Science
How to watch Monday night’s Great Conjunction from anywhere
In the evening on December 21, watch the western sky in the hours just after sunset. There, low on the horizon, you will see a very bright ‘Solstice Star’ emerge from twilight. However, that is no star. It is actually the planets Jupiter and Saturn, seemingly merged in an event known as a Great Conjunction.
Flow of hot rocks rising from the Earth’s core beneath central Greenland is melting the ice from below and contributing to sea-level rise, study finds
Melting of ice in central Greenland is being accelerated by the heat of molten rocks rising from the core–mantle boundary, adding to sea-level rise, a study has found.
Researchers from Japan mapped out the extent and branches of the so-called ‘Greenland plume’ — the rising flow of molten rock ascending beneath the island.
Hayabusa2 capsule in ‘perfect condition’ as Japan team prepares for analysis
If the mission was successful, the capsule will contain two samples from the Ryugu asteroid, including the first subsurface asteroid sample ever collected. Scientists believe that organic matter and water existed on the asteroid when the solar system was created around 4.6 billion years ago.
We’re all alone: Oxford study says chance of intelligent life elsewhere very low
In the paper, scientists from Oxford’s Future of Humanity Institute, theorize that as life evolved on earth, in many cases it depended on a series of unlikely “revolutionary transitions.” Given how late intelligent life evolved on this planet, the chances of similar developments happening on other planets, before they are no longer able to sustain life, were highly unlikely, they said.