With China poised to lead the world in AI and supercomputers, astronomers are wondering if it will also be the first advanced nation to discover extraterrestrial life? Perhaps the world’s largest single-dish radio observatory, China’s new FAST Radio Telescope –Tiyan, the “Eye of Heaven”– will provide an answer as it prepares to explore a frontier in radioastronomy — using radio waves to locate exoplanets, which may harbor extraterrestrial life.
The “Planet Earth Report” connects you to headline news on the science, technology, discoveries, people and events changing our planet and the future of the human species.
“Cheops will take exoplanet science to a whole new level,” said Günther Hasinger, the European Space Agency’s director of science about the world’s newest orbiting telescope whose name stands for CHaracterising ExOPlanet Satellite that launched early on Wednesday morning aboard a Soyuz-Fregat rocket from the European spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. It was the second try after Tuesday’s first launch attempt was delayed and some equipment was replaced.
“Venus is like the control case for Earth,” said planetary scientist Sue Smrekar with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory echoing recent research that suggests that Venus might have looked like Earth for three billion years, with vast oceans that could have been friendly to life. “We believe they started out with the same composition, the same water and carbon dioxide. And they’ve gone down two completely different paths. So why? What are the key forces responsible for the differences?”
Today’s “Galaxy Report” connects you to headline news on the science, technology, discoveries, people and events changing our knowledge of the Milky Way and Universe beyond.