Has lockdown and stay-at-home advice got more of us stargazing? There's no proof—no census is going to ask that question—but judging by the increased interest in my stargazing posts, enthusiasm for the night sky has never been greater.
You've probably seen a planet, found some constellations and perhaps even watched satellites glide across your backyard, but what are you missing? What are the ultimate sights in the night sky you can see with unaided eyes?
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Eating better - for us and the planet - Modern Diplomacy
To mark World Food Day on 16 October, we take a closer look at sustainable agriculture – how it can help reduce our environmental footprint, improve our health and even create jobs.
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It is farming that meets the needs of existing and future generations , while also ensuring profitability, environmental health and social and economic equity. It favours techniques that emulate nature–to preserve soil fertility, prevent water pollution and protect biodiversity. It is also a way to support the achievement of global objectives, like the Sustainable Development Goals and Zero Hunger .
Astronomers identify 24 possible superhabitable worlds | Space | EarthSky
The new peer-reviewed paper that explains their reasoning was published in the journal Astrobiology on September 18, 2020.
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View larger | Chart showing the 24 potentially superhabitable exoplanets (labeled), as identified by the researchers. Image via Schulze-Makuch et al./ Astrobiology .
So how did the researchers come to these conclusions, and how did they decide upon these 24 best candidates?
Schulze-Makuch, along with astronomers René Heller of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research and Edward Guinan of Villanova University, started with planet-star systems where rocky terrestrial-type planets orbit within the habitable zone , the region around a star where temperatures could allow liquid water to exist. They selected these from the Kepler Objects of Interest exoplanet archive of transiting exoplanets.
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Two planets around a red dwarf -- ScienceDaily
Astronomers have detected two exoplanets orbiting the star TOI-1266. The Mexico-based telescope thus demonstrates its high precision and takes an important step in the quest of finding potentially habitable worlds.
Red dwarfs are the coolest kind of star. As such, they potentially allow liquid water to exist on planets that are quite close to them. In the search for habitable worlds beyond the borders of our solar system, this is a big advantage: the distance between an exoplanet and its star is a crucial factor for its detection. The closer the two are, the higher the chance that astronomers can detect the planet from Earth.
Astronomy breakthrough after ... planets discovered | Science | News |
Instead of exclusively looking at planetary systems with yellow dwarf stars like our Sun, the scientists also looked at orange dwarf stars, which are cooler, dimmer, and less massive than our Sun.
In the Milky Way, our galaxy among billions in our universe, orange dwarfs are about 50 percent more frequent than yellow dwarfs.
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However, one did meet at least two requirements - KOI 5715.01, a planet about 5.5 billion years old and 1.8 to 2.4 times Earth's diameter orbiting an orange dwarf about 2,965 light-years away.
Apple ditching chargers saves costs but not the planet - The Verge
The iPhone 12 won't come with earbuds or a wall charger, but what will that mean for the environment?
Apple's decision to no longer include wall chargers and earbuds in its new iPhone 12 boxes is good for business, but just how good it will be for the planet is harder to see. The move saves the company money, but some of the environmental benefits could be offset by people buying earbuds and chargers separately.
"They sold this as kind of an environmental friendly rule," says Angelo Zino, a senior industry analyst with investment research firm CFRA Research. But Apple's waste-cutting move is also a good financial move. "Clearly the bottom line has a lot to do with it."
Tread Softly on the Blue Planet
That thought process in the past gave us an open season on everything from snakes to chicken hawks to beaver to sparrows, and, of course, in previous years, the state Game and Fish Commission had put bounties on wolves, cougars and bobcats. I'm sorry to say that mentality,which prevails even to this day, has resulted in a wholesale destruction of hundreds of species simply because we view them as a perceived threat to us. They are considered undesirable wildlife.
So, what should be our reaction to the parts of nature we consider undesirable? Of course, that requires us to classify every part of nature as either desirable or undesirable. Where do you start and where do you stop. How about the snakes, coyotes, sparrows, hawks, wolves, beaver, armadillos and you could go on and on. But while we are classifying, shouldn't we consider how removing them degrades the blue planet?
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