Le rover Curiosity a brisé une roche en roulant dessus, dévoilant des cristaux clairs et laiteux. La zone étant riche en sulfates, il est très probable que ce soit des cristaux de gypse, parmi les plus beaux que je vois depuis le début de la mission ! 1/3
Social media allow you to find thousands of friends, many more than evolution has equipped us for. What are the consequences of being in touch with more people than you can hope to meet? It’s “Post Social Media” on Big Picture Science.
Cicadas are back, but climate change is messing with their body clocks.
CBS News reports: "Cicada watchers used to be able to predict their emergence as easily as astronomers could predict the recent solar eclipse. But that has become more challenging as the cicadas' patterns are changing as warm spring days happen more often."
Plate Tectonics Has a Surprise Silver Lining - Without this restless geologic process, which triggers destructive earthquakes, Earth would not be habitable, by Robin George Andrews May 29, 2024
"...on geologic timescales, plate tectonics ensures that Earth won’t grow so catastrophically hot that its surface becomes unlivable. Without plate tectonics, Earth would turn into Venus. And no planet aspires to be more like Venus.
...And, had it not been for—among other things—our world’s endlessly shifting tectonic plates, Earth could have shared the same grim fate as Venus.
Yes, those tectonic plates buckle and stretch, slip and slide, creating faults that jolt and snap, which generate earthquakes—sometimes devastatingly so. But these tremors are the vital sign of a planet with a beating geologic heart, an orb with a transmogrifying face..."
[I immediately thought of Calvin and Hobbes here, lol.]
#PPOD: This scene is a mosaic of two Right Mastcam-Z camera images taken by NASA's Perseverance rover on 27 May 2024 at a local time of 3:15 pm. The color approximates natural human vision. Most boulders are largely basaltic, with evidence of being rounded by wind. We can't wait to learn the composition of the lighter-toned one in the middle of the scene, though, as it appears to be something different. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/Paul Byrne
This week's Featured Links post has links to articles about how an update to the Drake equation suggests we may be alone in the galaxy, how Hispanics in South Florida are fighting disinformation, will Musk's Starlink satellites lead to Kessler syndrome, and more.
Opus caementicium, also known as Roman concrete, was an ultradurable building material used in the construction of countless monumental buildings that survived extremely harsh conditions for thousands of years. What was the Romans' secret? Heritage Daily has more: https://flip.it/ay8Q9N #Science#Construction#Concrete#RomanEmpire
Guglielmo Marconi applies for a patent for his wireless telegraph.
On 13 May 1897, Marconi sent the first ever wireless communication over open sea – a message was transmitted over the Bristol Channel from Flat Holm Island to Lavernock Point near Cardiff, a distance of 6 kilometres. The message read "Are you ready".
J'ai le plaisir de vous annoncer la sortie de mon nouveau roman : IMPACT
"Donald Kessler l’avait prédit dès 1978. En cet été 2025, le nombre de satellites en orbite avait atteint une limite au-delà de laquelle l’impact d’un débris spatial provoquant une fragmentation pouvait avoir une conséquence catastrophique, déclenchant une réaction en chaîne qui allait tout emporter..."
ATTERRISSAGE REUSSI 🎉
Cette nuit, la sonde Chang'e 6 🇨🇳 s'est posée dans le cratère Apollo sur la face cachée de la Lune 🌒
Il transporte l'instrument DORN 🇫🇷 qui va mesurer le taux de radon.
Tellement heureux pour mes amis toulousains qui l'ont conçu et l'opèrent !
Photo is a bettong that has been caught by researchers. The good news is their population has maybe tripled over the last few years in Australia's largest nature preserve that is free of introduced predators - it has 45km (28mi) of 1.8m (just under 6') tall fencing to keep it that way. Just 3 years ago they were reintroduced to...
Seven candidate Dyson spheres found from their excess infrared radiation could be a case of mistaken identity, with evidence for dusty background galaxies spotted close to three of them.
“They could be an astrophysical phenomenon such as extreme debris discs, or something more exotic,” says Ann Marie Cody, an astronomer at the SETI Institute in California who is not involved in Project Hephaistos, but has conducted her own Dyson swarm search.
A bettong bewildered by bagging
Photo is a bettong that has been caught by researchers. The good news is their population has maybe tripled over the last few years in Australia's largest nature preserve that is free of introduced predators - it has 45km (28mi) of 1.8m (just under 6') tall fencing to keep it that way. Just 3 years ago they were reintroduced to...