physical sciences
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Webb Telescope Observations Suggest Habitable Planets May Be Rarer Than Previously Thought
About 40 light-years from Earth, a set of seven Earth-sized planets are orbiting a star called TRAPPIST-1. Now, scientists studying the system with the Webb Space Telescope have found one of them, TRAPPIST-1 c, either lacks an atmosphere or has a very thin one, indicating that habitable planets may be fewer and farther between in…
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E-Bike Batteries Trigger Deadly Fire
A 3-alarm fire in lower Manhattan killed four people and left two others in critical condition in the early hours of Tuesday morning. Lithium-ion e-bike batteries are to blame, according to the New York City Fire Department. The blaze, which began in an e-bike shop on the first floor of a multi-story, mixed-use building in…
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A Super-Sensitive Dark Matter Detector Just Booted Up
The LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) experiment team has announced the results from its first scientific run today; the experiment is the world’s most sensitive dark matter detector, and though it did not find any dark matter in this first round, the team confirmed that the experiment is working as expected.
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India’s Liquid Mirror Telescope Is Ready for Its Close-up
High in the Himalayas, a new telescope is set to observe the night sky. The contraption has a 4-metre (3.96 m) lens, but here’s the kicker: it’s made of liquid mercury, a material seldom used for astronomical imaging.