List of All Articles with Tag ''

Scientists have cooked up the "alien haze" of distant planets, in an effort to help with the search for alien life. The haze is a simulation of the hazy skies that appear on water-rich exoplanets, or worlds outside of our solar system. That haziness can get in the way of observations of those planets, making it difficult to understand what is happening there. Haze can also affect conditions on the planet themselves. If the atmosphere has hazes or other particles then it can drastically change the temperature, amount of light an other factors – some of which might be make or break for alien life there. Scientists hope the homemade haze will let them better understand the atmospheres of other planets, and model how the planets themselves form and grow. They could allow us to better understand how the have distorts our picture of those planets – distortions that could give us the wrong understanding of the makeup of their atmospheres. Getting that wrong could mean potentially missing habitable worlds, for instance. The observations are used to come up with the estimates about the temperature and atmospheric conditions that are then used to determine whether a planet might be able to host alien life. “The big picture is whether there is life outside the solar system, but trying to answer that kind of question requires really detailed modeling of all different types, specifically in planets with lots of water,” said co-author Sarah Hörst, from Johns Hopkins University. “This has been a huge challenge because we just don't have the lab work to do that, so we are trying to use these new lab techniques to get more out of the data that we’re taking in with all these big fancy telescopes.” The team cooked up the haze using a custom-designed chamber in Hörst’s lab. The haze they made is formed out solid particles, suspended in gas, which changes how light interacts with the gas itself. To test the hazes they made, scientists shot ultraviolet light through them, measuring how much they absorbed and reflected. They found that hate haze matched the chemical signatures of a well-studied exoplanet. Scientists hope to develop yet more hazes, with different gas mixtures, that will let them better understand different atmospheres. The work is described in a new paper, 'Optical properties of organic haze analogues in water-rich exoplanet atmospheres observable with JWST', published in the journal Nature Astronomy. Read More SpaceX rockets are punching holes in atmosphere, causing blood-red ‘auroras’ Chinese rocket that slammed onto Moon may have carried mysterious undisclosed payload Nasa’s ‘Message in a Bottle’ will send your name into space

Artificial intelligence is now on the agenda as world leaders, climate diplomats and thousands of others descend on

HSBC Holdings Plc and Societe Generale SA are among banks that have withdrawn applications to get their climate

Lithium’s price slump over the past year has been as dramatic as its climb — and it’s probably

Tesla Inc. designed its stainless-steel Cybertuck to be something special: the first vehicle for the masses that doesn’t

At this point, the setting of Grand Theft Auto 6 isn't up for debate. It'd be a huge shock to see Rockstar Games swerve the much rumoured Vice City, Florida setting. Of course, there's been no official confirmation of the game's setting or any further details as fans await a hotly-anticipated trailer in early December, but a number of big leaks have pointed directly to GTA 6 following up on Grand Theft Auto: Vice City with a trip to the Sunshine State. With only 'unofficial' signs pointing to Vice City, fans have taken a recent post from Rockstar Games as a pre-trailer confirmation that the GTA series is heading back to Florida, and that the map will be based around Vice City. An X account, GTA 6 Trailer Countdown, posted a capture of a Rockstar Games with the following message: "Rockstar Games just dropped some merch including “IVC” sticker and Vice City-themed socks ahead of the GTA 6 reveal in December." This has lead to speculation that Rockstar have all but 'confirmed' Vice City as the setting of the game. However, some fans aren't convinced that the merch drop means anything at all: For now, it seems like all signs point towards a Vice City comeback judging on the leaks that have already occurred, and a return that should be announced very soon. In the meantime, you can pick up your Vice City merch here. Sign up to our free indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

'Taskmaster' is expanding beyond Channel 4 with a new virtual reality game turning fans into contestants.

Charlie Munger dies at 99, Apple moves to end Goldman Sachs card partnership, Amazon and Nvidia expand AI offerings, and other news to start your day.

COP28 Daily Reports: Sign up for the Green Daily newsletter for comprehensive coverage of the climate summit right

By Foo Yun Chee BRUSSELS Adobe will aim to counter EU antitrust charges that its proposed $20 billion

IShowSpeed and Kai Cenat were shouting at each other after they both died in a Fortnite game

Alibaba stock has been suffering after it abandoned its cloud spinoff plans. Plaudits for the performance of Chinese e-commerce rival PDD are adding more pressure for change.