Gaining clarity about the factors that contributed to a runaway greenhouse state on Venus, Earth’s closest planetary neighbor, can also help improve models of what could one day happen to Earth’s climate.
“Ultimately, my motivation in studying Venus is to better understand the Earth,” Kane said.
Reference: “Atmospheric dynamics of a near tidally locked Earth-sized planet” by Stephen R. Kane, 22 April 2022, Nature Astronomy.
Can humanity become a Type I civilization without causing our own Great Filter?
There are several ways we can measure the progress of human civilization. Population growth, the rise and fall of empires, our technological ability to reach for the stars. But one simple measure is to calculate the amount of energy humans use at any given time. As humanity has spread and advanced, our ability to harness energy is one of our most useful skills. If one assumes civilizations on other planets might possess similar skills, the energy consumption of a species is a good rough measure of its technological prowess. This is the idea behind the Kardashev Scale.
Russian astrophysicist Nikolai Kardashev proposed the scale in 1964. He categorized civilizations into three types: planetary, stellar, and galactic. A Type I species is able to harness energy on a scale equal to the amount stellar energy that reaches its home planet. Type II species can harness energy on the scale of its home star, and Type III can harness the energy of its home galaxy. The idea was further popularized by Carl Sagan, who suggested a continuous scale of measurement rather than simply three types.
So what type of civilization are we? Although humans use a tremendous amount of energy, it turns out we don’t even qualify as Type I. About 1016 Watts of solar energy reaches Earth on average, and humanity currently uses about 1013 Watts. On Sagan sliding scale, that puts us currently at about 0.73. Not bad for a bunch of evolved primates, but it raises an interesting question. Could we even reach Type I? After all, we can’t capture all the sunlight that reaches Earth and still have a habitable planet.
Meetups occur every day at 10 p.m. Central European Time. Users gather in Somnium Space’s city center, known as City Plaza, which is next to Somnium’s virtual headquarters. Events there include open-mic nights, concerts, and developer meetups.
Making money in Somnium Space
Somnium Space isn’t all socialization. Many players are making money by creating and selling NFT avatars.
An international team of astronomers reports the discovery of a rare double neutron star millisecond pulsar. The newfound binary pulsar, designated PSR J1325−6253, consists of two neutron stars orbiting one another every 1.8 days. The finding is detailed in a paper published April 14 on arXiv.org.
The most rapidly rotating pulsars, those with rotation periods below 30 milliseconds, are known as millisecond pulsars (MSPs). It is assumed that they are formed in binary systems when the initially more massive component turns into a neutron star that is then spun-up due to accretion of matter from the secondary star.
Some pulsars consist of two neutron stars (dubbed double neutron star systems—DNS). They are one of the most important classes of objects used to test and understand numerous astrophysical and fundamental physics phenomena, including general relativity in the strong-field regime.
China plans to develop a system for monitoring asteroids that pose a threat to earth, highlighting the nation’s growing ambitions for its space program.
The country will also explore ways for taking out asteroids that endanger the planet, Wu Yanhua, deputy director of the China National Space Administration, said in a TV interview, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.
Posted in space
Posted in space
