exoplanet
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Life Under Three Suns: The Real Physics Behind Netflix’s 3 Body Problem
By now, I’m assuming that we’ve made our way through all eight episodes of the Netflix adaptation of Liu Cixin’s The 3 Body Problem (and by we, I mean sci-fi nerds). The series is packed with science—much of it way over the top—but it grounds itself in quantum mechanics and astrophysics. The show combines hard…
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Scientists Have Formally Invited Aliens to Visit Kentucky
The city of Lexington, Kentucky, appears so tired of being overlooked by humankind that it has sent a formal invitation to the next-best thing: alien life that may or may not exist in a nearby star system. It’s a tourism stunt, but the message is very real. The invitation, beamed out last fall via infrared…
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Webb Telescope Spots Wild World With Sand Clouds and Sulfuric Skies
The Webb Space Telescope has revealed a world quite alien compared to our own: WASP-107b, a Neptune-like gas giant that orbits a star some 211 light-years from Earth. Webb has now detected water vapor and sulfur dioxide in the planet’s atmosphere, as well as sand-like silicate clouds. The planet’s atmosphere is not dense, allowing a…
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Astronomers Spot a Massive Brown Dwarf Hotter Than the Sun
Astronomers recently spotted one of the most massive brown dwarfs known, an object between 75 and 90 times the mass of Jupiter with a beyond-scalding dayside temperature of 8,000 K (13,940° Fahrenheit.) For comparison, the Sun’s surface is a mere 5,772 K (9,930° Fahrenheit). Astronomers observed the piping-hot, supersized brown dwarf in 2019 and 2020…