. On Earth, this provides food and energy to microbes deep in the oceans.
And the only plausible source, they concluded, are hydrothermal reactions between hot rocks and the water in the moon's ocean.
