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<ul class="summary-list"><li>Scientists say they observed a planet that may have an ocean-covered surface, the Guardian reported.</li><li>The observations were made using NASA's James Webb space telescope.</li></ul>Researchers say they have observed a <a target="_blank" href="https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/exoplanet-catalog/7571/toi-270-d/">Neptune-like</a> planet that could be covered by a deep-water ocean, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2024/mar/08/astronomers-detect-waterworld-with-a-boiling-ocean-in-deep-space?fbclid=IwAR05Ygwpv64-frgfibQcglp6qAZy2Gy55rZ-gvltUB3SeATacVWvt9zGXoA">the Guardian</a> reported.A team from the University of Cambridge in the UK said it had found evidence of water vapor and chemical signatures of carbon dioxide and methane on an exoplanet known as TOI-270 d, which is around 70 light years away.The team used NASA's James Webb space telescope to make observations of the planet, which has twice the radius of Earth and a mass of 4.78 Earths, per <a target="_blank" href="https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/exoplanet-catalog/7571/toi-270-d/">NASA</a>.Nikku Madhusudhan, a professor of astrophysics at the University of Cambridge who led the research, told the Guardian, "the ocean could be upwards of 100 degrees [Celsius] or more," adding that with high atmospheric pressure, that ocean could still be liquid.But it was "not clear if it would be habitable," he said.The planet is also tidally locked, meaning one side is left in constant darkness while the other faces its star, per the report."The ocean would be extremely hot on the day side. The night side could potentially host habitable conditions," Madhusudhan added.A liquid ocean is the preferred premise set out in a paper published in the journal <a target="_blank" href="https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/full_html/2024/03/aa48238-23/aa48238-23.html">Astronomy &amp; Astrophysics</a>.The paper also notes the lack of ammonia on TOI-270 d, which it said was "consistent with predictions for a Hycean world with a planet-wide ocean" under a hydrogen-rich atmosphere.However, a group of <a target="_blank" href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.03325">Canadian researchers who also observed TOI-270 d have disputed the Cambridge team's claims.</a>While they detected the same chemicals in the planet's atmosphere, one of the researchers told the Guardian that they believed the temperature was "too warm for water to be liquid."Université de Montréal Professor Björn Benneke said that surface temperatures on the exoplanet could be around 4,000 degrees Celsius, or around 7,200 degrees Fahrenheit.He added that this meant any water would be in a supercritical state, where "it's almost like a thick, hot fluid."<div type="image" title="image of the colorful nebula in space" height="1307" width="1500" msid="108564372" hostid="261" sizebytes="160428"></div>The James Webb telescope has played a key role in advancing the search for habitable planets beyond Earth.The telescope intercepts infrared light and directs it to scientific instruments where it can be recorded.One of its main uses is to study the atmospheres of exoplanets to see whether they could support life.One key that scientists look for in a potentially habitable planet is the presence of liquid water.The area around a star where water can exist in a liquid state is called the "<a target="_blank" href="https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/faq/15/what-is-the-habitable-zone-or-goldilocks-zone/">habitable zone</a>" or "Goldilocks' zone." Planets in this zone are neither too hot nor too cold to support liquid water.

Astronomers discover a possible water world in the search for a habitable planet, report says

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

Bengaluru, The <keyword id="16816527" type="General" weightage="80" keywordseo="propulsion-module" source="Orion">Propulsion Module</keyword> (PM) of Chandrayaan-3 has been moved from an orbit around the Moon to an orbit around Earth, <keyword id="6358064" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="isro" source="Orion">ISRO</keyword> has said, terming the operation a unique experiment. The primary objective of the <keyword id="15331763" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="chandrayaan-3-mission" source="Orion">Chandrayaan-3 mission</keyword> was to demonstrate a soft landing near the lunar south polar region and perform experiments using the instruments on the 'Vikram' lander and the 'Pragyan' rover. The spacecraft was launched on July 14, 2023, on board the LVM3-M4 vehicle from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC-SHAR). On August 23, the Vikram lander made its historic touchdown on the Moon and subsequently, the Pragyan rover was deployed. The scientific instruments in the lander and rover were operated continuously for one lunar day as per the defined mission life. "The mission objectives of Chandrayaan-3 have been completely met," the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said in a statement. For the Propulsion Module, the main objective was to ferry the lander module from the Geostationary Transfer Orbit (GTO) to the final lunar polar circular orbit and separate the lander, it said. After the separation, the Spectro-polarimetry of HAbitable Planet Earth (SHAPE) payload in the PM was also operated, the space agency said. The initial plan was to operate this payload for about three months during the mission life of the PM. The precise orbit injection by LVM3 and optimal earth or lunar burn manoeuvres resulted in the availability of over 100 kg of fuel in the PM after over one month of operations in the lunar orbit, it added. ISRO said that it was decided to use the available fuel in the PM to derive additional information for future lunar missions and demonstrate the mission operation strategies for a sample return mission. To continue the SHAPE payload for earth observation, it was decided to re-orbit the PM to a suitable earth orbit. This mission plan was worked out considering collision avoidance such as preventing the PM from crashing onto the Moon's surface or entering into the Earth's Geosynchronous Equatorial Orbit (GEO) belt at 36,000 km and orbits below that, the statement said. Considering the estimated fuel availability and the safety of the GEO spacecraft, the optimal earth return trajectory was designed for October 2023. The first maneuver was performed on October 9, 2023, to raise apolune altitude to 5,112 km from 150 km thus increasing the period of orbit from 2.1 hours to 7.2 hours. Later, considering the estimate of available propellant, the second manoeuvre plan was revised to target an Earth orbit of 1.8 lakh x 3.8 lakh km. The Trans-Earthinjection (TEI) maneuver was performed on October 13, 2023. In the post-TEI manoeuvre realised orbit, the PM made four Moon fly-bys before departing the sphere of influence (SOI) of the Moon on November 10. Currently, the PM is orbiting Earth and crossed its first perigee on November 22 with an altitude of 1.54 lakh km. The orbit period is nearly 13 days with a 27-degree inclination. The perigee and apogee altitude vary during its trajectory and the predicted minimum perigee altitude is 1.15 lakh km, ISRO said. "Hence as per current orbit prediction, there is no threat of close approach with any operational Earth-orbiting satellites," it said. As per the plan, the SHAPE payload is being operated whenever Earth is in its field of view. Also, a special operation of the SHAPE payload was carried out on October 28, 2023, during a solar eclipse. The SHAPE payload operations will continue further, the statement added. "UR Rao Satellite Centre/ISRO's flight dynamics team has developed an analysis tool from first principles for this operation which is being validated through the return maneuvers carried out for the Chandrayaan-3 PM," ISRO said. According to ISRO, the following are the main outcomes of the return manoeuvres carried out on the PM related to future missions: Planning and execution of trajectory and manoeuvres to return from the Moon to Earth; development of a software module to plan such a manoeuvre and its preliminary validation; planning and execution of a gravity-assisted fly-by across a planet or celestial body; and avoiding uncontrolled crashing of the PM onto the Moon's surface at the end of life of the PM thus meeting the requirements of no debris creation.

ISRO moves Chandrayaan-3 propulsion module to orbit around Earth in unique experiment

New York, Oct 27 (IANS) <keyword id="6436894" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="venus" source="Orion">Venus</keyword>, known as a scorching wasteland of a planet, may have once had tectonic plate movements similar to those believed to have occurred on early Earth, found a study indicating the possibility of hosting life. Using atmospheric data from Venus and computer modelling, a team of scientists from Brown University showed that Venus must have had plate tectonics sometime after the planet formed, about 4.5 billion to 3.5 billion years ago. This can account for the abundance of nitrogen and carbon dioxide present in Venus' atmosphere, they said, in the paper published in the journal <keyword id="3951856" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="nature-astronomy" source="Orion">Nature Astronomy</keyword>. The composition of the planet's current atmosphere and surface pressure would only have been possible as a result of an early form of plate tectonics -- a process critical to life that involves multiple continental plates pushing, pulling and sliding beneath one another. On Earth, this process intensified over billions of years, forming new continents and mountains, and leading to chemical reactions that stabilised the planet's surface temperature, resulting in an environment more conducive to the development of life. Venus, on the other hand, Earth's nearest neighbour and sister planet, went in the opposite direction and today has surface temperatures hot enough to melt lead. One explanation is that the planet has always been thought to have what's known as a "stagnant lid," meaning its surface has only a single plate with minimal amounts of give, movement and gases being released into the atmosphere. The team posts that this wasn't always the case. The paper suggests that this early tectonic movement, like on Earth, would have been limited in terms of the number of plates moving and in how much they shifted. It also would have been happening on Earth and Venus simultaneously. "One of the big picture takeaways is that we very likely had two planets at the same time in the same solar system operating in a plate tectonic regime -- the same mode of tectonics that allowed for the life that we see on Earth today," said lead author <keyword id="12410616" type="General" weightage="50" keywordseo="matt-weller" source="Orion">Matt Weller</keyword>, who led the study while a postdoctoral researcher at Brown and is now at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston. This bolsters the possibility of microbial life on ancient Venus and shows that at one point the two planets -- which are in the same solar neighbourhood, are about the same size, and have the same mass, density and volume -- were more alike than previously thought before diverging. The study also highlights the possibility that plate tectonics on planets might just come down to timing -- and therefore, so may life itself. "We've so far thought about tectonic state in terms of a binary: it's either true or it's false, and it's either true or false for the duration of the planet," said study co-author Alexander Evans, an assistant professor of Earth, environmental and planetary sciences at Brown. "This shows that planets may transition in and out of different tectonic states and that this may actually be fairly common. Earth may be the outlier. This also means we might have planets that transition in and out of habitability rather than just being continuously habitable." That concept will be important to consider as scientists look to understand nearby moons -- like Jupiter's Europa, which has shown proof of having Earth-like plate tectonics -- and distant exoplanets, the paper said.

Venus has Earth-like plate tectonics, indicating possibility of hosting life once

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Scientists think the sun will become too hot for life to handle in the next billion years.</li><li>An unexpected rescue mission could come in the form of a star flying by the solar system.</li></ul>In around a billion years, the sun will become hot enough to<a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/sun-destroy-earth-red-giant-white-dwarf-2016-9"> boil all the oceans on our planet</a>, and life as we know it will be destroyed.The fate of life on Earth, scientists think, is more or less sealed.But a passing star could prove to be an unlikely savior, according to a new study by scientists from the University of Bordeaux, France, and the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona.The researchers ran 12,000 simulations to see what would happen if a star passed within 100 astronomical units (about 9.3 billion miles) from Earth.The simulations showed that our solar system is remarkably stable. In 92% of cases, the solar system would remain almost intact even as a star passed by the solar system."I thought more would happen," Sean Raymond, a study author from the University of Bordeaux in France, told <a target="_blank" href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/2405706-passing-star-could-fling-earth-out-past-pluto-into-the-oort-cloud/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&amp;utm_source=NSNS&amp;utm_medium=RSS&amp;utm_content=news">New Scientist</a>. "It's really not that easy to mess with planets' orbits – a star has to get really into another star's business to mess with its planets."Still, there's a chance the passing star could pull our planet out of harm's way — albeit a slim one. In 0.28% of the simulations, the star pulled the Earth out of its orbit and into a more temperate region, Raymond said in <a target="_blank" href="https://planetplanet.net/2023/11/21/could-a-stellar-flyby-save-earth-from-impending-doom/">a blog post</a>.This manifested in a number of ways. In some simulations, Earth remained in the solar system but was pulled to a region beyond Pluto that's about 10% cooler than our current orbit.In other simulations, Earth was kicked into interstellar space, ending up in the Oort cloud, about 2 billion light years away, or as a free-floating planet in space.As bizarre as it might seem, this may not be the worst-case scenario, said <a target="_blank" href="https://planetplanet.net/2023/11/21/could-a-stellar-flyby-save-earth-from-impending-doom/">Raymond in a blog post</a>. "It is much harder to un-roast a fried planet than to heat up a frozen world," he said."If they possess modestly thick hydrogen atmospheres, free-floating planets can trap enough heat to maintain liquid water on the surface," he said.There are also a few scenarios where the star captured the Earth as it flew by.However, in scenarios where the Earth was taken away from the broiling zone, it wasn't automatically saved. In many cases, it ended up <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/moon-formation-giant-impact-earth-synestia-2018-2">crashing into the moon</a> or Venus.There's only a 1% chance a star could fly by our solar system in the next billion years, and the simulations predict a 1 in 350 chance of Earth being kicked into a habitable orbit.So taken together, "that's a 1 in 35,000 chance that the long-term prospects for life on Earth will be rescued by a passing star," said Raymond in a blog post."That's about the same odds as randomly pulling the ace of spades from two separate decks of cards while also rolling a combined 10 with two dice. Not the best odds," he said.The research findings were published in the peer-reviewed journal <a target="_blank" href="https://academic.oup.com/mnras/advance-article/doi/10.1093/mnras/stad3604/7452883">Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society</a> on November 27.

A rogue star could save Earth from extinction in a billion years by knocking it out past Pluto

<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/one-planet"></a><div type="image" title="Insider One Planet Banner" height="150" width="1200" msid="99694551" hostid="261" sizebytes="5678"></div>The clean-transportation revolution won't arrive by way of <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/virgin-hyperloop-layoffs-passenger-travel-cargo-transport-2022-2">futuristic hyperloops</a>, driverless taxi pods, or <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/american-airlines-flying-taxis-vx4-evtol-2022-7">drones the size of minivans</a> — not anytime soon, at least.And while electric cars get all the hype, a game-changing solution to getting around without warming the planet has flourished right under our noses. Electric bicycles of all shapes and sizes have whirred and zipped their way into the mainstream in recent years as the pandemic has supercharged an e-biking boom that was already well underway. And that's a great thing, because while replacing gas-burning cars with electric ones is key to heading off global warming, <a href="https://affiliate.insider.com?h=ca8bcadc82c3e1855682c1fbf219e7146fc3fe16ad4f06de2f2e06a6c966b24b&amp;postID=64381f57aa8499323b6b8329&amp;site=bi&amp;u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nature.com%2Farticles%2Fs41558-020-00921-7" target="_blank" rel="noopener">research</a> <a href="https://rmi.org/how-to-move-america-to-electric-vehicles/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">has found</a> Americans also need to drive less altogether to avoid climate catastrophe.<h2>The Earth-saving potential of e-bikes</h2>Transportation is the single biggest contributor to <a href="https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions#transportation" target="_blank" rel="noopener">US greenhouse-gas emissions</a>. And light-duty vehicles (cars, pickup trucks, and SUVs, not semis and airplanes) make up the largest chunk of that. Gains in vehicle efficiency are being <a href="https://jalopnik.com/large-trucks-suvs-erasing-u-s-fuel-economy-gains-1849888478" target="_blank" rel="noopener">dragged down by rising sales of large SUVs and trucks</a>, while practically no progress has been made in reducing the number of miles people drive, Carter Rubin, a transportation lead at the Natural Resources Defense Council, told Insider. All that makes enticing people to step out of the driver's seat and onto a bike, bus, or sidewalk increasingly important for meeting climate goals."Cleaner cars are an important solution, but we can't just focus on cars," Katherine García, the director of the Clean Transportation for All Campaign at the Sierra Club, told Insider. "We need to make sure we are putting programs in place that really encourage people to take alternatives."<div type="image" title="The Aventon Aventure.2" height="1668" width="2500" msid="99694552" hostid="261" sizebytes="542282"></div>E-bikes have loads of potential to pry Americans away from their beloved automobiles, advocates told Insider, especially since short trips could easily be made on two wheels instead. According to the US Bureau of Transportation Statistics, <a href="https://www.energy.gov/eere/vehicles/articles/fotw-1230-march-21-2022-more-half-all-daily-trips-were-less-three-miles-2021" target="_blank" rel="noopener">more than half of all trips in the US are under 3 miles</a>.A <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1361920921000687?via%3Dihub" target="_blank" rel="noopener">University of Oxford study</a> found that swapping a car for a bike just once a day slashed an individual's transportation emissions by a whopping 67%. <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1361920920306696?via%3Dihub">Another study</a> found choosing an e-bike for 15% of one's miles traveled cut their transportation emissions by 12%.Fast, fun, and convenient, e-bikes are already helping people make that kind of shift in their daily lives. Victor Silva, a product manager in the suburbs of Washington, DC, bought a RadRunner Plus from <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/rad-power-bikes-radmission-1-review-best-affordable-e-bikes-2021-1">Rad Power Bikes</a> for $1,900 in the summer after realizing most of his car trips were only a few miles. Now he's hooked. He recently bought another e-bike and is looking to sell his and his wife's second car since it barely gets any use. He said he wasn't going to miss the insurance payments or traffic jams. "I'm trading an activity that I absolutely hate doing, which is getting stuck in traffic, with something that I actually like doing, which is getting some exercise and riding my bike," he told Insider. <div type="image" title="Two people seen riding Aventon e-bikes." height="1667" width="2500" msid="99694554" hostid="261" sizebytes="465600"></div>After Wesley Cook and his wife sold their second car last year, they test-rode a pair of e-bikes from a local, Atlanta-based company called Edison Bicycles and never looked back. While they had never biked much before, they've slowly replaced daily errands like getting groceries or taking their son to school with e-bike rides.Cook, a software engineer, just made an addition to the couple's fleet — a cargo bike from Urban Arrow that has plenty of room for their son and their baby who's arriving later this year.<h2>The e-bike advantage</h2>The power of e-bikes to alter peoples' habits and help save the planet is simple and maybe a little obvious. But it's important and worth spelling out nonetheless: By making biking easier, e-bikes encourage people to ride more. A little electrical assistance goes a long way toward helping people overcome the obstacles keeping them from biking, whether that's steep hills, a lengthy commute, physical limitations, or the mortifying thought of showing up somewhere with pit stains, John MacArthur, a professor at Portland State University who researches sustainable transportation, told Insider."A lot of those barriers can be broken down by putting a motor on a bike," he said.National surveys he's conducted have indicated that e-bikes motivate people to ride farther and more often — plus they broaden interest in cycling beyond the stereotypical spandex-clad white man.Lyft, which operates bike-sharing systems across the US, has noticed similar trends. It's seen ridership boom by more than 50% since 2020 and attributes much of that growth to e-bikes. In 2021, e-bikes made up just 20% of Lyft's New York City fleet but 40% of total rides and nearly two-thirds of journeys between boroughs, which typically involve a steep climb over a bridge. <div type="image" title="New form factors, including cargo models like the Tern GSD, have helped fuel e-bike demand." height="2001" width="3000" msid="99694555" hostid="261" sizebytes="685982"></div>As many people who have ridden an e-bike will tell you, they're just plain fun — and they can often get you places faster and with less hassle than a car or bus. They're that rare thing in life that's both good and good for you."They're kind of a rocket fuel for regular biking," Rubin, a daily e-biker, told Insider. Electric cars are important, too, but they're expensive and far off for a lot of drivers, MacArthur said. Just consider someone who recently bought a gas car and doesn't plan on trading it in for a decade. E-bikes, on the other hand, are an option that's right here, right now. <h2>The most popular electric vehicles in the US don't have a Tesla logo</h2>While electric cars get all the attention, e-bikes have for years been the best-selling electric vehicles in the US.Last year, Americans bought just over 800,000 electric cars, according to Kelley Blue Book, a record. E-bike imports (a good proxy for sales since most e-bikes aren't made in the US) numbered around 1.1 million, surging from 880,000 in 2021 and 437,000 the year before, according to an e-bike-industry trade group. In dollar terms, e-bike retail sales nearly quadrupled in the past four years, rising from $240.1 million in 2019 to $885.5 million in 2022, the market-research firm Circana estimates. While sales of leg-powered bicycles slumped 16% last year, e-bike sales jumped by $100 million.Ed Benjamin, the Light Electric Vehicle Association's chair, chalks up the trend to growing awareness among consumers and more interest and know-how among bike sellers. The pandemic, which made people wary of close-quarters public transit, boosted e-bike fandom to new heights, he said. And sales show no sign of slowing down. In China and some parts of Europe, one out of every two bikes sold has a motor, Benjamin said, which indicates there's plenty of room for growth in the US. Improving tech and new form factors for different types of shoppers have fueled public appetite, too, MacArthur of Portland State said. Now buyers can choose from a wide variety of regular-looking bikes, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/best-folding-electric-bike-ebike-gocycle-commuting-2021-8">folding bikes</a>, tricycles, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/super73-s1-review-electric-e-bike-post-lockdown-commuting-cycling-2020-7">fat-tire mopeds</a>, and even <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2023/3/18/23645151/cargo-ebike-electric-golden-age-prices-utility-dtc" target="_blank" rel="noopener">cargo bikes, which have extra room for groceries and seats for children</a>.<div type="image" title="A red Gocycle G4i+ electric folding bike on grass, with water and blue skies in the background." height="2848" width="4201" msid="99694556" hostid="261" sizebytes="656330"></div>The demand explosion has meant boom times for e-bike makers who played their cards right, like California's Aventon, which got its start in 2013 selling (nonelectric) fixed-gear bikes.Seeing the potential in e-bikes, the young firm went all in on the technology in 2020, at what turned out to be a very opportune time. Since then, it's expanded its lineup to seven models and multiplied its revenues by a factor of 42, Aventon's chief marketing officer, Adele Nasr, told Insider. One key driver of the success, Nasr said: Customers are increasingly seeing e-bikes as legitimate tools for replacing car trips, rather than just toys for recreation."They're starting to think about them differently, starting to imagine use cases that are so much more evolved than they were even three years ago, which is incredible," Nasr said. <h2>Congress could give the e-bike boom another jolt</h2>While the federal government has committed <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/02/15/fact-sheet-biden-harris-administration-announces-new-standards-and-major-progress-for-a-made-in-america-national-network-of-electric-vehicle-chargers/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">billions of dollars to public EV charging</a> and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/federal-state-electric-car-vehicle-tax-credits-rebates-qualify-2023-1">$7,500 tax refunds</a> to buyers of Teslas and electric Ford F-150s, it's largely left e-bikes out in the cold.That's a big mistake, said Noa Banayan, the director of federal affairs at PeopleForBikes, an advocacy group that represents the bike industry. Since e-bikes are much cheaper than electric cars, "you can get them into the hands of consumers faster," she said.But times are changing. In March, a group of congresspeople reintroduced the <a href="https://panetta.house.gov/media/press-releases/reps-panetta-blumenauer-thompson-and-schiff-reintroduce-e-bike-act" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Electric Bicycle Incentive Kickstart for the Environment (E-BIKE) Act</a>, which <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/lawmakers-want-give-you-1500-buy-an-electric-bike-2023-3">proposes a 30% discount (up to $1,500) for the purchase of a new e-bike</a>. The law could not only make e-bikes more accessible to more Americans, Rubin of the Natural Resources Defense Council said, but also send a powerful message to state and local governments to get serious about safer cycling infrastructure such as protected bike lanes.Unlike when it was first introduced (then scrapped) in 2021, the bill now has support from major environmental groups, including the Sierra Club and Environment America."Now they're realizing that electric bicycles and active transportation, and micromobility more broadly, should be a part of their larger transportation and climate agendas," Banayan said. "That's really exciting."This article is part of "<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/the-great-transition" rel="">The Great Transition</a>," a series covering the big changes across industries that are leading to a more sustainable future. For more climate-action news, visit Insider's <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/one-planet" target="_blank" rel="noopener">One Planet</a> hub.

The incredible, Earth-saving electric bike is having a moment

Researchers have identified two dozen planets outside our solar system that may have conditions more suitable for life than our own and some of these orbit stars that may be better than even our Sun. A study, led by Washington State University scientist Dirk Schulze-Makuch and published in the journal Astrobiology, detailed characteristics of potential "superhabitable" planets, that include those that are older, a little larger, slightly warmer and possibly wetter than Earth. Life could also more easily thrive on planets that circle more slowly changing stars with longer lifespans than our sun. The 24 top contenders for superhabitable planets are all more than 100 light years away. However, Schulze-Makuch said the research could help focus future observation efforts, such as from NASA's James Web Space Telescope, the LUVIOR space observatory and the European Space Agency's PLATO space telescope. "With the next space telescopes coming up, we will get more information, so it is important to select some targets," said Schulze-Makuch, a professor with WSU and the Technical University in Berlin. "We have to focus on certain planets that have the most promising conditions for complex life. However, we have to be careful to not get stuck looking for a second Earth because there could be planets that might be more suitable for life than ours". There are at least 4,500 known exoplanets beyond our solar system. Habitability, however, does not mean these planets definitely have life, merely the conditions that would be conducive to life. Earth is around 4.5 billion years old but the researchers argued that the sweet spot for life is a planet that is between 5 billion to 8 billion years old. Size and mass also matter. A planet that is 10 per cent larger than the Earth should have more habitable land. "One that is about 1.5 times Earth's mass would be expected to retain its interior heating through radioactive decay longer and would also have a stronger gravity to retain an atmosphere over a longer time period," the researchers noted. Water is key to life and the authors argue that a little more of it would help, especially in the form of moisture, clouds and humidity. A slightly overall warmer temperature, a mean surface temperature of about 5 degrees Celsius (or about 8 degrees Fahrenheit) greater than Earth, together with the additional moisture, would be also better for life. Among the 24 top planet candidates, none of them meet all the criteria for superhabitable planets, but one has four of the critical characteristics, making it possibly much more comfortable for life than our home planet. "We have a great number of complex and diverse lifeforms, and many that can survive in extreme environments. It is good to have an adaptable life, but that doesn't mean that we have the best of everything," the authors wrote. SEE ALSO: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/finance/banks/news/supreme-court-defers-loan-moratorium-case-hearing-to-october-13-gives-rbi-and-the-government-another-week-to-file-additional-affidavits/articleshow/78487586.cms">Supreme Court defers loan moratorium case hearing to October 13 — gives RBI and the government another week to file additional affidavits</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/stock-market/news/tcs-shares-hit-record-high-board-to-mull-over-share-buyback-and-earnings-on-october-7/articleshow/78486980.cms">TCS rallies nearly 5%, shares hit fresh high — board to mull over share buyback and earnings on October 7</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/finance/banks/news/indusind-icici-rbl-axis-hdfc-kotak-mahindra-bank-share-price-and-other-stocks-surge-on-loan-moratorium-case/articleshow/78486360.cms">Relief rally in bank stocks continues as Supreme Court defers loan moratorium hearing to October 13</a>

You Searched For "habitable Earth" and got 7 results

Astronomers discover a possible water world in the search for a habitable planet, report says

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The incredible, Earth-saving electric bike is having a moment

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Two dozen superhabitable planets identified — some older, a little larger, slightly warmer and possibly wetter than Earth

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