2 Earth-sized worlds discovered outside our solar system

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exist More than 5,000 known scientists outside our solar system.

Since the 1990s, astronomers have used ground-based and space-based telescopes to search for signs of planets beyond our little corner of the universe.

Exoplanets are difficult to image directly because they are so far from Earth.

But scientists know the signs, and they look for star wobbles as orbiting planets use the force of their gravity, or dips in starlight as planets pass in front of their stellar hosts.

There are very likely hundreds of billions of other exoplanets out there waiting to be discovered.

Part of the excitement about the James Webb Space Telescope is its ability Peer inside the atmospheres of potentially habitable planets And discover new worlds. This week, the space observatory certainly delivered.

The Webb telescope has confirmed the existence of an exoplanet for the first time since the launch of the space observatory in December 2021.

The world, known as LHS 475 b, is roughly the same size as Earth and is located 41 light-years away in the constellation Octane.

Scientists can’t yet determine if the planet has an atmosphere, however The telescope’s sensitive capabilities picked up an array of particles. Webb will take another crack this summer in observing the planet to build on this data.

The exoplanet was just one of Webb’s cosmic discoveries announced this week at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Seattle. Furthermore, NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Reconnaissance Satellite mission, or TESS, spied on The second Earth-sized exoplanet in an interesting planetary system 100 light years away – and the world might be habitable.

A year after the powerful eruption of the Henga Tonga-Hong Haapai volcano, scientists are still learning more about the surprising aftermath of the event.

The blast triggered more than 25,500 lightning bolts in just five minutes, according to a new report. The event also triggered approximately 400,000 lightning bolts over the course of six hours and accounted for half of all lightning in the world during the eruption’s peak.

But even more surprising was the January 2022 eruption Just one factor in a year of extremes in lightning around the world.

Blooming flowers are notoriously ephemeral, but a 40-million-year-old specimen remains trapped in amber and frozen in time.

Researchers have taken another look at the unusual fossil amber, which was first documented in 1872. It’s The largest known flower was fossilized in amber 1.1 inches (28 mm) wide.

Scientists managed to extract some flower pollen and discovered that it is associated with a group of modern plants.

Meanwhile, archaeologists revealed Eight prehistoric ostrich eggs near an old fire pit in Israel.

Russian Space Agency Roscosmos will launch a replacement, uncrewed spacecraft to the International Space Station as a return vehicle for three crew members after a Soyuz capsule suffered damage in December.

Astronauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitry Petlin and NASA astronaut Frank Rubio blasted off to the space station in September.

The commission decided that the damage to the Soyuz coolant pipeline was due to the impact of micrometeoriteswhich made a hole less than 1 millimeter in diameter, according to Roscosmos.

The crew members remain healthy, but their return to Earth – which has not been determined – will be delayed by at least several months.

while, Virgin Orbit’s LauncherOne attempted launch from the UKand California startup ABL Space Systems Launching its RS1 missile from Alaska. Both missiles failed, and investigations are ongoing to determine what went wrong.

The jets pouring out behind the planes that criss-cross our skies every day may seem harmless, but these wispy icy clouds are actually bad for the environment.

Condensation trails, which form when ice crystals collect around small particles emitted by jet engines, trap more heat than the carbon dioxide emissions from fuel combustion. The longevity of the inflator depends on weather conditions.

Researchers believe that Change certain itineraries slightly It can help reduce damage.

Catch up on these stories before you go:

– It may have been an unusually bright star Dust bombarded by a mysterious stellar companion for years.

– the “bog bodies” of Europe, well-preserved mummies and skeletons that have been discovered soaked in peat and wetlands, Uncover some brutal truths of prehistoric life.

Astronomers discovered The closest pair of supermassive black holes ever observed across multiple wavelengths of light. Cosmic bodies were brought together by the collision of galaxies.