Planetary habitability is a difficult issue. Based on Earth, the planet should be neither too close nor too far from its star. Goldilocks zone. Unfortunately, it relies on a planet's orbit. Researchers examined M-dwarfs, the most numerous stars in the galaxy. These stars' Goldilocks zones are closer than ours and colder than the Sun. Since they're close, their tidal forces affect a planet's heat if it's not in a circular orbit. Oval orbits are more eccentric. Ellipses have a larger eccentricity than circles, which is zero. Mercury has little over 0.2 eccentricities, the most of any planet. Mercury's elliptical orbit's short axis is 98% as long as its long axis. When you're close to a star, this slight variation can have tremendous effects. Eccentric orbits cause tidal heating, ma...

Mars had ancient rivers and lakes. And oceans? There is some evidence for an ancient northern hemisphere ocean. Scientists have debated that evidence for decades. However, Chinese and American experts think they have identified fresh evidence in marine sedimentary rocks in Utopia Planitia that may establish that ocean exists. China's Zhurong rover found sedimentary deposits. On May 21, 2023, Science China Press reported intriguing discoveries. China University of Geosciences School of Earth Sciences Professor Long Xiao led the study team. National Science Review released its accepted peer-reviewed work on May 18, 2023. PDFs of the document are available. Mars's ancient ocean was found. China's Zhurong rover has begun investigating its landing location on Utopia Planit...

Light is the fastest object in the cosmos, but its speed depends on what it's going through. Light's speed limits the cosmos. Our finest spacecraft cannot fly faster than light, according to physics. How fast is light? Light travels at 186,000 mph (300,000 km/s), or almost 700 million mph (more than 1 billion km/h). That's fast enough to round the world 7.5 times in one second, while a standard passenger flight would take nearly two days (without fuel breaks or layovers). For much of human history, we assumed light moved instantly. According to Britannica, physicist Ole Roemer measured the speed of light (c) using Jupiter's moons in the late 1600s. James Clerk Maxwell developed electromagnetic ideas in the early 19th century. Light is formed of electric and magnetic fields,...

Thai law enforcement officials reported on Monday that they seized more than a ton of crystal methamphetamine destined for Australia last week in a southern province. The 1.2 metric tons (2,646 pounds) of the substance, also known as "ice," reportedly originated from Thailand's northern frontier region, which is part of the Golden Triangle, where Myanmar, Laos, and Thailand meet. Myanmar is a significant producer of methamphetamine, which has replaced opium and its refined form, heroin, as the prevalent illegal substance in Southeast Asia for both domestic consumption and export over the past decade. Decades of political instability have rendered the border regions of Myanmar primarily unregulated and exploitable by drug producers and traffickers. In a report issued in May of...

China will send its first civilian astronaut into space on Tuesday as part of a crewed mission to the Tiangong space station, its Manned Space Agency announced, as Beijing pursues its extraterrestrial goals. After years of lagging behind the United States and Russia, the second-largest economy in the world has poured billions of dollars into its military-run space program in an effort to catch up. Up until this point, all Chinese astronauts have been members of the People's Liberation Army. "Payload expert Gui Haichao is a professor at Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics," China Manned Space Agency Spokesman Lin Xiqiang told reporters on Monday. Lin stated that Gui would be "primarily responsible for the on-orbit operation of space science experimental paylo...

The Food + Farm Exploration Center installed the World's Largest Potato Masher on May 19. The legendary 39-foot potato masher will welcome visitors to the site. Honoring the agriculture industry, producers, inventors, and consumers, the potato masher symbolizes discovery within and beyond the new center. In a written statement, Executive Director Andy Reitz said Plover is a natural home for the institute due to central Wisconsin's strong potato and vegetable heritage. Reconnecting people to agriculture and food inspired the Exploration Center. It will be a place to explore contemporary agriculture, meet the farmers, study science and engineering, play, and interact. "It will be a tantalizing celebration of food and farming with a teaching farm, children's museum, science center,...

Physicists at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) discovered directed hypernuclei flow. These rare, short-lived nuclei contain at least one "hyperon" along with protons and neutrons. Neutron stars, the densest and most unusual objects in the cosmos, may contain huge amounts of this material. Even if neutron stars are still science fiction, particle collisions can provide scientists with information about these celestial objects from a lab on Earth. In the study, LBNL physicist Xin Dong said, “The conditions in a neutron star may still be far from what we reach at this moment in the laboratory, but at this stage, it’s the closest we can get, By comparing our data from this laboratory environment to our theories, we can try to infer what happens in the neutron star.” ...