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Earth is “well-hidden” to extraterrestrial observers using photometric microlensing to hunt for habitable planets that might support life, an international team of researchers has concluded. The findings could also help to narrow down the best areas of the galaxy to target in our own searches for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI). When looking for potentially inhabited planets beyond the solar system, astronomers have a variety of tools at their disposal. As it stands, by far the most successful of these has been the transit technique, which has made about 75% of all the exoplanet discoveries so far. This approach involves watching for...

How many stars are there in our galaxy? How many grains of sand in the Sahara? How many ants live on Earth? These are all questions that seem impossible to answer. However, through intensive and extensive data analysis, science is coming amazingly close to finding the solutions. When it comes to ants, a team led by Würzburg biologists Sabine Nooten and Patrick Schultheiss has done just that. Schultheiss has been conducting research at the Chair of Behavioral Biology and Sociobiology at Julius Maximilians University (JMU) since 2022. He was drawn to Würzburg from the University of Hong Kong. The publication...

Planet Earth has recorded its shortest day since scientists began using atomic clocks to measure the speed of its rotation. Earth’s time systems can prove fairly baffling for anyone who doesn’t have a PhD in Horology, as we learnt the hard way trying to figure out why the clocks were going forward as a child – only understanding that we were being dragged out of bed for school an hour earlier than the week before. But the plot thickens further still, as Earth is actually spinning faster than it used to and recently recorded a time that was the fastest...

The crack in the magnet field was created by a rare phenomenon called a co-rotating interaction region (CIR) from the Sun. CIRs are large-scale plasma structures generated in the low and mid-latitude regions of the heliosphere – the region surrounding the Sun that includes the solar magnetic field and the solar winds – when fast and slow-moving streams of solar wind interact. Like coronal mass ejections (CMEs), CIRs get flung out from the Sun towards Earth and can contain shockwaves and compressed magnetic fields that cause stormy space weather, which usually presents itself to us as pretty aurorae. This one...

New models that show how the continents were assembled are providing fresh insights into the history of the Earth and will help provide a better understanding of natural hazards like earthquakes and volcanoes. "We looked at the current knowledge of the configuration of plate boundary zones and the past construction of the continental crust," said Dr Derrick Hasterok, Lecturer, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Adelaide who led the team that produced the new models. "The continents were assembled a few pieces at a time, a bit like a jigsaw, but each time the puzzle was finished it was cut...

Scientists have detected a completely new type of magnetic wave that surges through Earth's outer core every seven years, warping the strength of our planet's magnetic field in the process. The waves — dubbed "Magneto-Coriolis" waves because they move along the Earth’s axis of rotation, per the Coriolis effect — creep from East to West in tall columns that can travel up to 930 miles (1,500 kilometers) per year, the researchers wrote in a March 21 paper in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Using a fleet of European Space Agency (ESA) satellites, the team pinpointed the...

If we hope to preserve a healthy planet for our grandchildren and beyond, our oceans (Big Blue) will be the key. With 71 percent of Earth covered by water, this should be obvious to all. And right now, we have a golden opportunity to further protect our oceans while simultaneously putting the screws to China. Though Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine is on top of everyone's mind at present, China remains the far greater geopolitical risk to the global community, as well as to our oceans. The Mediterranean has long been known as the 'most overfished sea' in the world....

Andrew Woolfolk, longtime Earth, Wind & Fire saxophonist and prolific session musician, died on April 24 at the age of 71 following an illness that persisted for "over six years," according to EWF singer Philip Bailey. "I met him in high school, and we quickly became friends and bandmates," Bailey wrote in an Instagram post commemorating his late bandmate. "Andrew Paul Woolfolk was his name. We lost him today, after being ill [for] over six years. He has transitioned on to the forever, from this land of the dying to the land of the living. "Great memories. Great Talent. Funny....

FReepers, it is Earth Day! For Earth Hour, let's be sure to fire up our barbecues with some good red meat. Turn up the a/c inside and let those festive lights blaze. Perhaps take a long sightseeing drive. Celebrate!!

Representative Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) said Thursday on CNN’s “Newsroom” that if former President Donald Trump got the Republican nomination for president in 2024, “many” people would “move heaven and earth to ensure he doesn’t win.” Discussing Trump, Sciutto said, “Final question if I can? You are among the names mentioned who might challenge him for the nomination in 2024, should he decide to run. It looks more and more like he will run, maybe Liz Cheney, perhaps Mike Pence. Do you believe there will be a competitive GOP primary that you will get the opportunity to do so? We saw...

In the Ukraine crisis, Russian natural gas supplies should not be subject to EU sanctions, according to Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg. The Baltic Sea pipeline Nord Stream 2 should also be excluded, the conservative politician made clear in an interview with the Sunday edition of Die Presse newspaper. Schallenberg pointed out to the Austrian newspaper that Nord Stream 2 is not yet in operation. Therefore, he said, the pipeline could not be used to build up a threat. "We in Europe are to a certain extent dependent on energy from Russia," the chief diplomat also argued. "We will not...

Researchers at ETH Zurich have demonstrated in the lab how well a mineral common at the boundary between the Earth’s core and mantle conducts heat. This leads them to suspect that the Earth’s heat may dissipate sooner than previously thought. The evolution of our Earth is the story of its cooling: 4.5 billion years ago, extreme temperatures prevailed on the surface of the young Earth, and it was covered by a deep ocean of magma. Over millions of years, the planet’s surface cooled to form a brittle crust. However, the enormous thermal energy emanating from the Earth’s interior set dynamic...

(CNN) - The 30 or so golf courses in the Salt Lake County of Utah drink up around nine million gallons of water a day to stay pristine green -- that's more than 13 Olympic-sized swimming pools. Managing the turf on golf courses also means using carbon-intensive fertilizers, plenty of mowing and, in many cases, clearing forests or trees that were soaking up carbon-dioxide to make way for long tracts of fairway. In other words, golf is a dirty sport that's wrecking the planet. But it doesn't have to be. The impact of golf on the climate and environment has...

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Santa Ana winds were declining in strength across Southern California on Friday and utilities were restoring power to thousands of customers whose electricity was shut off to prevent wildfires. The seasonal dry winds produced fierce gusts on Thanksgiving Day, toppling trees and causing other damage while “public safety power shutoffs” in high-risk areas interrupted traditional dinner plans. One location in Los Angeles County had an 89 mph (143 kph) gust early Thursday, but the National Weather Service said winds Friday were not nearly as strong. No major wildfires were reported during the peak of the Santa...

On a winter morning in 2013, a meteor the size of a four-story building screamed across the country, exploding near the city of Chelyabinsk and injuring more than 1,600 people amid widespread property damage. The chunk of rock and iron, which was 60 feet across, served as a violent reminder that Earth, bombarded daily with tons of space-going debris, periodically intersects with large planet killers—and a significant portion of those remain undocumented. After years of study and discussion, NASA is ready to launch its first effort to spare Earth the kind of calamity that extinguished the dinosaurs, crashing a space...

Scaglia Rossa Limestone exposed near Furlo, Italy, in the Northern Apennine Mountains. Limestone at this locality accumulated on the bottom of a shallow sea, in an arm of the ancient Mediterranean ocean nearly 85 million years ago, during what is called Late Cretaceous time. Credit: Ross Mitchell.Hold on to your hats, because scientists have found more evidence that Earth tips over from time to time. We know that the continents are moving slowly due to plate tectonics, but continental drift only pushes the tectonic plates past each other. It has been debated for the past few decades whether the...

In February of 2013, skywatchers around the world turned their attention toward asteroid 2012 DA14, a cosmic rock about 150 feet (50 meters) in diameter that was going to fly closer to Earth than the spacecraft that bring us satellite TV. Little did they realize as they prepared for the once-in-several-decades event that another bit of celestial debris was hurtling toward Earth, with a more direct heading. On Feb. 15, 2013, the Chelyabinsk meteor, a roughly 62-foot (19 meter)-diameter asteroid exploded over the city of Chelyabinsk, Russia, as it entered Earth's atmosphere at a shallow angle. The blast shattered windows...

An enormous asteroid roughly twice the size of the Empire State Building is currently hurtling towards Earth's orbit. NASA has been tracking this latest space rock, called 2010 RJ53, since September 2010. This comes days after it was announced that a slightly smaller asteroid will enter our atmosphere on Sunday. It spans roughly 2540ft (774m) and should fly past us on September 9. RJ53 circles between 58-139 million miles from the sun, and will whiz by Earth at a distance of more than two million miles. A serious asteroid impact remains one of the worst possible natural disasters as there...

“Fast Facts” About Star Systems Close to Earth Posted on Aug 3, 2021 in Astronomy, Astrophysics, Exoplanets, Science The closest stars to the Earth are also some of the best studied celestial objects. In Astrophysics, distance makes all the difference. The closer an object is, the more light we will be able to glean from it. Stars come in different types (masses, chemical compositions, ages), but the closest example of each type will be a critical object to study. In this article we review five fast facts about the closest systems to the Earth and what they mean for astrophysical...

*China can send mammoth machines into space which travel for years then deflect problematic rocks *Same devices have been criticised recently because one plummeted back to Earth in uncontrolled re-entry China’s space programme could one day save the world, with massive rockets travelling for years to defend the planet from huge asteroids capable of wiping out entire cities, according to a government-backed study. This saviour role is unexpected given these are the same machines seen as a threat by many, including the United States, just weeks ago; the main 20-tonne section from one such rocket fell back to Earth in...