Fluffy

Artistic concept of the exoplanet WASP-107b and its parent star. Even though the rather cool host star emits a relatively small fraction of high-energy photons, they can reach deep into the planet’s fluffy atmosphere. Credit: Illustration: LUCA School of Arts, Belgium/ Klaas Verpoest (visuals), Johan Van Looveren (typography). Science: Achrène Dyrek (CEA and Université Paris Cité, France), Michiel Min (SRON, the Netherlands), Leen Decin (KU Leuven, Belgium) / European MIRI EXO GTO team / ESA / NASAObservations with JWST’s…

Exoplanets are definitely a bit of a hot topic at the moment. Throw in a sprinkling of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and you have the recipe for magic!I still cannot believe that we have discovered, yes actually discovered 5,539 exoplanets and there are more being confirmed every day! The first exoplanet was discovered in 1992 and now over five and a half THOUSAND planets around other star systems are known!A team of astronomers have been exploring one in particular, the enigmatic WASP-107b using JWST and have…

The galaxy can throw some odd curveballs, but an exoplanet discovered 1,232 light-years away is one of the oddest yet.It's WASP-193b, and while it's nearly 50 percent bigger than Jupiter, it's so light and fluffy that its overall density is comparable to that of cotton candy. It's just a hair over 1 percent of the density of Earth. It's an absolute dandelion puff-ball of a world… if a dandelion puff-ball could be a planet.While not unheard of, exoplanets like WASP-193b are rare, and they could help us better understand…

Big Swiss is set in Hudson, New York, a small town full of city people who have moved to the countryside to start new lives. The typical Hudsonite’s story is: “I was a corporate lawyer in the city for years, and then I moved to Hudson and became a flower farmer/doll maker/antiques dealer/chef/arborist/alcoholic, and I never looked back.” Narrator Greta works as an audio transcriber for a sex therapist who employs new agey methods such as gong baths and calls himself Om; as he tells Greta, “Everything in Hudson is a little…

In 2017, astronomers captured the first image of a black hole by coordinating radio dishes around the world to act as a single, planet-sized telescope. The synchronized network, known collectively as the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), focused in on M87*, the black hole at the center of the nearby Messier 87 galaxy. The telescope’s laser-focused resolution revealed a very thin glowing ring around a dark center, representing the first visual of a black hole’s shadow.Astronomers have now refocused their view to capture a new…

As wooly mammoths grazed frigid Siberian steppes for more than half a million years, they evolved increasingly fluffy fur, large fat deposits, and smaller ears, according to a new study.By comparing the genomes of modern elephants with those of multiple wooly mammoths – including individual mammoths that lived 600,000 years apart – researchers gained new insight into the evolution of these ice-age icons.Distinctive features like fluffy fur and fat deposits were already genetically encoded in early wooly mammoths, the…

The new super muffin offers health benefits due to its antioxidants, maintains freshness for up to six days at room temperature, and may contribute to increased nutritional value in certain food cultures.Health and muffins are two words not typically linked in our minds. However, the use of a certain plant extract could help change that.Do you love muffins? We’re referring to a delicious, fluffy muffin that is free from artificial additives and packed with nourishing nutrients. It may sound too good to be true, but a…

It happened to be a potato-y few weeks in the L.A. Times test kitchen. Between testing Ali Slagle’s recipe for Crushed Potatoes With Leek-Peppercorn Butter and developing a recipe for Corned Beef Hash and the ensuing photo shoot, we probably went through 15 to 20 pounds of potatoes. I’m Julie Giuffrida, here to give you the skinny on cooking with potatoes, because while sometimes a cigar may be just a cigar, a potato is never just a potato.We tend to classify the thousands of types as baking potatoes, boiling potatoes,…

In the winter months, at the bottom of Lake Akan in Hokkaido, Japan, harmless underwater algae balls that can grow to be bigger than basketballs are protected from death by an ice shield on top of the water. That shield is expected to thin thanks to global warming, causing the balls to join the list of species threatened by climate change, according to researchers at the University of Tokyo.Known as marimo algae balls, the lifeform is something of a hero in Japan, where they are popularly known (incorrectly) as marimo…

Artist impression of an ultra fluffy gas giant planet orbiting a red dwarf star. A gas giant exoplanet with the density of a marshmallow has been detected in orbit around a cool red dwarf star by the NASA-funded NEID radial-velocity instrument on the 3.5-meter WIYN Telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory, a Program of NSF’s NOIRLab. The planet, named TOI-3757 b, is the fluffiest gas giant planet ever discovered around this type of star. Credit: NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/J. da Silva/Spaceengine/M. ZamaniKitt Peak National…