Astronomers discovered an ultra-short-period planet (USP) that is also super light. The planet is named GJ 367 b, and it orbits its star in just eight hours. The planet is about the size of Mars, and half as massive as the Earth, making it one of the lightest planets discovered to date.
Orbiting a nearby star that is 31 light years from our own sun, GJ 367 b is close enough that researchers could pin down properties of the planet that were not possible with previously detected USPs.
The new planet was discovered by NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), an MIT-led mission, of which Ricker is principal investigator. TESS monitors the sky for changes in brightness of the nearest stars. Scientists look through TESS data for transits or periodic dips in starlight that indicate a planet is crossing and briefly blocking a star's light.
Dec 02, 2021
LinkedIn Now Available in Hindi
LinkedIn marked a new milestone with the launch of Hindi, the first Indian regional language on the professional network.
This would provide greater access to professional and networking opportunities to Hindi speakers in India and around the world.
LinkedIn now supports 25 languages globally.
A part of the Phase 1 roll-out of LinkedIn in Hindi, members would be able to access their feed, profile, jobs, messaging, and create content in Hindi on desktop, and on their Android and iOS phones.
NASA Aims to Replace ISS with One or more Commercial Space Station by 2030
The US space agency is planning to replace the International Space Station (ISS) with one or more commercial space stations by 2030.
NASA's auditing body, the Office of Audits, produced a report detailing the agency's commitment to replace the orbiting lab with commercial space stations.
Astronauts have lived and worked onboard the ISS orbiting roughly 250 miles above the Earth's surface for more than 20 years.
Dec 01, 2021
Researchers Create Self-Replicating Living Robots
Professor Joshua Bongard, a computer scientist and robotics expert at the University of Vermont, and his colleagues from Tufts University and Harvard University's Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, built the first living robots (Xenobots, assembled from cells of a frog species called Xenopus laevis) in 2020, discovered that these computer-designed and hand-assembled organisms can swim out into their tiny dish, find single cells, gather hundreds of them together, and assemble 'baby' Xenobots inside their Pac-Man-shaped 'mouth' — that, a few days later, become new Xenobots that look and move just like themselves; and then these new Xenobots can go out, find cells, and build copies of themselves.