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Categories: Mathematics: Statistics, Offbeat: Space

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An international team of researchers has used NASA's James Webb Space Telescope to measure the temperature of the rocky exoplanet TRAPPIST-1 b. The measurement is based on the planet's thermal emission: heat energy given off in the form of infrared light detected by Webb's Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI). The result indicates that the planet's dayside has a temperature of about 500 kelvins (roughly 450 degrees Fahrenheit) and suggests that it has no significant atmosphere.

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Astrophysicists have leveraged artificial intelligence to uncover a better way to estimate the mass of colossal clusters of galaxies. The AI discovered that by just adding a simple term to an existing equation, scientists can produce far better mass estimates than they previously had. The improved estimates will enable scientists to calculate the fundamental properties of the universe more accurately, the astrophysicists have reported.

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When the first interstellar comet ever seen in our solar system was discovered in 2017, one characteristic -- an unexplained acceleration away from the sun -- sparked wild speculation, including that it was an alien spacecraft. An astrochemist found a simpler explanation and tested it with an astronomer: in interstellar space, cosmic rays converted water to hydrogen in the comet's outer layers. Nearing the sun, outgassed hydrogen gave the tiny comet a kick.

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Following enormous collisions, such as asteroid impacts, some amount of material from an impacted world may be ejected into space. This material can travel vast distances and for extremely long periods of time. In theory this material could contain direct or indirect signs of life from the host world, such as fossils of microorganisms. And this material could be detectable by humans in the near future, or even now.

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With the first paper compiling all known information about planets like Venus beyond our solar system, scientists are the closest they've ever been to finding an analog of Earth's 'twin.'

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Samples from the asteroid Ryugu collected by the Hayabusa2 mission contain nitrogenous organic compounds, including the nucleobase uracil, which is a part of RNA.

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Atomic nuclei accelerated close to the speed of light become dense walls of gluons known as color glass condensate (CGC). Recent analysis shows that CGC shares features with black holes, enormous conglomerates of gravitons that exert gravitational force across the universe. Both gluons in CGC and gravitons in black holes are organized in the most efficient manner possible for each system's energy and size.

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In a new study, astronomers describe how extraterrestrial life has the potential to exist on distant exoplanets inside a special area called the 'terminator zone,' which is a ring on planets that have one side that always faces its star and one side that is always dark.

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Venus appears to have volcanic activity, according to a new research paper that offers strong evidence to answer the lingering question about whether Earth's sister planet currently has eruptions and lava flows.

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Scientists revealed the discovery of a relict glacier near Mars' equator. Located in Eastern Noctis Labyrinthus at coordinates 7° 33' S, 93° 14' W, this finding is significant as it implies the presence of surface water ice on Mars in recent times, even near the equator. This discovery raises the possibility that ice may still exist at shallow depths in the area, which could have significant implications for future human exploration.

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The Walking Oligomeric Robotic Mobility System, or WORMS, is a reconfigurable, modular, multiagent robotics architecture for extreme lunar terrain mobility. The system could be used to assemble autonomous worm-like parts into larger biomimetic robots that could explore lava tubes, steep slopes, and the moon's permanently shadowed regions.

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In an unlikely pairing, a chemist and an astrophysicist applied the tools of statistical mechanics to find similarities in spatial patterns across length scales.

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Observations of water in the disk forming around protostar V883 Ori have unlocked clues about the formation of comets and planetesimals in our own solar system.

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A terrestrial planet hovering between Mars and Jupiter would be able to push Earth out of the solar system and wipe out life on this planet, according to a recent experiment.

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Researchers have mapped the sparse life hidden away in salt domes, rocks and crystals at Salar de Pajonales at the boundary of the Chilean Atacama Desert and Altiplano. Then they trained a machine learning model to recognize the patterns and rules associated with their distributions so it could learn to predict and find those same distributions in data on which it was not trained. In this case, by combining statistical ecology with AI/ML, the scientists could locate and detect biosignatures up to 87.5 percent of the time and decrease the area needed for search by up to 97 percent.

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Astronomers have discovered a supernova exhibiting unprecedented rebrightening at millimeter wavelengths, providing an intermediate case between two types of supernovae: those of solitary stars and those in close-binary systems.

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Future space missions likely will send robots to scout out underground habitats for astronauts. Engineers have now developed a system that would enable autonomous vehicles to explore caves, lava tubes and even oceans on other worlds on their own.

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Astrophysicists have discovered the tightest ultracool dwarf binary system ever observed. The two stars are so close that it takes them less than one Earth day to revolve around each other. In other words, each star's 'year' lasts just 17 hours.

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Scientists have detected the heaviest and youngest infant star ever discovered close to the black hole at the center of our Galaxy. They also identified the region where this 'impossible star' may have formed.

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A liquid nitrogen spray can remove almost all of the simulated moon dust from a space suit, potentially solving what is a significant challenge for future moon-landing astronauts.