CHEOPS stands for the Characterizing Exoplanet Satellite. It’s a partnership between ESA and Switzerland, with 10 other EU states contributing. Its mission is not to find more exoplanets, but to study the ones we already know of.
In the first observation of its kind, astronomers using the Very Large Telescope in Chile have found evidence of a Neptune-size planet orbiting a white dwarf, the collapsed remnant of a Sun-like star that has run out of nuclear fuel.
The highest court in the Netherlands has upheld a ruling requiring the government to slash greenhouse gas emissions by at least 25% of 1990 levels by the end of next year.
Carlos Manuel Rodríguez, Costa Rica’s minister for energy and environment, specifically blamed the United States, Brazil, and Australia for blocking progress by insisting on climate language unacceptable to most countries.
Between 2007 and 2017, children in eight low- and middle-income countries received, on average, 25 antibiotic prescriptions from birth through age 5 - up to five times higher than the already high levels observed in high-income settings.
The study reports monetary estimates for the main children health problems that are consequences of early exposure to air pollution, 80 percent of which is attributable to burning of coal, oil, diesel and gas.
The NOAA report found that the average North Pole temperature from October 2018 to September 2019 was 1.9 degrees Celsius higher than the 1981-2010 average. Scientists have dubbed the warming phenomenon Arctic amplification.
Astronomers have spotted an unusually distant star-forming galaxy, the light of which took a whopping 13 billion years to reach Earth. Perhaps most incredibly, however, the galaxy was observed directly, without gravitational lensing.
Petrochemical manufacturers are building 11 new ethylene plants on the Gulf Coast, with capacity for polyethylene growing by 30 percent as developing nations' demand for petrochemical/chemical products continues to increase.
Hawaii's most populated island is implementing tough new rules for packaging. Honolulu City will ban food and beverages from being served in polystyrene containers and with disposable utensils or plastic straws from 2021.
The foam ban will take effect on January 1, 2020 and is just one of the actions the city of Vancouver, Canada is taking to reduce single-use item waste in support of its zero-waste goal for 2040.
The Flow Ice Urn, which floats on the water while slowly releasing ashes in an unapologetically pure way. It is simple yet beautiful; and it brings to mind other funeral traditions that are intrinsically tied to the idea of returning the body to nature.
Park Avenue Green in New York has 34 kilowatt solar photovoltaic system. The building used cogeneration and met the usual Passive House high levels of insulation and energy efficiency.
Tesla has released a giant new version of its latest home solar system – a 15.4 kW solar system suitable for 4,000+ sq ft homes. Tesla also recently launched the third version of its solar roof tiles and started to ramp-up installations.
A surprising new study shows that heat energy can leap across a few hundred nanometers of a complete vacuum, thanks to a quantum mechanical phenomenon. It could have profound implications for the design of computer chips and other nanoscale electronic components.
