Category: The Moon

Our moon

The Predator lands in Wakanda in new ‘Predator vs Black Panther’ series

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Now that 20th Century Studios (formerly 20th Century Fox) is under the protective umbrella of The Walt Disney Company, which is also the corporate parent of Marvel Comics, expect to see more crossovers of franchise characters making the leap from film and TV into the comic book universe. After the savage intergalactic hunter fought the adamantium-clawed X-Men last fall in “Predator vs Wolverine,” it’s time to take a ringside set to another heavyweight matchup for the ages in the footsteps of next month’s “Aliens vs. Avengers” title by Jonathan Hickman and…

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When a dangerous asteroid threatens Earth, humanity will have to work together, NASA says

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A threatening asteroid could bring Earth’s oft-squabbling nations together, at least for a while. Dealing with a big, dangerous asteroid that appears to have our planet in its crosshairs will require a healthy dose of international cooperation, experts say — and it’s best to start thinking about that scenario now, while we have enough time to lay out a potential response framework. The United Nations (UN) has developed “procedures for responding to tsunamis and other big events,” Leviticus “L.A.” Lewis, the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) detailee to NASA’s Planetary…

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Why smaller planets are better at building large moons

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New simulations that describe how moons, including Earth‘s own moon, formed strongly imply that exomoons are more likely to be found around rocky exoplanets. Our moon is thought to have formed when a Mars-size planetesimal called Theia slammed into Earth, gouging out a huge wound in our planet and rendering its entire surface molten. It’s believed that the moon then coalesced from debris that settled into a ring around our planet. Those are the generally accepted details, but the specifics are still hotly debated. The angle and velocity with which…

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New ‘Exodus Green Worlds’ trailer highlights hunt for habitable planets (video)

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The talented folks at Archetype Entertainment, formerly the architects of “Mass Effect,” have released a new cinematic trailer for their upcoming hardcore science fiction RPG project, “Exodus,” and it reminds us all that space exploration can be a dangerous occupation rife with a multitude of perils. “Exodus Prologue Chapter 5: Green Worlds” aims to prepare intrepid sci-fi gamers for the time-dilated interstellar journey aboard a fleet of ark ships as travelers experience velocities approaching light speed.  Following the mass exodus from Earth in the 23rd century, valiant explorers journey outward…

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DARPA’s military-grade ‘quantum laser’ will use entangled photons to outshine conventional laser beams

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Researchers are developing a new, military-grade “quantum laser” that can cut through fog and operate across long distances. The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has awarded a $1 million grant to scientists building a prototype “quantum photonic-dimer laser” that uses quantum entanglement to “glue” light particles together and generate a highly concentrated laser beam. Lasers play a crucial role in military operations and are used in everything from satellite communications and targeting technology to mapping and tracking systems like lidar (light detection and ranging). Conventional lasers work by…

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4,000-year-old ‘Seahenge’ in UK was built to ‘extend summer,’ archaeologist suggests

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A mysterious Bronze Age wooden circle known as “Seahenge” on England’s east coast was built more than 4,000 years ago in an effort to bring back warmer weather during an extreme cold spell, a new study suggests. The theory is a new attempt to explain the buried structure — a rough circle about 25 feet (7.5 meters) across, made from 55 split oak trunks surrounding a “horseshoe” of five larger oak posts around a large inverted oak stump — that was controversially dug up and moved into a museum in…

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June solstice 2024 brings changing seasons to Earth on June 20 — What to know

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Summer will officially arrive in the Northern Hemisphere on Thursday (June 20) at 4:51 p.m. EDT (2051 GMT) — the June Solstice.   At that moment, the sun will reach the point at which it’s farthest north of the celestial equator. To be more precise, when the solstice occurs, the sun will appear to be shining directly overhead for a point on the Tropic of Cancer (latitude 23.5 degrees north) in the eastern Pacific Ocean, roughly 1,100 statute miles (1,800 kilometers) southwest of Los Angeles.   From mid-northern latitudes, we…

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The 1st ‘major lunar standstill’ in more than 18 years is about to occur. Here’s how to see it

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In addition to the April 8 total solar eclipse and vibrant displays of auroras, there’s another celestial treat for skywatchers this year: the first “major lunar standstill” since 2006. During this event, the moon rises and sets at its most extreme northerly and southerly positions on the horizon, reaching its highest and lowest points in the 18.6-year lunar cycle. This is possible because the moon doesn’t follow the same path as the sun. Its rising and setting positions on the horizon change constantly due to the movements of Earth and…

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A massive black hole may be ‘waking up’ in a nearby galaxy

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In December of 2019, the sky-scanning Zwicky Transient Facility — a telescope perched on California’s Palomar Mountain — alerted astronomers to a sudden flare coming from an otherwise unremarkable galaxy some 300 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Virgo. The flare’s intensity dipped and peaked dramatically over four years, but it continues to persist even today. That’s unusually long for such a flare — so long, in fact, that it can’t be explained by any typical cosmic phenomena. “This behavior is unprecedented,” Paula Sánchez-Sáez, an astronomer at the European…

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How 2 quasars at the dawn of time could be a Rosetta stone for the early universe

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A double quasar spiraling toward a great merger has been discovered lighting up the “cosmic dawn,” just 900 million years after the Big Bang. They are the first quasar pair spotted that far back in cosmic time. Quasars are rapidly growing supermassive black holes in the cores of hyperactive galaxies. Torrents of gas are thrust down the black holes’ throats and get hung up in the bottleneck of an accretion disk, which is a dense ring of ultrahot gas that is queuing up to fall into the black hole. Not…

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