For the first time, astronomers may have seen direct evidence of a planet forming around a young star.
A spiral disk of gas and dust surrounding the star AB Aurigae contains a small S-shaped twist near the spiral's center, infrared telescope images show.
That twist "is the precise spot where a new planet must be forming," says astrophysicist Emmanuel Di Folco of the University of Bordeaux in France.
Previously, astronomers have seen gaps ( SN: 11/6/14 ) and large-scale spirals ( SN: 6/14/18 ) that are thought to be created by unseen planets in disks of gas and dust around young stars. Theories of how planets coalesce and gather material from these disks predict that planets' motions would further twist the gas around them like swirling skirts, pinpointing a planet's location ( SN: 5/11/18 ).
And here's another article:
Planet Data Helps Scientists Track the Impacts of Natural Disasters
As a part of an effort to help us better understand, prepare and respond to landslides, an international group led by Sepideh Tavakkoli Piralilou at the University of Salzburg utilized PlanetScope data in combination with satellite-based radar and airborne LiDAR to train machine learning algorithms to automatically identify landslides in the Himalayas .
PlanetScope allowed these researchers to detect landslides that were unable to be mapped in the field because of the extremely rugged terrain. They created Normalized Differential Vegetation (NDVI) maps using the combination of PlanetScope RGB and near-IR bands, allowing them "to better distinguish between landslide and non-landslide events," the study authors state in their paper.
Astronomers Find 'Twist' Evidence of Baby Planet | Voice of America - English
Images reveal the first glimpse of a baby planet being born
Planets form from a disk of gas and dust that encircle a young star — the dusk particles only 1/50th the diameter of a single human hair. Gravitational forces pull the gas and dust together and, sometime between 1 to 10 million years later, all of that collision results in a planetary body.
This process is known by scientists. What scientists haven't known is what the birth of a planet actually looks like .
Now, a recent observation by the European Southern Observatory's (ESO) Very Large Telescope (VLT) is theorized to be the first look at a baby planet as it coos its way into the vast universe.
Many things are taking place:
The Effect Of Seafloor Weathering on Planetary Habitability - Astrobiology
Conventionally, a habitable planet is one that can support liquid water on its surface. Habitability depends on temperature, which is set by insolation and the greenhouse effect, due mainly to CO2 and water vapor.
The CO2 level is increased by volcanic outgassing, and decreased by continental and seafloor weathering. Here, I examine the climate evolution of Earth-like planets using a globally averaged climate model that includes both weathering types. Climate is sensitive to the relative contributions of continental and seafloor weathering, even when the total weathering rate is fixed. Climate also depends strongly on the dependence of seafloor weathering on CO2 partial pressure.
If 'Planet Nine' is a primordial black hole, could we detect it with a fleet of tiny spacecraft?
A fleet of tiny spacecraft could prove the existence of a primordial black hole in the outer solar system – according to two independent proposals. The primordial black hole could be playing the gravitational role of " Planet Nine ", which is a hypothetical world that could explain the unusual orbits of certain Kuiper belt objects (KBOs) in the outer Solar System.
Orbits of these KBOs suggest that a body a few times more massive than the Earth currently resides about 500 AU from the Sun towards the constellation Orion. Searches for Planet Nine have come up empty – but this is no surprise because at that distance, even a large and reflective planet would be barely detectable with the kind of wide-field-of-view telescopes used for large-area surveys.
What Will It Take to Cool the Planet? | The New Yorker
But now reset the variables and go into the submenus for coal, gas, and oil, and perform a little experiment: stop building any new infrastructure for these fossil fuels beginning in 2025 and, all of a sudden, you're at a world that warms only 2.8 degrees Celsius by 2100.
And, once you've made this basic course change, you can go back to work on other steps that the simulator can model. Stipulate an all-out effort at making buildings and transport more efficient, and cut way back on deforestation—and now you're at about 2.5 degrees. Figure out some ways to "highly reduce" methane emissions from oil and gas wells, cows, and other sources, and suddenly you're nearing the two-degree mark.
One tenth of the planet has already experienced dangerous climate change - The Washington Post
Their analysis of global climate data showed the planet is heating up unevenly. Globally, average temperatures are a little more than 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than in the preindustrial era. But roughly one-tenth of the world's surface area has already experienced 2 degrees Celsius of warming — an amount that U.N. scientists say will trigger dangerous climate impacts. In the United States, more than 70 counties have passed that threshold.
In New Jersey , lakes that once froze solid in winter are no longer safe for skaters. Waterfront homeowners in coastal Rhode Island are losing hundreds of feet of beach to rising sea levels. In Minnesota , a small army of scientists is working to plant new trees in forests that are threatened by the heat.
Happening on Twitter
For the first time, astronomers may have seen direct evidence of a planet forming around a young star. https://t.co/fgpoZeIu0Y ScienceNews (from Washington, DC) Wed May 20 21:40:35 +0000 2020
We may be behind trend a bit, but why not use these stunning background images from #NieR Replicant ver.1.224744871… https://t.co/XrKBJ3T5Wy NieRGame Tue May 19 13:01:00 +0000 2020
The images from Kashmir, today. Stunning brutality. https://t.co/orwgk9EDDZ azadessa (from New York | Johannesburg) Tue May 19 21:52:59 +0000 2020
For the first time in history, astronomers say they've spotted a planet forming. The images are beautiful. https://t.co/qyEguwLTgs futurism (from Brooklyn, NY) Wed May 20 15:56:46 +0000 2020
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