Dominique Luchart's Blog, page 583

None of the alien planets we know of could sustain life as we know it, study finds, ,

None of the potentially habitable Earth-like exoplanets known to astronomers today have the right conditions to sustain life as we know it on Earth, with a rich biosphere of plants, microbes and animals, a new study has found.

The study, published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society on Wednesday (June 23), assessed the basic conditions for oxygen-based photosynthesis on ten Earth-like exoplanets with known masses that orbit in the so-called habitable zones around their stars.

The habitable zone is a region around a star with the right temperature for the presence of liquid water, a major prerequisite for the existence of life as we know it on Earth. However, the study, by a team of astronomers from the University of Naples, Italy, found that being in the habitable zone by itself is not enough.

Related: The 7 alien planets orbiting TRAPPIST-1 are like peas in a pod

Photosynthesis, the life-giving process that allows plants and some microorganisms to convert light into organic matter, producing oxygen as a by-product, requires the right amount of sunlight. Not all stars can provide that.

The researchers calculated how much photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) — radiation in the wavelength range between 400 to 700 nanometers that photosynthetic organisms can use — the planets receive from their stars. They found that the planets orbit frequently around stars that are too cool to provide enough PAR. For example, a star about half the temperature of the sun would provide enough PAR to power some photosynthesis but not enough to create such a rich biosphere as Earth has.

In fact, only one of the planets in the studied sample, Kepler-442b, a super Earth orbiting a star some 1,200 light years away in the constellation Lyra, came close to receiving enough PAR to sustain a large biosphere, the scientists said in a statement.

Even though the study was done only on a very small sample of planets, astronomers know enough about the nature of stars in the Milky Way to assume that the right conditions for photosynthesis-driven life might be rare. Most of the stars in the galaxy are the so-called red dwarfs, dim stars about a third of the sun’s temperature, too cool to generate any photosynthetic activity on the planets in their vicinity.

“Since red dwarfs are by far the most common type of star in our galaxy, this result indicates that Earth-like conditions on other planets may be much less common than we might hope,” Professor Giovanni Covone, lead author of the study, said in the statement.

For example, out of the 30 stars in the sun’s immediate neighborhood, 20 are believed to be red dwarfs.

But stars hotter than the sun are not ideal either. Bright stars generally burn up quickly and even though they might be producing enough PAR to trigger enough photosynthetic activity on a planet with water and carbon, they would probably die before any forms of complex life could evolve on those planets, the scientists added.

“This study puts strong constraints on the parameter space for complex life, so unfortunately it appears that the ‘sweet spot’ for hosting a rich Earth-like biosphere is not so wide,” Covone added.

Astronomers have detected thousands of exoplanets in the Milky Way. But they know relatively little about them. It seems, however, that it is not that common to find Earth-like rocky planets in habitable zones where water can exist, the scientists said in the statement.

Future missions, such as the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), scheduled for launch later this year, might be able to reveal more about the distant worlds around other stars and the possibility of the existence of complex forms of life on them.

Follow Tereza Pultarova on Twitter @TerezaPultarova. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

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Mars may have dozens of lakes beneath its south pole, ,

Much more liquid water may lie beneath the south pole of Mars than scientists had thought — or there may be something going on down there that they don’t fully understand.

In 2018, researchers analyzing radar data gathered by Europe’s Mars Express spacecraft announced they’d found evidence of a big subsurface lake in the Red Planet’s south polar region. The lake appears to be about 12 miles (19 kilometers) wide, and it lies about 1 mile (1.6 km) beneath the dry, frigid surface, the scientists reported.

The same core research team soon followed up on the find, using the same Mars Express instrument — Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionospheric Sounding, or MARSIS for short — to study the subsurface in a wide area around the apparent lake. This work turned up evidence for three more underground lakes, each of them about 6 miles (10 km) wide, the scientists reported in a study last year.

Related: The search for life on Mars (a photo timeline)

Now, a different team has taken a very deep dive into the data. Arizona State University doctoral student Aditya Khuller and MARSIS co-principal investigator Jeffrey Plaut, of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California, analyzed 44,000 observations MARSIS made of the Martian south polar region over 15 years. (MARSIS was built by the Italian Space Agency and JPL.)

The duo found dozens of radar reflections similar to the four that have been interpreted as buried lakes, over a wide range of horizontal and vertical distances. But many of the newfound signals were spotted relatively close to the surface, in places seemingly too cold to support liquid water — even the briny stuff hypothesized to exist in the Martian underground.

“We’re not certain whether these signals are liquid water or not, but they appear to be much more widespread than what the original paper found,” Plaut said in a statement. “Either liquid water is common beneath Mars’ south pole, or these signals are indicative of something else.”

It’s unclear what could keep so many relatively shallow lakes — if the newfound signals do indeed indicate lakes — from freezing over on frigid Mars. Volcanism is one possibility that researchers have raised, said Khuller, who conducted the new research while an intern at JPL.

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The colored dots represent sites where bright radar reflections have been spotted by ESA’s Mars Express orbiter at Mars’ south polar cap. Such reflections have previously been interpreted as subsurface liquid water, but their prevalence and proximity to the surface suggests they may be something else. (Image credit: ESA/NASA/JPL-Caltech)

“However, we haven’t really seen any strong evidence for recent volcanism at the south pole, so it seems unlikely that volcanic activity would allow subsurface liquid water to be present throughout this region,” Khuller said in the same statement.

Neither Khuller nor Plaut can explain what exactly the newfound MARSIS reflections mean. But they hope their results, which were published online last week in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, will not remain mysterious for long.

“Our mapping gets us a few steps closer to understanding both the extent and the cause of these puzzling radar reflections,” Plaut said.

Mike Wall is the author of “ Out There ” (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a book about the search for alien life. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook.

Join our Space Forums to keep talking space on the latest missions, night sky and more! And if you have a news tip, correction or comment, let us know at: community@space.com.

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Microsoft keeps hinting at an October release for Windows 11,

Microsoft keeps hinting at an October release date for Windows 11. The software giant teased an October date several times during its Windows event last week, including one instance where a Microsoft Teams message says “excited to turn it up to 11… can’t wait for October!” Microsoft has only officially said “holiday” for Windows 11 availability, but the company’s official marketing material strongly hints at an October 20th date.

The Microsoft Teams message is from Stevie Bathiche, a key engineer on Surface devices, to Panos Panay, Microsoft’s head of Windows and devices. Bathiche is either hinting at a Windows 11 release date, new Surface hardware, or the possibility of both Windows 11 and new Surface devices in October.

Microsoft’s first October hint.

Officially, Microsoft has only said Windows 11 is arriving “this holiday,” and the company hasn’t committed to a date or even a month. Sources familiar with Microsoft’s plans tell The Verge that the company is aiming to release Windows 11 in October, ready for new devices from OEMs.

Microsoft’s hints seem to focus on October 20th as a possible launch date for Windows 11. Most of Microsoft’s press images for Windows 11 include the October 20th date in the taskbar, alongside the time set to 11:11AM. Another marketing image also includes an October 6th date, so all eyes are certainly on October over at Microsoft.

October 20th in Microsoft’s marketing images.Another hint at October 20th.

Alongside Microsoft’s own hints, Walmart is also promising a “free Upgrade to Windows October 2021 when available” on several laptops it’s currently selling. Microsoft has promised to deliver Windows 11 as “a free upgrade for eligible Windows 10 PCs and on new PCs beginning this holiday,” so Walmart is already promoting a likely October date.

Microsoft still needs to clarify which machines will be eligible for the Windows 11 upgrade, though. The company released minimum specifications last week that appear to suggest only 8th Gen and newer devices will be able to upgrade. Microsoft has promised a blog post that will fully detail the upgrade situation for Windows 11, and the TPM requirements.

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Researchers say the study of social media’s large-scale societal impact should be treated as a “crisis discipline”, like climate science or conservation biology (Shirin Ghaffary/Vox)

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Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 888 Plus ups the CPU and AI performance,

Qualcomm’s best mobile processor, the Snapdragon 888, is getting even more powerful at MWC 2021 with the announcement of the Snapdragon 888 Plus. The upgraded model boasts a boosted clock speed, bumping the Kryo 680 CPU from 2.84 GHz up to 2.995 GHz (which Qualcomm is optimistically rounding up to 3 GHz in its marketing.)

Also getting upgraded is Qualcomm’s sixth-gen AI Engine. Where the base Snapdragon 888 could perform 26 trillion operations per second (TOPS) for AI tasks, the 888 Plus is approximately 20 percent more powerful, capable of 32 TOPS.

Mid-year refreshes for its top chips are nothing new for Qualcomm, which took similar approaches with the Snapdragon 855 Plus and 865 Plus, each serving as more powerful mid-cycle updates for the standard 855 and 865 models. The company also did an addition refresh on the 865 at the beginning of 2021 with the launch of the Snapdragon 870, a sort of Snapdragon 865 Plus-plus that offered additional improvements and a higher clock speed.

It likely won’t be long before the Snapdragon 888 Plus starts to show up, either. Qualcomm says that the first phones with the chip should be announced in Q3 2021. Honor has already said that it’ll be using the new chip its upcoming Magic 3 flagship, with Motorola, Vivo, Xiaomi, and Asus also planning devices featuring the Snapdragon 888 Plus, too.

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Honda’s first electric SUV in the US will be called ‘Prologue’,

Honda revealed the name of the first of two electric SUVs it plans to sell in North America, and it’s one that many have already guessed, thanks to a recent trademark application. The vehicle will be called the Honda Prologue, and it will go on sale in the US and Canada starting in 2024, Honda of America sales chief Dave Gardner confirmed to reporters last week.

As a name, Prologue makes sense considering it’s meant to be the introduction to Honda’s efforts to completely electrify its lineup by 2040. It’s also, notably, a synonym for “Prelude,” the name of Honda’s iconic sports coupe from the 1980s.

The Prologue will be the first of two vehicles that Honda is co-developing with General Motors, using the US automaker’s Ultium battery packs. The other vehicle will carry the Acura nameplate and will also be developed jointly with GM, but the company didn’t reveal any new information about it at this time.

“With the Prologue, our goal is to provide a highly competitive product with the functionality to meet the diverse needs of our customers,” Gardner said.

Previously, Honda has said that it will design the exteriors and interiors of the new EVs, while the drivetrain will be engineered by GM to support Honda’s specifications. These vehicles will be manufactured at GM’s North American plants, with sales expected to begin in the 2024 model year.

Honda’s interest in the name Prologue was already reported back in April when Car Buzz noticed that the automaker filed a trademark application with the United States Patent and Trademark Office for the name. According to the filing, Honda said it would use the name to cover “land vehicles, namely, automobiles, battery electric vehicles, and structural parts for the foregoing.”

Honda is staying mum on any other details or specs about the Prologue at this time, although Gardner did say that the automaker was targeting an annual sale volume “roughly” between the Honda Passenger and Honda Pilot SUVs.

But Honda doesn’t plan on stopping with just the two EVs it is developing with GM. Gardner said that in the second half of the decade, Honda will release a series of EVs built on the automaker’s own “Honda e-Architecture.” These vehicles will help Honda reach its goal of 40 percent of sales comprised of battery-electric and fuel-cell vehicles by 2030, 80 percent by 2035, and 100 percent by 2040.

“In short, our zero emission focus has begun,” Gardner said.

Honda’s electric lineup is extremely limited as compared to other automakers. The company recently discontinued its Clarity EV, though it will continue to sell hydrogen and plug-in hybrid versions of the vehicle. And its Honda E city car, which went on sale last summer, is only available in Japan and Europe.

Gardner acknowledged that Honda has a lot of catching up to do with electric vehicles, both to its competitors as well as with the numerous regulations that have been put in place to curb the sale of gas-powered vehicles.

“While we haven’t been perceived as leaders in recent years, we’re not neophytes in the electrified space,” he said, citing the hybrid Honda Insight, as well as the defunct EV Plus and the discontinued Clarity, as examples of the foundation on which Honda plans to build.

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A look at Chinese content farms behind “Factory TikTok”, a subgenre where workers making products like aloe jelly and gloves also are influencers selling them (Andrew Deck/Rest of World)

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Microsoft admits it signed a malicious driver called “Netfilter” targeting gaming environments; the rootkit malware was observed communicating with Chinese IPs (Ax Sharma/BleepingComputer)

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Study: an algorithm developed by EHR provider Epic to predict sepsis infections in patients missed two-thirds of sepsis cases and frequently issued false alarms (Tom Simonite/Wired)

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ShipHero, an e-commerce software and fulfillment provider, raises $50M from Riverwood Capital to expand its fulfillment network, at a $225M post-money valuation (John Paul Hampstead/FreightWaves)

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