A study detailing the habitability of a nearby exoplanet appears to have caught the attention of SpaceX boss Elon Musk. The tech billionaire has frequently spoken of his intention to transform humanity into a mult-planetary species through his private space firm, with plans to colonise Mars within the next few decades. The study of Proxima Centauri b, which sits within the so-called ‘Goldilocks Zone’ of the red-dwarf star Proxima Centauri, involved computer simulations to evaluate whether it can sustain liquid water that may harbour living organisms. “The major message from our simulations is that there’s a decent chance that the planet would be habitable,” Anthony Del Genio, a planetary scientist at the Nasa Goddard Institute for Space Studies said when the study was first published in 2018. The study concluded that Earth-sized planet is potentially the closest “highly habitable” planet to our Solar System, located 4.2 light-years away from the Sun. “Practically next door,” Mr Musk wrote in a tweet on Sunday, sharing the study. Proxima Centauri b has been the subject of several studies since it was first discovered in 2016, with astronomers attempting to assess whether it is capable of sustaining life. Similar to the Earth’s moon, the planet is “locked” due to gravitational forces, meaning that the same side of Proxima Centauri b always faces its parent star. Computational models suggest that the exoplanet’s circulating oceans and atmosphere act as an effective transfer of heat, so that its dark side is not permanently frozen. Despite its relatively close distance compared to other potentially habitable planets, travelling 4.2 light-years – or 40 trillion kilometres (25 trillion miles) – requires technology that is still in the conceptual stages of development. Nasa’s interstellar space probe Voyager 1, which was launched in 1977, would take 80,000 years to travel to Proxima Centauri, however the US space agency’s DEEP-IN programme aims to make the journey possible within a single lifetime. Scientists working on DEEP-IN claim that small crafts propelled by light could travel at speeds of up to 161 million kilometres per hour, and could reach the neighbouring star and exoplanet in 20 years. Mr Musk has frequently voiced his concerns about humanity’s long-term survival, claiming that setting up self-sustaining colonies on other planets is vital to ensure the continuation of our species. SpaceX has so far been at the forefront of these endeavours, developing its reusable Starship rocket with the intention of transporting people and cargo across the solar system. Read More Elon Musk refuses to pay Twitter’s Google bill Elon Musk claims AI will overtake humans 'in less than five years'

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MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug 15, 2023--

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A federal appeals court said it will not block Microsoft from closing its $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard, handing the Federal Trade Commission its second major defeat this week in a case involving the future of the video game industry.

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Twitter, rebranded as X, is now officially turning Tweetdeck into a paid service and placing it behind a paywall, after slowing down access to rival social media platforms including Meta’s Threads and Facebook. Tweetdeck, which was also rebranded recently to “X Pro”, now requires a Blue subscription to access it. The latest change follows Twitter’s announcement in July that users must be “verified” to access TweetDeck. Non-subscribing users visiting Tweetdeck’s website are now being redirected to a page promoting signup to Twitter’s premium service. Tweetdeck, which allows users to access different accounts and multiple custom feeds, was one of the most popular Twitter third-party apps, and was acquired by the social media company in 2011. Twitter has tried to make its premium subscription more enticing to users with added features like ad revenue sharing, formatting, and higher rankings in conversations. Now it appears the social media company, rebranded as X, is hoping the addition of XPro to this list of added features would attract more premium subscribers. On Tuesday, X also appeared to slow down the loading times of some of the platform’s competitors such as Meta’s Facebook, Instagram, and Threads as well as Substack and news media sites posted to X. Links posted to X from some websites were taking about five seconds longer than usual to load on Tuesday, but the platform began reversing some of the changes restricting quick view of news sites. Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg reacted to a post on the issue with a “thinking face emoji”. “Substack was created in direct response to this kind of behaviour by social media companies,” the company’s founders, Chris Best, Hamish McKenzie and Jairaj Sethi, said in a statement. This is not the first time X, formerly Twitter, has taken decisions to restrict access to rival websites. In December, X-owner Elon Musk announced he would ban “free promotion” of other social media services, and also suspend accounts encouraging users to move to other platforms. This announcement came as the platform’s rival Mastodon was growing in popularity, partly due to users’ discontent with changes made by the Tesla titan to Twitter since his takeover of the company. “We will no longer allow free promotion of certain social media platforms on Twitter,” Mr Musk said before the company decided to reverse its decision. Read More Mark Zuckerberg hits out at Elon Musk for wasting time over cage fight: ‘It’s time to move on’ Move fast and beat Musk: The inside story of how Meta built Threads Elon Musk says he may need surgery before proposed 'cage match' with Mark Zuckerberg Mark Zuckerberg hits out at Elon Musk for wasting time over cage fight Elon Musk reveals more dramatic details of fight against Mark Zuckerberg Mark Zuckerberg reveals his 4,000 calorie diet and large McDonald’s order

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