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Aug 6, 2022 7 tweets 4 min read Read on X
Japan's #Subaru Strategic Program has discovered a super-Earth four times the mass of our planet orbiting a red dwarf just 37 lightyears away.

The good news? This #exoplanet, named Ross 508b, might be habitable!

Read: weather.com/en-IN/india/sp…

By: @ashmitagupta_21

🧵👇 Image
This super-Earth is a rocky world, on which a year is equal to just 11 Earth days.

The short orbit is down to the red dwarfs being a lot smaller than the Sun that centres our solar system. But the smaller sizes also make their gravitational fields less expansive than the Sun's. Image
Therefore, Ross 508b revolves around its red dwarf at a distance of just 5 million km. Mercury, in comparison, is about 60 million km from the Sun.

The short distance between this super-Earth & its red dwarf begs the question: how could it possibly be habitable? Image
Well, the Ross 508b's orbit is elliptical, meaning it isn't always as close to the star & pretty much dips in and out of the habitable zone.

A planet like this may be able to retain water on its surface. Whether or not water or life actually thrive there is still up for debate. Image
Red dwarfs are cooler than other types of stars and emit less visible light, which makes studying them challenging.

What makes this find more special is that it's the 1st exoplanet found by the Subaru Strategic Program using the infrared spectrograph IRD on the #SubaruTelescope.
The team at Astrobiology Center in #Japan developed IRD specifically to search for red dwarf-orbiting exoplanets like Ross 508b.

It relies on a planet-hunting technique that looks for minute deviations in the velocity of a star to infer a planet orbiting it.
It wouldn't be a stretch to assume that the #SubaruTelescope could bestow us with even better candidates for habitable planets around red dwarfs.

This study has opened doors for future observations to confirm the possibility of life around low-mass stars. Image

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More from @weatherindia

Aug 17, 2022
While searching for life in the Gulf of Mexico, researchers pulled out a new bizarre-looking species of isopod, whose head resembles the Darth Vader from Star Wars!

Read: weather.com/en-IN/india/bi…

By: @anujav_97

📸: Dr Ming-Chih H/Journal of Natural History

🧵👇
This new-found crustacean, named Bathonymus yucatanensis, has 14 legs and is around 26 cm long — approximately 25 times larger than its closest relative, the common woodlouse.
While these blonde creatures seem pretty scary, the "Vanilla Vaders" are, in fact, harmless to humans.

Their huge size is only due to deep-sea gigantism — a phenomenon wherein ocean dwellers grow bigger than their terrestrial relatives due to lack of sunlight.

📸: SJADES 2018
Read 7 tweets
Aug 16, 2022
The Sun spewed out two consecutive coronal mass ejections on August 14-15, giving rise to a 'Cannibal CME'.

The scarier part? It's heading towards the Earth this week & could spark strong geomagnetic storms on Aug 18!

Read: weather.com/en-IN/india/sp…

By: @ashmitagupta_21

🧵👇
A cloud of dark plasma erupted on the solar surface on Aug 14, launching a #CME that could side sweep the Earth's magnetic field.

Then, on Aug 15, an exploding magnetic filament launched another CME right at its tail.
This could be a Cannibal CME event where the second CME might overtake and gobble up the first, creating a mish-mash of the two.

Cannibal CMEs contain tangled magnetic fields and compressed plasmas that can spark strong geomagnetic storms.

📽️: Animation by Walt Feimer/NASA
Read 7 tweets
Jul 15, 2022
#Japan is making grand plans of creating interplanetary #trains and champagne flute-like glass habitats in its bid to send and host humans on the #Moon and #Mars!

Read: weather.com/en-IN/india/sp…

📸: Youtube SC/Kajima Corp.

Thread. 👇
An interplanetary transportation system dubbed the 'Hexatrack', which maintains a gravity of 1G during long-distance travel to mitigate the effects of prolonged exposure to low gravity, has been proposed by #Japanese researchers.
The #trains will also possess 'Hexacapsules', which are essentially hexagon-shaped capsules with a moving device in the middle.
Read 7 tweets
Jul 14, 2022
A new species of #dinosaur has just dropped and word on the street is that it’s pretty similar to the #TRex

In fact, researchers think this discovery could explain why these beasts evolved to have tiny arms!

Read: weather.com/en-IN/india/sc…

📸: Jorge A Gonzalez

Thread. 👇 Image
In 2012, the almost-complete skeleton of a new kind of #dinosaur was found in the northern Patagonia region of #Argentina.

The dinosaur has been christened #Meraxes gigas. The generic epithet is an ode to a dragon in the #GameOfThrones series.
Standing at the height of 11 m (36 ft) and weighing roughly 4000 kgs, the #dinosaur sported several crests, bumps and horns on its skull, which lent it a menacing appearance.

But the highlight of the findings is that the dinosaur had teeny-tiny arms, just like the #Trex! Image
Read 6 tweets
Jul 14, 2022
#NASA-led #JamesWebbSpaceTelescope's breathtaking images of the universe's past have taken the world by storm.

As we inch closer to unravelling more cosmic secrets, here's how researchers from #India plan to use the #JWST.

Read: weather.com/en-IN/india/sp…

Thread👇
#NASA had opened up submissions for Guaranteed Time Observations to reward scientists with 16% use of the JWST observatory for the first 3 cycles.

Out of the 1,173 proposals, two astronomers hail from India: Dr #JessyJose from @IiserTirupati & Dr #Puravankara from @TIFRScience.
Dr Jose, along with an international research team from the US, UK and Australia, will be examining the Galactic Centre Cloud (GCC) — the central molecular zone of our Milky Way — in April 2023.

They have been allotted 27.3 hours over the access period of 12 months.
Read 8 tweets
Apr 29, 2022
DNA analysis has finally solved the mystery of the human skeletons found in Punjab 8 years ago!

Initially thought to be martyrs from the partition, the bones actually belonged to freedom fighters killed by Britishers in 1857.

Read: weather.com/en-IN/india/ne…

📸: IANS

Thread.👇
In 2014, several skeletons were excavated from a well in Ajnala, Punjab.

While they were initially thought to be people who may have been killed during the Partition of India-Pakistan, DNA sequences matched with people from UP, Bihar & West Bengal.

📸: Via Times of India
The collaborative study by @ccmb_csir, @OfficialPU, @BSIPLucknow and BHU, published on April 28, used 50 samples for DNA analysis and 85 specimens for isotope analysis.

DNA analysis helps understand the ancestry of people and isotope analysis sheds light on food habits.
Read 7 tweets

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