... may increase an exoplanet's changes of hosting life.  Of course, some moons are big enough to do that themselves.

Oh, this sounds like fun.  Let's explore some!

These potentially habitable planets have a world ocean under a hydrogen atmosphere.  There are dark and cold versions as well as regular.

... could be common in the galaxy.

I got into this discussion with a friend, and decided to post it here so more people can see it.

Most humans have an extremely limited perspective regarding sapience and its signs. Hell, they have a hard time recognizing a fishnet unless it's made of string. If it's made of rock, mud, or air, most of them won't recognize it. 0_o Me, I'm looking ( Read more... )

 ... are echoes of strangely bent light.  :D

Astronomers have spotted a moon-forming disc around an exoplanet.  :D

Blue Origin made its successful flight. \o/  Remember that replicability matters in science -- other people have to accomplish the same thing for it to count.  Virgin Galactic used slightly different equipment, but these are both private ventures into space, and that's important.

This poem is spillover from the July 6, 2021 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired and sponsored by Anthony Barrette.

( Read more... )

Virgin Galactic has made its suborbital test flight.  \o/  My observations include ...

* Not quite 100% of rich people are useless assholes.  There's always a nonzero fraction who do awesome things with all that money.  The problem is, you have to shuck a lot of oysters to find those pearls.

* Particularly telling is that Mr. Branson hasn't changed ( Read more... )

There are two ways to generate the Hubble constant (the rate at which the universe expands) and they disagree.  One uses data from the early universe, another from the late universe.  Has anyone considered that they might both be right, and the rate was different in the early universe than in the late universe?

In general, if you're not sure what to ( Read more... )