Mentatul

Tag: astronomy

  • Stars Are Born in Pairs

    Stars Are Born in Pairs

    Did our Sun have a companion star some long, long time ago? According to new research, it seems like all stars are born in pairs. The scientists believe that the Sun’s companion (called Nemesis) has departed our cosmic neighborhood not long after the Sun formed:

    https://phys.org/news/2017-06-evidence-stars-born-pairs.html^

    This is quite the statement! I would say that it’s about the same level of magnitude as claiming that the Earth is not flat or that it rotates around a star. It really changes the way we have thought about solar system formation and will impact our estimations regarding planets able to support life. That’s because planets orbiting close binaries may experience severe weather swings while planets orbiting wide binaries would suffer from increased chances of asteroid bombardment.

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  • China Builds World’s Largest Radio Telescope

    China Builds World’s Largest Radio Telescope

    Guess who was in the science & technology news lately? Yes, it’s China again. Back in September they were putting the finishing touches towards finalizing the construction of a mammoth radio telescope that has easily become the world’s largest single-dish such device:

    http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/09/world-s-largest-radio-telescope-will-search-dark-matter-listen-aliens^

    It sure seems like China is on a roll lately. This is the fourth technology-related article I write about the country in the past few months. And I’m not even trying. Now let’s see what the Chinese will spy with their little dish.

    References & further reading:

    The Elevated Bus That Rides above the Traffic^

    China Invests in Quantum Cryptography and Not a Moment Too Late^

    China’s Awesome Robotics Challenge^

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