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<ul class="summary-list"><li>For the first time in over 20 years, NASA had a close encounter with Io, Jupiter's moon.</li><li>Io is home to roughly 400 active volcanoes, some much larger than any here on Earth.</li></ul><a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/juno-spacecraft-takes-infrared-io-image-jupiter-moon-lava-2022-12">NASA's Juno spacecraft</a> snapped detailed images of the most volcanically active world in our solar system on Saturday. During this close fly-by, the spacecraft spotted plumes of <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/a-volcanic-explosion-on-jupiters-moon-io-2014-3">volcanic activity erupting</a> from Io's surface in real-time.This encounter was the second in a set of two <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-new-horizons-spacecraft-completes-ultima-thule-mission-2018-12">close fly-bys</a> designed to provide new insight into the fiery phenomena that lurk beneath Io's surface. They are humanity's closest encounters with Io in the last 22 years, surveying it at a distance of 930 miles. Here are the striking first images.<h2>A 'tortured moon'</h2>Io is a "tortured moon" being pushed and pulled by competing gravitational forces.On one end is <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/space-lava-from-moon-volcanoes-creates-jupiters-powerful-aurora-lights-2022-2">Jupiter's</a> herculean mass tugging it toward the planet, and on another are two neighboring moons, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/juno-snaps-new-images-flyby-past-jupiters-icy-moon-europa-2022-9">Europa</a> and <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/jupiter-moon-ganymede-nasa-hubble-telescope-finds-water-vapor-2021-7">Ganymede</a>, said NASA's Juno mission Principal Investigator Scott Bolton.As a result, this gravitational tug-of-war causes friction across the entire world as it's pulled one way and then another. The friction heats Io up, which is the process that drives it's volcanic activity.Io has about 400 <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/volcano-eruption-astronauts-saw-from-space-2019-6">active volcanoes</a> on its surface. You can some erupting gas into space in the close-up image below that Juno snapped on February 3:<div type="image" title="Plumes of volcanic gas erupt from the surface of Io" height="560" width="1000" msid="107466940" hostid="261" sizebytes="11524"></div>While Io is only slightly <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/jupiter-moon-io-on-earth-and-north-america-2016-1">larger than Earth's moon</a>, its volcanoes are far larger than anything here and can spew fountains of boiling-hot lava dozens of miles in the air, according to <a target="_blank" href="https://science.nasa.gov/jupiter/moons/io/facts/">NASA</a>.For example, its largest volcano, Loki Patera, is roughly twice the size of Mauna Loa, the largest active volcano on Earth.<div type="image" title="An infrared map showing volcanos on Io" height="859" width="1724" msid="107466942" hostid="261" sizebytes="25958"></div>The Juno spacecraft has orbited Jupiter every 38 days since 2016. Now in an extended mission phase, the spacecraft will explore the full Jovian system — <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-jupiter-juno-first-inside-look-rings-2017-5">Jupiter and its rings</a> and moons — through September 2025.<div type="image" title="Jupiter's moon, Io" height="1600" width="1600" msid="107466943" hostid="261" sizebytes="130804"></div>With these fly-bys, Juno mission scientists hope to gain a deeper, more detailed understanding of what drives Io's explosive activity. Currently, there are two competing theories.Either Io's intense volcanism is due to a global magma ocean churning beneath the surface, or to the moon's solid core of hot metal. Perhaps the answer will reveal itself in the coming months as scientists dig into the data.

New NASA photos offer a close look at Jupiter's fiery moon with erupting volcanos that dwarf anything on Earth

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Astronomers discovered a planetoid orbiting the sun further than any known object in the <keyword id="52393" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Solar-System">solar system</keyword>.</li><li>Called "Farfarout," the object orbits the sun every 1,000 years.</li><li>Objects like Farfarout could help astronomers figure out whether <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/planet-9-ancient-black-hole-orbiting-sun-2019-9">a massive planet</a> hides in the outskirts of our solar system.</li></ul>Astronomers have discovered the most distant object ever found in our solar system.The planetoid - the term for a small chunk of rock or dust or ice orbiting the sun - is appropriately nicknamed "Farfarout," after the previous record-holder, "Farout," which was discovered by the same astronomers in 2018. After years of observing the object's trajectory across the sky, that team of researchers announced on Wednesday that they could confidently say Farfarout is, well, much farther out than any solar-system object seen before.Farfarout is 132 astronomical units (AU) from the sun, meaning it's 132 times farther from the sun than Earth is, and about four times as far as Pluto. It takes about 1,000 years for the planetoid to complete one orbit around the sun. The researchers estimate that Farfarout is about 250 miles (400 kilometers) across, which would place it on the low end of being a <keyword id="2440860" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Dwarf-planet">dwarf planet</keyword> like Pluto."The discovery of Farfarout shows our increasing ability to map the outer solar system and observe farther and farther toward the fringes of our solar system," Scott Sheppard, one of the astronomers who discovered the object, said in a <a href="http://news.nau.edu/trijillo-farfarout/">press release</a>. Sheppard works as a researcher at the Carnegie Institution for <keyword id="41551" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="100" keywordseo="science">Science</keyword>.<div type="image" title="farfarout planetoid distance" height="810" width="1440" msid="80816552" hostid="261"></div>"Only with the advancements in the last few years of large digital cameras on very large telescopes has it been possible to efficiently discover very distant objects like Farfarout," he added. "Even though some of these distant objects are quite large - the size of dwarf planets - they are very faint because of their extreme distances from the Sun. Farfarout is just the tip of the iceberg of solar system objects in the very distant solar system."Finding and studying other similarly distant objects could help scientists determine whether there's an unidentified massive planet hiding in the outskirts of our solar system. Scientists have found hints of such a planet, often referred to as <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/planet-9-ancient-black-hole-orbiting-sun-2019-9">Planet Nine or Planet X</a>, in the distant dark. These clues come in the form of smaller objects whose orbital paths appear skewed.Farfarout most likely cannot contribute to that effort, however, because Neptune appears to have significantly altered its orbit.<h2>A snippet of a 1,000-year orbit</h2><div type="image" title="farfarout planetoid dwarf planet most distant object solar system" height="1500" width="2000" msid="80816556" hostid="261"></div>Farfarout crosses Neptune's path each time it loops around the sun, and its orbit is elongated in an oval shape. At one point in the cycle, it comes as close to our star as 27 AU. But is also gets as far from the sun as 175 AU. Scientists think this strange orbit is due to Neptune's powerful gravitational pull."Farfarout's orbital dynamics can help us understand how Neptune formed and evolved, as Farfarout was likely thrown into the outer solar system by getting too close to Neptune in the distant past," Chad Trujillo, an astronomer at Northern Arizona University who co-discovered the new object, said in the release. "Farfarout will likely interact with Neptune again in the future since their orbits still intersect."The Subaru Telescope, located atop Hawaii's Maunakea, first spotted the planetoid in January 2018."All we knew was that the object appeared to be very distant at the time of discovery," Sheppard said.It took years of observation to realize just how far away it was. Because Farfarout takes so long to orbit the sun, it moves very slowly across the sky. Astronomers had to observe it for years in order to get enough data to calculate its trajectory.The International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center officially designated Farfarout as object "2018 AG37" on Wednesday. The planetoid will receive a more official name later, after further observations enable scientists to iron out its precise orbital path.

A newly discovered space object called 'Farfarout' is the most distant thing in our solar system

<ul><li>Hygiea, classified as an asteroid so far, might actually be a dwarf planet. </li><li>The European Southern Observatory has been able to confirm that Hygiea has a spherical shape. </li><li>But, Hygiea is missing a large impact crater normally found on asteroids after they have broken off from the parent asteroid. </li></ul>The asteroid belt between Jupiter and Mars is home to many asteroids and planets. Now European Southern Observatory (<a href="https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1918/">ESO</a>) thinks one of the objects floating along the main belt might be the <keyword id="8270160" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="smallest-dwarf-planet">smallest dwarf planet</keyword> in our solar system — an asteroid known as Hygiea. Hygiea isn’t a new discovery but the fact that it meets the International Astronomical Union’s (IAU) requirements to be classified as a dwarf planet is new. It orbits the Sun, and not another planet, so that rules it out from being a Moon. But unlike an actual planet, it hasn’t pushed away or pulled in any of the objects that are cluttering its orbit. ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) was able to capture a third detail that puts Hygiea in the running for a dwarf planet — it has just enough mass for its gravity to pull it together in a spherical shape. "Thanks to the unique capability of the SPHERE instrument on the VLT, which is one of the most powerful imaging systems in the world, we could resolve Hygiea’s shape, which turns out to be nearly spherical," said lead researcher Pierre Vernazza. Dwarf planets in the universe’s remnants When the big bang first happened and planets were formed, the asteroid belt basically contained whatever was left over. The clumps could have formed a planet but scientists believe that Jupiter’s gravity was so strong that the space objects continued to orbit the Sun instead, colliding every so often. These collisions led to bigger parent bodies breaking into smaller asteroids. Hygiea is supposed to be a part of a 7000 member family and it’s separation from the parent space object should have left a large impact crater — but it’s nowhere to be found. "This result came as a real surprise as we were expecting the presence of a large impact basin, as is the case on Vesta," says Vernazza. According to the team’s deductions, it’s possible that Hygiea’s parent asteroid collided into a large object between 75 to 150 kilometers wide and the resulting collision was so violent that it completely shattered it. Their study states that as the left-over pieces of the collision reassembled, Hygiea got its round shape — fulfilling the third parameter to be be classified as a dwarf planet. See also: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/science/news/16-recently-discovered-exoplanets-could-offer-our-best-chance-of-finding-alien-life-outside-the-solar-system/articleshow/71397812.cms">16 recently discovered exoplanets could offer our best chance of finding alien life outside the solar system</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/a-ridiculous-yet-simple-animation-by-a-nasa-scientist-shows-how-long-it-takes-light-to-reach-pluto-if-you-plan-to-watch-it-take-a-day-off-work-/articleshow/67905830.cms">Pluto has a heart of ice that might not be so frozen after all</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/a-ridiculous-yet-simple-animation-by-a-nasa-scientist-shows-how-long-it-takes-light-to-reach-pluto-if-you-plan-to-watch-it-take-a-day-off-work-/articleshow/67905830.cms">A 'ridiculous' yet simple animation by a NASA scientist shows how long it takes light to reach Pluto. If you plan to watch it, take a day off work</a>

The smallest dwarf planet in our solar system was hiding in the asteroid belt

<ul class="summary-list"><li>A <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-dawn-mission-to-asteroid-belt-ending-2018-9">NASA spacecraft</a> has discovered that a saltwater <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ocean-saturn-moon-enceladus-building-blocks-life-amino-acids-2019-10">ocean</a> lies deep below the surface of <keyword id="1615439" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Ceres">Ceres</keyword>, a <keyword id="2440860" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Dwarf-planet">dwarf planet</keyword> in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.</li><li>New research shows that shiny salt deposits on Ceres' surface were left by water percolating up from underground.</li><li>Ceres may have once held <keyword id="582933" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Alien-life">alien life</keyword>, scientists say, because of its recent geologic activity, the presence of water, minerals containing ingredients for life, and a possible warm period in its past.</li></ul>A <keyword id="6360409" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="Nasa">NASA</keyword> spacecraft just discovered a hidden <keyword id="53745" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="60" keywordseo="Ocean">ocean</keyword> in our solar system.The agency's Dawn probe orbited the dwarf planet Ceres, which sits inside the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, for three years before running out of fuel in 2018. At one point, Dawn zipped 22 miles, or 35 kilometers, above the small world's surface. Scientists are still studying the data it gathered, since it offers an up-close look at some bright regions on Ceres that they'd been scratching their heads over for years.Already, Dawn helped researchers learn that that those shiny spots were covered in a compound called sodium carbonate, which is made up of sodium, carbon, and oxygen. That salty crust most likely came from liquid that evaporated on Ceres' surface. <div type="image" title="ceres nasa dawn spacecraft" height="1255" width="1538" msid="77495458" hostid="261"></div>But where the liquid came from remained a mystery until Monday, when a series of papers finally said that saltwater had percolated up to the dwarf planet's surface from an underground reservoir about 25 miles deep and hundreds of miles wide."This elevates Ceres to 'ocean world' status," Carol Raymond, the principal investigator for the Dawn mission, told <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/dwarf-planet-ceres-is-ocean-world-with-salty-water-deep-underground-2020-8">Reuters</a>.That places the dwarf planet in the company of <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ocean-saturn-moon-enceladus-building-blocks-life-amino-acids-2019-10">Enceladus</a> (an icy moon of Saturn) and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-water-vapor-jupiter-moon-europa-2019-11">Europa</a> (an icy moon of Jupiter) — other worlds with subsurface oceans. Like them, Ceres is now a contender for alien life."The material found on Ceres is extremely important in terms of astrobiology," Maria Cristina De Sanctis, a researcher at the Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica in Rome, told <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/aug/10/planet-ceres-ocean-world-sea-water-beneath-surface">The Guardian</a>. "We know that these minerals are all essential for the emergence of life."<h2>Ceres's ocean could be the relic of a warmer era</h2>The bright regions Dawn studied lie inside Ceres's Occator crater — the salt deposits are named Cerealia Facula and Vinalia Faculae. They're just 2 million years old, and Dawn researchers think the geologic process that made them is ongoing.But the forces that allow Enceladus and Europa to maintain their oceans aren't the same for Ceres. The other two <keyword id="3705529" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="ocean-worlds">ocean worlds</keyword> feel a strong gravitational pull from their planets: As they orbit Saturn and Jupiter, those massive bodies stretch and compress the moons, building friction that heats the moons from the inside.<div type="image" title="ceres occator crater facula fractures" height="1024" width="1024" msid="77495460" hostid="261"></div>But in Ceres' case, asteroid impacts may have played a role."For the large deposit at Cerealia Facula, the bulk of the salts were supplied from a slushy area just beneath the surface that was melted by the heat of the impact that formed the crater about 20 million years ago," Raymond said in a NASA <a href="https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2020-155">press release</a>. "The impact heat subsided after a few million years; however, the impact also created large fractures that could reach the deep, long-lived reservoir, allowing brine to continue percolating to the surface."In other words, asteroid impacts may have briefly kept the dwarf planet warm enough for liquid water to persist below its surface. Scientists think the underground saltwater they discovered via Dawn may be a surviving pocket of a global ocean that froze as Ceres cooled.In the brief period of time when conditions were warm enough, life may have arisen."The probability of finding life on another world keeps going up," NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said on <a href="https://twitter.com/JimBridenstine/status/1293207610519425026">Twitter</a>. "Ceres is the latest evidence that our solar system is filled with ancient habitable environments."

A dwarf planet between Mars and Jupiter has a salty ocean beneath its surface, making it a contender for alien life

Using data from <keyword id="6360409" type="General" weightage="50" keywordseo="nasa" source="Orion">NASA</keyword>'s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, scientists have identified an <keyword id="6359982" type="General" weightage="100" keywordseo="earth" source="Orion">Earth</keyword>-size world, called TOI 700 e, orbiting within the habitable zone of its star, the range of distances where liquid water could occur on a planet's surface. The world is 95% Earth's size and likely rocky. Astronomers previously discovered three planets in this system, called TOI 700 b, c, and d. Planet d also orbits in the habitable zone. But scientists needed an additional year of <keyword id="1631115" type="General" weightage="80" keywordseo="tess" source="Orion">TESS</keyword> observations to discover TOI 700 e. "This is one of only a few systems with multiple, small, habitable-zone planets that we know of," said Emily <keyword id="374990" type="General" weightage="80" keywordseo="gilbert" source="Orion">Gilbert</keyword>, a postdoctoral fellow at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California who led the work. "That makes the TOI 700 system an exciting prospect for additional follow up. Planet e is about 10% smaller than planet d, so the system also shows how additional TESS observations help us find smaller and smaller worlds." Gilbert presented the result on behalf of her team at the 241st meeting of the American Astronomical Association in Seattle. A paper about the newly discovered planet was accepted by The Astrophysical Journal Letters. TOI 700 is a small, cool M dwarf star located around 100 light-years away in the southern constellation Dorado. In 2020, Gilbert and others announced the discovery of the Earth-size, habitable-zone planet d, which is on a 37-day orbit, along with two other worlds. The innermost planet, TOI 700 b, is about 90% Earth's size and orbits the star every 10 days. TOI 700 c is over 2.5 times bigger than Earth and completes an orbit every 16 days. The planets are probably tidally locked, which means they spin only once per orbit such that one side always faces the star, just as one side of the <keyword id="42440" type="General" weightage="50" keywordseo="moon" source="Orion">Moon</keyword> is always turned toward Earth. TESS monitors large swaths of the sky, called sectors, for approximately 27 days at a time. These long stares allow the satellite to track changes in stellar brightness caused by a planet crossing in front of its star from our perspective, an event called a transit. The mission used this strategy to observe the southern sky starting in 2018, before turning to the northern sky. In 2020, it returned to the southern sky for additional observations. The extra year of data allowed the team to refine the original planet sizes, which are about 10% smaller than initial calculations. "If the star was a little closer or the planet a little bigger, we might have been able to spot TOI 700 e in the first year of TESS data," said Ben Hord, a doctoral candidate at the University of Maryland, College Park and a graduate researcher at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. "But the signal was so faint that we needed the additional year of transit observations to identify it." TOI 700 e, which may also be tidally locked, takes 28 days to orbit its star, placing planet e between planets c and d in the so-called optimistic habitable zone. Scientists define the optimistic habitable zone as the range of distances from a star where liquid surface water could be present at some point in a planet's history. This area extends to either side of the conservative habitable zone, the range where researchers hypothesize liquid water could exist over most of the planet's lifetime. TOI 700 d orbits in this region. Finding other systems with Earth-size worlds in this region helps planetary scientists learn more about the history of our own solar system. Follow-up study of the TOI 700 system with space- and ground-based observatories is ongoing, Gilbert said, and may yield further insights into this rare system. "TESS just completed its second year of northern sky observations," said Allison Youngblood, a research astrophysicist and the TESS deputy project scientist at Goddard. "We're looking forward to the other exciting discoveries hidden in the mission's treasure trove of data." SEE ALSO: <a target="_blank" class="c-link c-message_attachment__title_link" href="https://www.businessinsider.in/sustainability/news/dump-and-donate-month-long-e-waste-collection-drive-across-120-cities-launched/articleshow/96887056.cms">Dump and donate: Month long e-waste collection drive across 120 cities launched</a> <a target="_blank" class="c-link c-message_attachment__title_link" href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/telecom/news/tariff-hike-led-growth-5g-key-events-for-telecom-in-2023-decisive-year-for-vil-clsa/articleshow/96886908.cms">Tariff hike-led growth, 5G key events for telecom in 2023, decisive year for VIL: CLSA</a>

A second Earth-sized world orbiting a dwarf star discovered by scientists

<ul><li>While searching for the mysterious <keyword id="1495609" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Planet-X">Planet X</keyword>, researchers stumbled upon a <keyword id="2440860" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Dwarf-planet">dwarf planet</keyword> dubbed the ‘<keyword id="1910474" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Goblin">Goblin</keyword>’. </li><li>The Goblin, in itself, may not be a planet but its orbit trajectory indicated influence by an unknown larger planet. </li><li>This is the third planet to be discovered in the <keyword id="166066" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Kuiper-belt">Kuiper belt</keyword> that exhibits such behaviour. </li></ul>While there’s a lot of information about the planets in our solar system, scientists are still on the cusp of discovering everything that lies beyond. The <keyword id="1198270" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="International-Astronomical-Union">International Astronomical Union</keyword>’s Minor Planet Center recently added to that trove of information by <a href="https://carnegiescience.edu/news/new-extremely-distant-solar-system-object-found-during-hunt-planet-x">announcing the discovery</a> of the ‘Goblin’. Named as a homage to its discovery around Halloween of 2015, Scott Sheppard’s research team speculates that the dwarf planet’s orbit is dictated by Planet X, also called Planet Nine or ‘Super Earth’, in the what is dubbed as the <keyword id="1583506" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Oort-Cloud">Oort Cloud</keyword> region. So far three dwarf planets, including the Goblin, have been found in the fringes of our solar system that indicate the existence of a larger planet with considerable influence. As a frame of reference it’s similar to the way in which <keyword id="506107" type="LOCATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="Pluto">Pluto</keyword> and Neptune’s orbits eventually cross, though the planets never actually go anywhere near each other. Breadcrumbs leading to Planet X While Goblin may be the most recent discovery, two other dwarf planets in the Kuiper belt, dubbed Sedna and 2012 VP113, have also indicated the existence of Planet X with their orbit trajectory. Rather than having a circular orbit around the sun, the planets take an elliptical course. Scientists <a href="https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/hypothetical-planet-x/in-depth/">believe</a> that it indicates the presence of another gravitational force that’s affecting the orbit of these planets. And, since similar orbits are being discovered in the same regions of the sky, the math suggests there has to be a common denominator governing that behaviour. It’s suspected that Planet X is probably 10 times bigger than the Earth. That’s, more or less, the size of Neptune. And, since it’s so far away, one full orbit around the sun could take it nearly 10,000 to 20,000 Earth years. The eight-metre Japanese Subaru telescope was key to making this discovery. Housed in Hawaii atop the dormant Mauna Kea volcano, the telescope is one-of-a-kind being able to capture images that stretch to the ends of our solar system. (Reference image)

Scavenger hunt for Planet X just dropped another clue

Astronomers now routinely discover planets orbiting stars outside of the solar system they're called exoplanets. But in summer 2022, teams working on <keyword id="6360409" type="General" weightage="50" keywordseo="nasa" source="Orion">NASA</keyword>'s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite found a few particularly interesting planets orbiting in the habitable zones of their parent stars. One planet is 30% larger than <keyword id="6359982" type="General" weightage="100" keywordseo="earth" source="Orion">Earth</keyword> and orbits its star in less than three days. The other is 70% larger than the Earth and might host a deep ocean. These two exoplanets are super-Earths more massive than the Earth but smaller than ice giants like Uranus and <keyword id="175328" type="General" weightage="50" keywordseo="neptune" source="Orion">Neptune</keyword>. I'm a professor of astronomy who studies galactic cores, distant galaxies, astrobiology and exoplanets. I closely follow the search for planets that might host life. Earth is still the only place in the universe scientists know to be home to life. It would seem logical to focus the search for life on Earth clones planets with properties close to Earth's. But research has shown that the best chance astronomers have of finding life on another planet is likely to be on a super-Earth similar to the ones found recently. Common and easy to find Most super-Earths orbit cool dwarf stars, which are lower in mass and live much longer than the <keyword id="24879" type="General" weightage="50" keywordseo="sun" source="Orion">Sun</keyword>. There are hundreds of cool dwarf stars for every star like the Sun, and scientists have found super-Earths orbiting 40% of cool dwarfs they have looked at. Using that number, astronomers estimate that there are tens of billions of super-Earths in habitable zones where liquid water can exist in the Milky Way alone. Since all life on Earth uses water, water is thought to be critical for habitability. Based on current projections, about a third of all exoplanets are super-Earths, making them the most common type of exoplanet in the Milky Way. The nearest is only six light-years away from Earth. You might even say that our solar system is unusual since it does not have a planet with a mass between that of Earth and Neptune. Another reason super-Earths are ideal targets in the search for life is that they're much easier to detect and study than Earth-sized planets. There are two methods astronomers use to detect exoplanets. One looks for the gravitational effect of a planet on its parent star and the other looks for brief dimming of a star's light as the planet passes in front of it. Both of these detection methods are easier with a bigger planet. Super-Earths are super habitable Over 300 years ago, German philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz argued that Earth was the best of all possible worlds. Leibniz's argument was meant to address the question of why evil exists, but modern astrobiologists have explored a similar question by asking what makes a planet hospitable to life. It turns out that Earth is not the best of all possible worlds. Due to Earth's tectonic activity and changes in the brightness of the Sun, the climate has veered over time from ocean-boiling hot to planetwide, deep-freeze cold. Earth has been uninhabitable for humans and other larger creatures for most of its 4.5-billion-year history. Simulations suggest the long-term habitability of Earth was not inevitable, but was a matter of chance. Humans are literally lucky to be alive. Researchers have come up with a list of the attributes that make a planet very conducive to life. Larger planets are more likely to be geologically active, a feature that scientists think would promote biological evolution. So the most habitable planet would have roughly twice the mass of the Earth and be between 20% and 30% larger by volume. It would also have oceans that are shallow enough for light to stimulate life all the way to the seafloor and an average temperature of 77 degrees Fahrenheit (25 degrees Celsius). It would have an atmosphere thicker than the Earth's that would act as an insulating blanket. Finally, such a planet would orbit a star older than the Sun to give life longer to develop, and it would have a strong magnetic field that protects against cosmic radiation. Scientists think that these attributes combined will make a planet super habitable. By definition, super-Earths have many of the attributes of a super habitable planet. To date, astronomers have discovered two dozen super-Earth exoplanets that are, if not the best of all possible worlds, theoretically more habitable than Earth. Recently, there's been an exciting addition to the inventory of habitable planets. Astronomers have started discovering exoplanets that have been ejected from their star systems, and there could be billions of them roaming the Milky Way. If a super-Earth is ejected from its star system and has a dense atmosphere and watery surface, it could sustain life for tens of billions of years, far longer than life on Earth could persist before the Sun dies. Detecting life on super-Earths To detect life on distant exoplanets, astronomers will look for biosignatures, byproducts of biology that are detectable in a planet's atmosphere. NASA's <keyword id="145694" type="General" weightage="50" keywordseo="james-webb-space-telescope" source="Orion">James Webb Space Telescope</keyword> was designed before astronomers had discovered exoplanets, so the telescope is not optimised for exoplanet research. But it is able to do some of this science and is scheduled to target two potentially habitable super-Earths in its first year of operations. Another set of super-Earths with massive oceans discovered in the past few years, as well as the planets discovered this summer, are also compelling targets for <keyword id="1102401" type="General" weightage="50" keywordseo="james-webb" source="Orion">James Webb</keyword>. But the best chances for finding signs of life in exoplanet atmospheres will come with the next generation of giant, ground-based telescopes: the 39-meter Extremely Large Telescope, the Thirty Meter Telescope and the 24.5-meter Giant Magellan Telescope. These telescopes are all under construction and set to start collecting data by the end of the decade. Astronomers know that the ingredients for life are out there, but habitable does not mean inhabited. Until researchers find evidence of life elsewhere, it's possible that life on Earth was a unique accident. While there are many reasons why a habitable world would not have signs of life, if, over the coming years, astronomers look at these super habitable super-Earths and find nothing, humanity may be forced to conclude that the universe is a lonely place. SEE ALSO : <a target="_blank" class="c-link c-message_attachment__title_link" href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/startups/news/if-india-can-import-dark-chocolate-why-cant-we-sell-imli-candy-abroad-says-this-startup-founder/articleshow/94309775.cms">If India can import dark chocolate why can’t we sell imli candy abroad says this startup founder</a> <a target="_blank" class="c-link c-message_attachment__title_link" href="https://www.businessinsider.in/stock-market/news/how-indian-equity-gold-and-debt-investments-have-performed-over-the-past-two-decades/articleshow/94304653.cms">Story in charts: How Indian equity, gold and debt investments have performed over the past two decades</a>

All about Super-Earths, their dwarf stars and how they're more habitable than our earth

<ul class="summary-list"><li>"AI technology is probably the most critical technology for the planet in the next 20 years," VC investor Vinod Khosla said.</li><li>While opportunities in AI will be much larger than people expect today, he sees a two-horse race. </li></ul>Opportunities in artificial intelligence will be much larger than people expect, but the market will be a two-horse race, according to venture capitalist Vinod Khosla, who was the first VC investor in ChatGPT parent OpenAI. His Khosla Ventures invested in OpenAI in 2019, and the startup has since received billions of dollars from Microsoft, which is integrating its AI technology into Bing."AI technology is probably the most critical technology for the planet in the next 20 years," <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pQcCrRxHAE" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Khosla told CNBC on Wednesday</a>.He also noted that the generative AI technology behind so-called chatbots like ChatGPT and Google's Bard will recast search engines into "answer engines."Microsoft and Google have ample room to take advantage of a growing market, and they both bring different spheres of strength to furthering AI research and technology. "OpenAI needed the large resources Microsoft had, so it's been a great partnership. They are a fast, nimble organization [and] that's their advantage," Khosla said. "Google has a lot of research talent and they have a lot of good technology also, and I've no doubt they'll get it right."Investor excitement over AI has skyrocketed in recent months thanks to the success of ChatGPT, as well as an integration of the chatbot technology with search engine Bing. Google's Bard earlier this week stumbled when it provided <a href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/google-alphabet-stock-ai-bard-chatgpt-report-ad-inaccurate-answer-2023-2?utm_medium=ingest&amp;utm_source=markets" rel="">incorrect information</a> in a <a href="https://twitter.com/Google/status/1622710355775393793?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1622710355775393793%7Ctwgr%5Eeacb23118f5f35cd9d80ed0f45b76889f9723549%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.reuters.com%2Ftechnology%2Fgoogle-ai-chatbot-bard-offers-inaccurate-information-company-ad-2023-02-08%2F" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow">promo</a> meant to highlight the technology. But Deepwater Asset Management's Gene Munster said <a href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/stocks/googl-stock?utm_medium=ingest&amp;utm_source=markets&amp;utm_medium=ingest&amp;utm_source=markets" rel="">Alphabet's</a> stock drop on Wednesday was overblown, and the company's <a href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/alphabet-stock-googl-ai-chatbot-bard-bing-openai-chatgpt-rival-2023-2">artificial intelligence technology shouldn't be so easily dismissed.</a> Similarly, Bank of America said that while Microsoft emerged as the winner this week in AI, <a href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/microsoft-bing-chatgpt-ai-search-war-google-openai-bofa-tech-2023-2">Google has several key long-term advantages</a>.The AI market will dwarf both Google's and Microsoft's current markets in 20 years, Kholsa said, adding that the "market is very very large, far larger than most people would project today.""Both have really good infrastructure, the resources to compete effectively, and I think this will become a two-horse race in this marketplace," he said. "One will have nimble OpenAI. The other will have a lot of deep talent."

Google vs. Microsoft: early ChatGPT investor sees a 2-horse AI race for 'the most critical technology for the planet'

<ul class="summary-list"><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/animation-saturn-rings-orbit-spin-faster-than-speed-of-sound-2021-3">Planets</a> careen <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/animation-reveals-invisible-center-of-solar-system-not-sun-2020-7">around the sun</a> faster than a bullet, and there's a reason for that speed.</li><li>The closer an object is to the <keyword id="11899372" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="sun" source="Orion">sun</keyword>, the faster it must move to avoid falling into our star.</li><li>Planetary scientist James O'Donoghue made two <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/animation-shows-moon-orbits-barycenter-below-earth-surface-2021-3">animations</a> to illustrate how this works.</li></ul>At this very moment, Earth and all other <keyword id="11910186" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="planets" source="Orion">planets</keyword> in our <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-voyager-1-detects-hum-interstellar-space-2021-5">solar system</a> are careening around the sun at unfathomable speeds.Planetary scientist <a href="https://twitter.com/physicsJ">James O'Donoghue</a> is on a mission to help people visualize that mind-boggling movement. O'Donoghue, who works for the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, uses his free time to boil down the complex <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/video-animation-planetary-scientist-huge-solar-system-2019-11">physics of our solar system</a> into bite-sized animations.Two of his videos capture how fast each planet travels. The visualizations reveal that planets close to the sun are shooting through space at astonishing speeds. By comparison, the more distant planets seem to meander along at a leisurely pace.That's because objects closer to the sun have to move faster so that its gravity doesn't pull them into a fiery death. "All objects that we see in stable orbits around the sun are there because they orbit fast enough to escape its gravitational pull. If they were not fast enough they wouldn't escape," O'Donoghue told Insider. "In short, the planets we see today are the survivors."The first video, below, shows each planet's velocity on its path around the sun. Mercury, the closest to the sun, travels nearly 30 miles per second along its path. Neptune may look slow, but it's still covering 3 miles every second. That's about six times faster than a bullet.The <keyword id="11910187" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="animation" source="Orion">animation</keyword> above does not show how many orbits the planets are completing relative to each other, though.So O'Donoghue made another animation, below, to count orbits (note the "number of orbits" ticker that appears to the right of the planets). Each time a planet crosses the screen, it's completing one orbit around the sun."Objects close to the sun necessarily orbit faster by virtue of existing there," O'Donoghue said.As a result, Mercury orbits the sun several times in each Earth year. Neptune, however, takes nearly 164 Earth years to complete its trip around our star.Pluto is not pictured because it's a dwarf planet.

You Searched For "Dwarf planet" and got 9 results

New NASA photos offer a close look at Jupiter's fiery moon with erupting volcanos that dwarf anything on Earth

Ellyn Lapointe

A newly discovered space object called 'Farfarout' is the most distant thing in our solar system

Morgan McFall-Johnsen

The smallest dwarf planet in our solar system was hiding in the asteroid belt

Prabhjote Gill

A dwarf planet between Mars and Jupiter has a salty ocean beneath its surface, making it a contender for alien life

Morgan McFall-Johnsen

A second Earth-sized world orbiting a dwarf star discovered by scientists

ANI

Scavenger hunt for Planet X just dropped another clue

Prabhjote Gill

All about Super-Earths, their dwarf stars and how they're more habitable than our earth

PTI

Google vs. Microsoft: early ChatGPT investor sees a 2-horse AI race for 'the most critical technology for the planet'

Brian Evans

A scientist's simple animation shows how the planets rocket around the sun at wildly different speeds

Morgan McFall-Johnsen

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