m-class or goldilocks

Amongst the thousands of confirmed exoplanets in the firmament and the untold trillions of worlds estimated, NASA just held a colossal press-conference that served to the public the very exciting news of a solar system discovered in orbit around a cool (ultra-cool, Red Giants are m-class stars but Star Trek’s planetary classification system is unfortunately made up) dwarf star in the constellation of Aquarius, some thirty nine light years distance from us.
Astronomers are giving the discovery the designation of TRAPPIST-1 as it was the first solar system to be observed directly using transit photometry.  The acronym for the programme and one of the telescopes used spells out Trappist, like the monastic order and brew-masters of Liège, where the search method was first conceived. Seven rocky (terrestrial) worlds orbit the star and at least three are thought to be in the habitable-zone, conducive to life as we know it thriving. After compiling and analysing telemetry for a year and half, researchers are very confident in their results. Finding no life in that entire star system would be, I’d wager, far more stranger than discovering extraterrestrial life. As we said above, this ensemble joins an already crowded Cosmos, but I think it’s brilliant that there’s already an artist’s conception to captivate and stoke the imagination—it reminds me of Mongo of Ming the Merciless and the other floating kingdoms in that overcast empire. Here’s to science, NASA and the monks. Flash jump, everybody!

i for one welcome our robot overlords

Perhaps betraying an enormous amount of good judgment that surpasses their programming, androids seem, as Gizmodo delightfully points out with a thorough and rather exhaustive array of examples, not to warm to the pseudo-populist leaders of the world.
It’s not as if they’ve just been warned-off by some of the politicians that have experienced Dear Leader’s forceful and strange hand-shake and the aversion, surely mutual, seems nearly universal among the recently matriculated. As the author posits, these PR agents might have been sent from the future to give us a subtle warning, encoded in etiquette.

trans-neptunian object

Grievous as the news to many, the General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union adopted Resolution 5a back in 2006 that demoted Pluto’s status as a proper planet to dwarf one, but it did settle a mounting problem when it came to the designation of newly discovered objects beyond the orbit of Neptune—some of which would inevitable prove to be larger than Pluto.
A decade later, an alternate geophysical definition under consideration would lurch towards the opposite extreme, upgrading some one hundred objects—including the Moon and several more satellites. Deliberations would continue through March but many members (invested with such power—imagine, naming the stars) are reserved about changing matters, because it’s easier for people to be captivated by an idea that they can get their heads around—nine planets are far more memorable and assayable as opposed to a hundred and ten.

マスコット

Via the Verge, we discover that the town of Ōji in Nara Prefecture is promoting its tourism industry with the help of a delightful new mascot called Yukimaru, a doggie drone that hovers around like a guide pointing out the sights. Although unclear whether Yukimaru is a real object or computer-generated, it doesn’t seem to matter so much, judging from the reactions of residents featured in this public relations campaign video one can find at either of the links, and Yukimaru seems to be all about imagination and discovery.

abiogenesis

Enough to make even the hardiest water bear (tardigrade) blanch, spelunkers studying extremophile biotopes have extracted microbes from crystals buried deep in an abandoned zinc mine in Chihuahua that researchers believe to be between ten-thousand and fifty-thousand years old.
Discoveries such as these really push the limits of our conventional definitions of how and indeed where life manifests itself. Such rugged determination speaks to the theory of panspermia, the idea that life could be propagated through the Cosmos on the backs of comets, meteors or even on the breaking crest of a radio-wave but also is a stark warning for us as explorers to be vigilant about stowaways and unintended contamination.

profiles in courage

Amusing Planet directs our attention to a moving but easily missed monument under an awning in Postman’s Park in London. The Memorial to Heroic Self-Sacrifice first opened in 1900 by a collector of such human-interest stories commemorates sixty-two individuals who did not hesitate to make the ultimate sacrifice to save (in most cases) complete strangers. The sort of unflinching heroism deserves to be remembered—especially that these epitaphs are not those of warriors and leaders, since fame is no substitute for character and empathy. Be sure to visit the website at the link above to learn more and discover other curious and inspiring destinations.