How many habitable exoplanets are there, really?

The TRAPPIST-1 system of exoplanets, approximately 40 light-years away

Exoplanets galore

As of the present date (August 2019), more than 4000 exoplanets have been discovered orbiting other stars, and by the time you read this even more will have been logged. Several hundred exoplanets were announced in a July 2019 paper (although these await independent confirmation). All of this is a remarkable advance, given that the first confirmed exoplanet discovery did not occur until 1992.

Most of the discoveries mentioned above are planets that are either too large or too close to their sun to possess liquid water, much

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August 21st, 2019 | Category: Essays | Comments are closed

How fast is the universe expanding? New results deepen the controversy

A large cluster galaxy in the center acts as a gravitational lens, splitting the light from a more distant supernova into four yellow images (arrows)

The standard model of physics has reigned supreme since the 1970s, successfully describing experimental physical reality in a vast array of experimental tests. Among other things, the standard model predicted the existence of a particle, now known as the Higgs boson, underlying the phenomenon of mass. This particle was experimentally discovered in 2012, nearly 50 years after it was first predicted.

Yet physicists have known for many years that the standard model cannot be the

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August 8th, 2019 | Category: Essays | Comments are closed