Earth is approaching tipping points after passing seven of eight scientifically recognized safety limits. A multinational committee of top environmental and social experts, the Earth Commission, warned that people are risking civilization and all life on Earth. Humanity is well into the Anthropocene, the projected new geological era when human forces have set the Earth system on a trajectory heading fast away from the stable system, according to a Nature article. Climate, air pollution, phosphorus and nitrogen contamination of water from fertilizer misuse, groundwater resources, fresh surface water, the unbuilt natural environment, and the natural and human-built environment were examined. Only air pollution wasn’t dangerous internationally. "Overwhelming data demonstrates...

Professor Abhijit Chakraborty of the Physical Research Laboratory (PRL), Ahmedabad, led an international team that located the densest alien planet, 13 times bigger than Jupiter. This exoplanet is PRL's third from India. The discovery was detailed in Astronomy & Astrophysics Letters. The crew utilized the Gurushikhar Observatory's PRL Advanced Radial-velocity Abu-sky Search spectrograph (PARAS) to precisely establish the planet's mass. Exoplanets weigh 14 g/cm3. NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) first identified the star as a possible host for an undiscovered secondary body. The new planet orbits TOI4603 or HD 245134. The object has been renamed TOI 4603b and HD 245134b after becoming a planet. 731 light years from Earth, the planet orbits its star da...

The Indian Space Research Organization (Isro) is getting ready to launch Chandrayaan-3 in 2023, which would be the most important mission of that year. From Sriharikota, the Geosynchronous Launch Vehicle (GSLV-MkIII) will carry the spacecraft into orbit as it launches into space. After launching from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, the spacecraft would enter an elliptical orbit around the Moon and then make an attempt to soft-land on its surface. "Chandrayaan-3 consists of an indigenous Lander module (LM), Propulsion module (PM), and a Rover with the objective of developing and demonstrating new technologies required for interplanetary missions," Isro added. With Chandrayaan-3, ISRO is launching a lander and rover combination "The Chandrayaan-3 mission aims...

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,...