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Showing posts from November, 2020

Jupiter and Saturn are about to appear closer in the sky than they have for 800 years, aligning as a 'double planet'

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  Aylin Woodward Mon, November 23, 2020, 3:18 PM PST · 4 min read A man with a telescope watches the night sky over the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument in Los Angeles on July 19.  David McNew/Getty Jupiter and Saturn will align in the night sky on December 21. It'll be the closest they've appeared in 800 years. The two planets move into alignment,  or conjunction , every 20 years. But this year they will be so close that they'll look like a "double planet." The last time Saturn and Jupiter were both this close and visible was in 1226. Here are the best ways to see this conjunction. Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories . Jupiter and Saturn are about to line up perfectly in the night sky, getting so close on December 21 that they'll seem to touch. The last time they looked this close from Earth's vantage point was nearly 800 years ago, on March 4, 1226. An astronomical event in which celestial bodies align is called a conjunction. S

Pakistan's lonely elephant serenaded one last time at farewell party

  ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Officials and well-wishers gathered at Islamabad Zoo on Monday for a farewell party for Pakistan's lonely elephant Kaavan before he sets off for a new life in Cambodia this week. After years of campaigning by animal rights advocates and pop star Cher to rescue him from grim conditions with no companion, Kaavan was finally set to be airlifted to an elephant sanctuary on Sunday. To mark the occasion, officials, including lawmakers and Pakistan's climate change minister, gathered among balloons and signs saying "Farewell Kaavan, we will miss you". Children posed for photos and musicians performed in front of the enclosure, with Kaavan at one point serenaded while he snacked on some grass. Kaavan is known to be a fan of music and Amir Khalil, a vet from animal rescue organisation Four Paws, bonded with the elephant, who has been aggressive to humans in the past, by singing him Frank Sinatra songs. Four Paws spokeswoman Marion Lombard said that thou

Space oddity? Monolith in Utah desert mystifies helicopter crew

  By Peter Szekely (Reuters) - They were on a mission to count sheep when they found something they had not counted on. As a Utah helicopter crew buzzed over the southeastern part of the state looking for bighorn sheep last week, sitting beneath them in the middle of the desert was a bright shiny monolith, the stuff of sci-fi sagas. Pilot Bret Hutchings of the state Department of Public Safety recalled someone on board spotting the gleaming metal object firmly implanted in a small clearing set against the redness of the rocks and sand below. “He’s like, whoa, whoa, whoa, turn around, turn around,” Hutchings told KSL-TV in Salt Lake City. “There’s this thing, there’s this thing back there. We’ve got to go look at it.” After Hutchings set their helicopter down in the remote area, which remains undisclosed to discourage a rush of gawkers, they got a closer look, but found "no obvious indication" of how it got there, the public safety department said. Images released by the depar

"Cyberpunk 2077" video shows its ray tracing capabilities

 Cyberpunk 2077 is finally coming in three weeks. CD Projekt Red and NVIDIA have provided more information for the highly anticipated RPG ray tracing.    In a new developer video, they showed footage of the game activated by DXR ray tracing and NVIDIA's DLSS technology. Nvidia said that with the support of ray tracing, this game is "more immersive and detailed." The company said that when it is turned on, “brilliant ray-traced reflections will be projected on every possible surface; the natural softening and sharpening of shadows will be greatly improved; shops, streets and buildings are all real diffuse lighting.”    In September, CDPR announced the minimum and recommended PC requirements. Although playing Cyberpunk 2077 hardly requires any high-end system, if you want to use its ray tracing function, this game requires a fairly strong machine.   The publisher recommends using NVIDIA's RTX cpu, but other dxr-compatible GPUs can also work. You need at least one RTX 20

Nintendo mobile game launches AR mode

 Nintendo’s free mobile game "Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp" (Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp) has a new augmented reality feature that allows players to interact with their favorite characters in the real world. The company announced the "Augmented Reality Camera" and "Augmented Reality Cabin" modes. These two modes allow players to place your animal neighbors in your surroundings via mobile phones. You can go out and play with them, or you can play They take pictures together.    For example, the camera allows the player to select a character, and then use the viewfinder to place it on the table, the sidewalk, or wherever you want, and the player can take pictures with them. At the same time, the cabin allows the player to put a door on the thing in front of him, open it, and enter a room. Up to 8 different characters can be invited to hang out in this space.    In addition to the new model, other areas of Pocket Camp will provide users with customized furni

Tesla will enter the S&P 500 index next month

 Next month, Tesla ( hermes outlet ) will enter the Standard & Poor's 500 Index (S&P 500). Goldman Sachs said that this event may trigger a $8 billion rise in Tesla's stock price.   The news of entering the Standard & Poor's 500 index has pushed Tesla's share price up 22%, which is more than 200% of the index's best performing companies CARR and ETSY.    In fact, if Tesla appears in the S&P 500 index now, it will be the index’s best performing stock so far this year.    But according to reports, in about 31 days, $11 trillion mutual funds and other investments tracking the S&P index are expected to buy Tesla stock, and some Wall Street insiders are nervous about what might happen.    "They almost turned the S&P 500 index into a momentum index," Benjamin Lau of Apriem Advisors told Bloomberg. The company manages assets worth US$850 million.    "My biggest worry is how it will affect our index funds and passive holdings."

Samsung builds semiconductor factory in the United States

 According to Korean media, Samsung will build a new semiconductor factory using extreme ultraviolet (EUV) technology in Austin, Texas, with a total investment of approximately US$10 billion. Samsung and related industry sources recently revealed that Samsung Electronics will build a wafer fab in Austin, Texas, and use EUV lithography machines to produce non-memory semiconductors and system LSI products. The investment scale is estimated at US$10 billion and the monthly production capacity is about 70,000. sheet.    Korean semiconductor occupies an important position in the global semiconductor industry chain. In the first half of 2020 ( 2021 hermes bags ) global top ten semiconductor sales ranking announced by IC Insights, South Korean manufacturers accounted for two places, namely Samsung ranked second and SK Hynix ranked fourth. At present, Samsung has launched a "Semiconductor 2030 Plan", hoping to invest 133 trillion won, or about 116 billion U.S. dollars, to become the

When did the universe "wake up"?

 According to foreign media reports, the awakening of the first stars is undoubtedly an important moment for our universe. But this moment has always seemed extremely mysterious to scientists.    But in a new study, a team of astronomers successfully discovered some of the oldest galaxies ever seen. Scientists point out that these celestial bodies were fully formed when the universe was only 680 million years old. They also found some evidence that these galaxies have emitted a large amount of extremely strong ultraviolet radiation to the surroundings.    This turbulent wave of ultraviolet radiation has formed many huge bubbles in the universe, in which neutral gas is excited and ionized, presenting astronomers the first intuitive image of this period of major change in the universe.   Before Dawn    A long, long time ago, there was no single star shining in the universe. In the early days of the formation of the universe, all matter was very uniform, with similar densities everywhere,

How much do we know about habitable exoplanets?

 While searching for exoplanets, scientists were surprised to find a planet similar to the Earth. TOI 700 d is the newest member of the Earth-like planet. The planet was discovered by NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS). It is one of three celestial bodies in a distant solar system. This planet is not like the surrounding celestial bodies and most planets discovered by scientists. Its size is similar to that of the Earth. In addition, the distance it revolves around the star allows liquid water on its surface.    As a planet the size of the Earth, TOI 700 d is also located in the habitable zone of its orbiting star, which is very important for scientists. "We have always wanted to understand a question. Can life form on planets orbiting very small stars? The discovery of TOI 700 d gave us a big step towards this goal," said at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics Joseph Rodriguez, an astronomer working at (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophy

Space is not afraid of downtime. How did NASA, the originator of software engineering, do it?

 To many people, NASA is very mysterious. NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, is an administrative agency of the U.S. federal government responsible for formulating and implementing the U.S. civil space program, as well as conducting research on aviation science and space science. NASA is responsible for space exploration in the United States, such as the "Apollo" program to the moon, the space laboratory, and the subsequent space shuttle.    It is particularly commendable that NASA has also embraced open source enthusiastically: In the aerospace field, NASA is at the forefront of open source and has open sourced a large number of software and design tools, covering the entire development and application process of spacecraft. As we all know, every NASA space mission cannot do without advanced software programs. What most people may not know is that the concept of "software engineering" today originated from NASA. This shows the importance of so

There has never been a black hole so close to the earth

 Black holes are undoubtedly the most mysterious celestial bodies in the universe. They hide in the darkness and swallow all incoming light. Regardless of size, all black holes have a common feature, which is the event horizon. Once the light crosses the event horizon, it cannot escape. However, the black hole will still show its feet, and we will catch the trace: when there is a star not far from the black hole, the star’s matter is attracted by the black hole, and the ultra-high temperature dust and gas form an accretion disk that rotates rapidly around the black hole, releasing it. The X-rays can "light up" the black hole. So, what if there is no such companion star close enough around the black hole? Although it cannot be seen directly, scientists can indirectly detect these mysterious celestial bodies through the gravitational effect of black holes on other celestial bodies. In a new study published in the Journal of Astronomy and Astrophysics, astronomers at the Europea

How dangerous is space to humans?

 Space is an extremely unfriendly environment for humans: there is no air, and it is full of deadly particles in the form of high-energy photons and high-energy atomic nuclei. Weightlessness will also affect all parts of your body, and even the protein in your body can't distinguish the up and down direction. Books and magazine articles about space travel often liken this kind of adventure to traveling through an unpredictable ocean to a magical and beautiful new world. Human ancestors used primitive tools to handcraft a canoe across the Pacific Ocean in Vietnam. When they set off, they did not expect to return safely. They spent days, weeks, and even months on open water, exposed to harsh environments with only a small amount of food and water. Many people died on the way, but a few people arrived at their destination and started a new life. There is no doubt that the early migration of humans tens of thousands of years ago is full of dangers, but sea water will not damage your DN

Find the black hole closest to the earth: only 1,000 light years away!

 According to foreign media reports, the newly discovered black hole may be the black hole that has been observed so far from the earth, and people can observe the "cosmic home" where the black hole is located without a telescope.    This mysterious black hole is located in the southern part of the Taurus constellation 1000 light-years away from the earth. The black hole cannot be observed. It has such a strong gravitational attraction that no object, even light, can escape the gravitational restraint of the black hole. It is reported that astronomers initially thought it was a binary star system or two stars orbiting a center of mass celestial body. When they used MPG/ESO2.2 diameter land-based telescopes for in-depth observations, they named the binary star system HR 6819, which surprised them at the same time. Yes, they also observed a third celestial body-a black hole.   Although astronomers cannot directly observe the black hole, they can infer its existence based on the

Dark matter detection data analysis points to the solar axon

 According to a report on the US "Science" magazine website on the 17th, the XENON cooperation group, which aims to search for dark matter traces, reported in an online seminar today. They analyzed the data collected by the XENON1T dark matter detector and found dozens of peculiar events. , Analysis found that these signals are most likely to be "cue" of the "axons" emitted by the sun. Although this conclusion is not enough to claim as a "discovery", it is still worthy of attention.    It is believed that dark matter occupies 85% of the mass of the universe. Although it does not emit light or absorb light, its gravitational influence on stars and galaxies provides strong indirect evidence for it. Since 2006, the XENON team has built a series of detectors to search for dark matter at the Gran Sasso National Laboratory in Italy. Scientists once assumed that dark matter particles are "weakly interacting heavy particles ( https://www.purse2021.c

The Milky Way may have 6 billion terrestrial planets

 According to a report by the physicist organization network on the 16th, Canadian scientists wrote in the latest issue of the Astronomical Journal that their calculations indicate that there are about 6 billion Earth-like planets in the Milky Way. The researchers emphasized that estimating the probability of different planets appearing around different stars can provide important constraints on the theory of planet formation and evolution, and help optimize future missions aimed at finding planets. The latest research collaborator, Michelle Guoben of the University of British Columbia (UBC) explained that if a planet is to be regarded as an earth-like planet, it must be a rocky planet, about the same size as the earth, and surrounding similar The sun's stars ( https://www.wearwore.com ) rotate. Moreover, the planet must be located in the habitable zone of the star. In this zone, the surface of the rocky planet can contain liquid water, so it has the potential to be suitable for li