Random Science News Thread

[Avatar]

No worries. Nobody reacted at the time, so perhaps it was a bit hidden anyway.

I have some concerns, sure. But I bow before the inevitability.

--A

[Avatar]

Scientists discover giant new planet orbiting two suns

Astronomers have discovered the largest planet outside our solar system orbiting two stars, at a distance that would make it potentially habitable for people, scientists announced on Monday.

A team of Nasa astronomers that made the discovery using the Kepler space telescope revealed the findings at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society in San Diego, California.

The gaseous planet - dubbed Kepler-1647 b - is the size of Jupiter and has a wide orbit, revolving around its two stars in 1 107 days, or around three years.

A gas giant in the "goldilocks" zone. Obviously can't support life itself, but any moons it has might be able to.

--A

[Cord Hurn]

Recently in the news, the results of a study in Hungary suggest that dogs comprehend a some of what their humans are saying. (That may mean no more verbally trying out new computer passwords around Fido, or we could have a new hacking crisis.)

www.sci-tech-today.com/story.xhtml?stor ... 1000ME7QYZ

[Vraith]

Well this is fun.
The first is a link to pretty stuff---if you scroll down, you can look at the universe as it would if we had better and broader-spectrum vision.

The second, a model that merges pieces of several theories, adds a couple particles, and solves several of the most vexing physics problems.
The best part of that is this:

"best thing about the theory is that it can be tested or checked within the next ten years"

www.icrar.org/GLEAM/

https://www.newscientist.com/article/21 ... in-one-go/

[JIkj fjds j]

... fascinating!

[Cord Hurn]

Well, it all sounds so efficient, so there's no way that I can disapprove!

[Cord Hurn]

RIP to Vera Rubin, astrophysicist who confirmed the existence of dark matter. She died on Sunday, Dec. 25, aged 88 years.

"In the 1960s, Rubin's interest in how stars orbit their galactic centers led her and colleague Kent Ford to study the Andromeda galaxy, M31, a nearby spiral. The two scientists wanted to determine the distribution of mass in M31 by looking at the orbital speeds of stars and gas at varying distances from the galactic center. They expected the speeds to conform to Newtonian gravitational theory, whereby an object farther from its central mass orbits slower than those closer in. To their surprise, the scientists found that stars far from the center traveled as fast as those near the center.

"After observing dozens more galaxies by the 1970s, Rubin and colleagues found that something other than the visible mass was responsible for the stars' motions. Each spiral galaxy is embedded in a "halo" of dark matter-material that does not emit light and extends beyond the optical galaxy. They found it contains 5 to 10 times as much mass as the luminous galaxy. As a result of Rubin's groundbreaking work, it has become apparent that more than 90% of the universe is composed of this invisible material. The first inkling that dark matter existed came in 1933 when Swiss astrophysicist Fritz Zwicky of Caltech proposed it. But it was not until Rubin's work that dark matter was confirmed."



https://carnegiescience.edu/news/vera-r ... 80%9D-dies

[peter]

Respect. Possibly the first indication that our understanding of the physics underlying the universe we line in remains incomplete at best (and possibly plain outright wrong at worst?).

[wayfriend]

Dark matter is an odd cat. No one has ever directly observed it (AFAIK). But we deduce it exists because it explains other odd things we otherwise could not explain. It makes things we'd like to work work. It's half theory, half duct tape.

It reminds me of Stand on Zanzibar.

"Cue: what's wrong with the Beninia project?"

"It won't work," Shalmaneser said.

Norman stole a glance at Rex. It was impossible to tell by looking whether the man's agitated condition was due to Chad's nonchalance or to the knowledge that using Shalmaneser in this fashion slowed his lightning reactions to a level close to the human, wasting precious time. Giving a machine the power to talk in ordinary English had meant funnelling everything through subsidiary installations which worked at less than a thousandth of the speed of light-writers.

"Cue: why not?" Chad said.

"The data given to me include unacceptable anomalies."

"Cue: would it be fair to say you don't believe in what you've been told about Beninia?"

There was a measurable pause. Rex took half a pace forward and started to say something about anthropocentric concepts compelling Shalmaneser to search his entire memory-banks.

"Yes. I don't believe it," the artificial voice announced.

"Hmmm..." Chad plucked at his beard. "Cue: what elements of the data are unacceptable? Be maximally specific."

Another, longer pause, as Shalmaneser examined everything he had ever been told which referred to the subject and discarded all but the most essential items.

"The human elements concerned with social interaction," he said at length. "Next, the-"

"Hold!" Chad snapped. Once more he tangled his fingers in his beard and tugged at it. "Cue: have you been taught the Shinka language?"

"Yes."

"Cue: is its given vocabulary among the anomalies that cause you to reject the data?"

"Yes."

All around, technicians began to exchange astonished stares. One or two of them dared to sketch a smile.

"Cue: are the living conditions described to you as obtaining in Beninia of a kind which lead you to expect different behaviour from the people there from what you've been told?"

"Yes."

"Cue: is the political relationship between Beninia and its neighbouring countries another of the anomalies?"

"Yes." Immediately-no delay.

"Cue: is the internal political structure of the country also anomalous?"

"Yes."

"Evaluate this, then," Chad said, frowning tremendously and staring at nothing. "Postulate that the data given you about Beninia are true. Cue: what would be necessary to reconcile them with everything else you know? In other words, what extra assumption do you have to make in order to accept and believe in Beninia?"

Rex jerked forward another half-pace like a marionette, his mouth open. All around the vault, which was now in dead silence except for the echo of Chad's voice and the soft humming of Shalmaneser's mental processes, Norman saw jaws drop correspondingly.

Obvious!

The pause, though, stretched, and stretched, until it was intolerable. One more second, Norman thought, and he was going to scream. And-

"That a force of unknown nature is acting on the population and causing them to behave differently from known patterns of human reaction under comparable circumstances elsewhere."

"Shal," Chad said softly, "such a force exists, and is at present being investigated by experts to determine its nature. I tell you three times!"

[peter]

[Hashi Lebwohl]

Stand on Zanzibar ought to be on everyone's bookshelves and should have been required reading in junior high.

[Cord Hurn]

Seven new planets have been discovered around the dwarf star Trappist-1. Several of these are potentially capable of supporting life.

https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/trappist1/

[Cord Hurn]

Seven new planets have been discovered around the dwarf star Trappist-1. Several of these are potentially capable of supporting life.

https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/trappist1/

This is what I love about science: it just keeps making the world a more interesting place as each week goes by!

[Vraith]

Seven new planets have been discovered around the dwarf star Trappist-1. Several of these are potentially capable of supporting life.

https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/trappist1/

This is what I love about science: it just keeps making the world a more interesting place as each week goes by!

The coolest thing about his for me is the ongoing damage to the naysayers.

When I was really young, people were always saying "But planets probably are really rare" [[with no evidence for saying this]]]. Then stacked that on top of "and suns like ours aren't the most common" and "plus they have to be in the perfect zone around those suns," and "have to be somewhat like Earth [rocky and size and such] etc.. etc...
Now we know planets aren't rare, they're S.O.P....suns like ours aren't necessary for the right zone, lots of bodies are roughly earthly.

And these ones are practically next door...even better.

The only thing they have left is "starting life is really unlikely/complicated, odds incredibly low."
I'm betting that turns out to be wrong. There is a low but non-zero chance I'll live to see it found.
Finding other intelligence...that's less likely because of size and timing.But if the existence of life is shown to be greater than 1 per Universe---other intelligent life becomes nearly guaranteed.

[Cord Hurn]

The only thing they have left is "starting life is really unlikely/complicated, odds incredibly low."
I'm betting that turns out to be wrong. There is a low but non-zero chance I'll live to see it found.
Finding other intelligence...that's less likely because of size and timing.But if the existence of life is shown to be greater than 1 per Universe---other intelligent life becomes nearly guaranteed.

Agreed...other life forms, intelligent or not, seem ever-more likely after discoveries like these planets. With discoveries like this and proof of gravitational waves, it's a fascinating time to be alive.

[Vraith]

And now, back to inner space from our planet news....
PARTICLES----
Freakin 5 of them!

https://home.cern/about/updates/2017/03 ... -particles

[Cord Hurn]

Terrific, Vraith!

From Vraith's link:

In a paper released today, the LHCb collaboration announced the discovery of a new system of five particles all in a single analysis. The exceptionality of this discovery is that observing five new states all at once is a rather unique event.

_______________________________________

From the analysis of the trajectories and the energy left in the detector by all the particles in this final configuration, the LHCb collaboration could trace back the initial event - the decay of the _c0 - and its excited states. These particle states are named, according to the standard convention, _c(3000)0, _c(3050)0, _c(3066)0, _c(3090)0 and _c(3119)0. The numbers indicate their masses in megaelectronvolts (MeV), as measured by LHCb.

This discovery was made possible thanks to the specialised capabilities of the LHCb detector in the precise recognition of different types of particles and also thanks to the large dataset accumulated during the first and second runs of the Large Hadron Collider. These two ingredients allowed the five excited states to be identified with an overwhelming level of statistical significance - meaning that the discovery cannot be just a statistical fluke of data.

[Cord Hurn]

www.space.com/36422-metal-mars-atmosphe ... maven.html

For the first time, metal ions have been confirmed to be persistently found in the atmosphere of Mars.

[Cord Hurn]

"Repairing spinal injuries is a difficult business. Scientists previously developed a new surgical technique to reconnect sensory neurons to the spinal cord after traumatic spinal injuries. Now, they have gained new insight into how the technique works at a cellular level by recreating it in rats. The technique succeeds because offshoots from the spinal cord grow into the implanted sensory neurons to complete a spinal circuit."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2 ... 100837.htm

[Cord Hurn]

This is interesting: Artificial intelligence is used to find a solar system with as many planets as ours, around star Kepler-90:

https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/arti ... stant-star