Jupiter’s iconic striped bands, caused by immensely powerful winds, extend to a depth of about 3,000km below the surface. The mission has also produced a partial answer to the question of whether the planet has a core, showing that the inner 96% of the planet rotates “as a solid body”, even though technically it is composed of an extraordinarily dense mixture of hydrogen and helium gas.
Hannah Devlin Science correspondent
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Astronomers have detected a signal from the first stars as they appeared and illuminated the universe, in observations that have been hailed as “revolutionary”.
The faint radio signals suggest the universe was lifted out of total darkness 180m years after the big bang in a momentous transition known as the cosmic dawn.
Hannah Devlin Science correspondent
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Lava tubes “might be the best candidate sites for future lunar bases, because of their stable thermal conditions and potential to protect people and instruments from micrometeorites and cosmic ray radiation,” Haruyama said.
“The same stable and protected environment that would benefit future human explorers also makes them an enticing target for scientific study.
“Careful examination of their interiors could provide unique insights concerning the evolutionary history of the moon.”
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The 100-second hum picked up by Ligo told the story of how the two stars, each slightly heavier than the sun, approached their death. Initially separated by 200 miles, they circled each other 30 times a second. As they whirled inwards, accelerating to 2,000 orbits each second, the signal rose in pitch like a slide whistle.
Two seconds later, Nasa’s Fermi space telescope picked up an intense burst of gamma rays, emitted as shockwaves rushed through jets of matter funnelled out of the poles during the monumental impact of the collision.
Hannah Devlin Science correspondent
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In a study published by Y-H Ryu of the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute, and colleagues, the astronomers calculate that the planet must be somewhere around 13 times the mass of Jupiter, the largest planet in our solar system.
Jupiter itself is 317 times more massive that the Earth, making this newly discovered world around 4000 times the mass of our planet. This puts it right on the boundary between a planet and a type of “failed” star called a brown dwarf.
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It is thought to be an extremely dark object, absorbing 96% of the light that falls on its surface, and it is red. This colour is the hallmark of organic (carbon-based) molecules. Organic molecules are the building blocks of the biological molecules that allow life to function.
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