I recently moved in with my boyfriend - I never expected us to be at 'war' over windows
Moving in with your beloved should be a breath of fresh air - but when views on ventilation vary, as Maddy Fletcher discovers, it is anything but an open and shut case
Celebrity colourist Josh Wood reveals the 7 simple ways to save money when you're getting your hair done
Rosie Green reveals how to cut your salon spend without compromising your style
The high street fashion finds inspired by this season's runway trends: from polo shirts at Miu Miu to floaty dresses at Chloé
Think this season's catwalk style is beyond your reach? Think again.
Jessica Carroll's high-street picks deliver designer looks for less
THE CANNY COOK: Chorizo and red pepper rolls
A fantastic sausage sandwich to kick off barbecue season
Evidence of Controversial Planet 9 Uncovered In Sky Surveys Taken 23 Years Apart
Astronomers may have found the best candidate yet for the elusive Planet Nine: a mysterious object in infrared sky surveys taken 23 years apart that appears to be more massive than Neptune and about 700 times farther from the sun than Earth. Space.com reports: [A] team led by astronomer Terry Long Phan of the National Tsing Hua University in Taiwan has delved into the archives of two far-infrared all-sky surveys in search of Planet Nine -- and incredibly, they have found something that could possibly be Planet Nine. The Infrared Astronomy Satellite, IRAS, launched in 1983 and surveyed the universe for almost a year before being decommissioned. Then, in 2006, the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) launched AKARI, another infrared astronomy satellite that was active between 2006 and 2011. Phan's team were looking for objects that appeared in IRAS's database, then appeared to have moved by the time AKARI took a look. The amount of movement on the sky would be tiny -- about three arcminutes per year at a distance of approximately 700 astronomical units (AU). One arcminute is 1/60 of an angular degree.
But there's an extra motion that Phan's team had to account for. As the Earth orbits the sun, our view of the position of very distant objects changes slightly in an effect called parallax. It is the same phenomenon as when you hold your index finger up to your face, close one eye and look at your finger, and then switch eyes -- your finger appears to move as a result of you looking at it from a slightly different position. Planet Nine would appear to move on the sky because of parallax as Earth moves around the sun. On any particular day, it might seem to be in one position, then six months later when Earth is on the other side of the sun, it would shift to another position, perhaps by 10 to 15 arcminutes -- then, six months after that, it would seem to shift back to its original position. To remove the effects of parallax, Phan's team searched for Planet Nine on the same date every year in the AKARI data, because on any given date it would appear in the same place, with zero parallax shift, every year. They then also scrutinized each candidate object that their search threw up on an hourly basis. If a candidate is a fast-moving, nearby object, then its motion would be detectable from hour to hour, and could therefore be ruled out. This careful search led Phan's team to a single object, a tiny dot in the infrared data.
It appears in one position in IRAS's 1983 image, though it was not in that position when AKARI looked. However, there is an object seen by AKARI in a position 47.4 arcminutes away that isn't there in the IRAS imagery, and it is within the range that Planet Nine could have traveled in the intervening time. In other words, this object has moved a little further along its orbit around the sun in the 23 or more years between IRAS and AKARI. The knowledge of its motion in that intervening time is not sufficient to be able to extrapolate the object's full orbit, therefore it's not yet possible to say for certain whether this is Planet Nine. First, astronomers need to recover it in more up-to-date imagery. [...] Based on the candidate object's brightness in the IRAS and AKARI images, Phan estimates that the object, if it really is Planet Nine, must be more massive than Neptune. This came as a surprise, because he and his team were searching for a super-Earth-size body. Previous surveys by NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) have ruled out any Jupiter-size planets out to 256,000 AU, and any Saturn-size planets out to 10,000 AU, but a smaller Neptune or Uranus-size world could still have gone undetected. Phan told Space.com that he had searched for his candidate in the WISE data, "but no convincing counterpart was found because it has moved since the 2006 position," and without knowing its orbit more accurately, we can't say where it has moved to.
"Once we know the position of the candidate, a longer exposure with the current large optical telescopes can detect it," Phan told Space.com. "However, the follow-up observations with optical telescopes still need to cover about three square degrees because Planet Nine would have moved from the position where AKARI detected it in 2006. This is doable with a camera that has a large field of view, such as the Dark Energy Camera, which has a field of view of three square degrees on the Blanco four-meter telescope [in Chile]."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
World's top 10 deadliest animals revealed: Biggest killers may surprise you... and the apex predator that DOESN'T make the list
Hippos, snakes and lions are among the most dangerous animals in the world, but some of the deadliest predators for mankind are a lot more surprising.
Blake Lively's 'unhinged' accomplishment after breaking silence on Justin Baldoni legal war
Blake Lively celebrated an 'unhinged' accomplishment in a new social media post on Friday. It comes after the actress broke her silence on her ongoing legal war with Justin Baldoni.
Shakespeare impersonator, 74, quits job in Bard's birthplace over racism claim - but now he says it's much ado about nothing
Paul Workman, 74, better known as 'Mr Shakespeare', has been a regular sight in Stratford-upon-Avon over the last eight years.
Everything to know about Stacey Solomon, Joe Swash and their home Pickle Cottage
Stacey Solomon and Joe Swash's new show Stacey & Joe has been a hit. Here is all to know about the couple and their Essex home Pickle Cottage.
Everything to know about Stacey Solomon, Joe Swash and their home Pickle Cottage
Stacey Solomon and Joe Swash's new show Stacey & Joe has been a hit. Here is all to know about the couple and their Essex home Pickle Cottage.
Leading figures call for further A120 action after two more fatal crashes
After two further fatal crashes on the A120 in the past month, leading political figures have called for further action on safety.
Essex to be at heart of AI revolution after summit at university
Professor Fasli’s commitment to unlocking the benefits of AI for local communities inspired the AI Summit.
Essex girl, 8, endured hundreds of fractures and needed 12 operations due to rare condition
She has a rare condition that causes her bones to break easily
First Driverless Semis Have Started Running Regular Longhaul Routes
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNN: Driverless trucks are officially running their first regular long-haul routes, making roundtrips between Dallas and Houston. On Thursday, autonomous trucking firm Aurora announced it launched commercial service in Texas under its first customers, Uber Freight and Hirschbach Motor Lines, which delivers time- and temperature-sensitive freight. Both companies conducted test runs with Aurora, including safety drivers to monitor the self-driving technology dubbed "Aurora Driver." Aurora's new commercial service will no longer have safety drivers.
"We founded Aurora to deliver the benefits of self-driving technology safely, quickly, and broadly, said Chris Urmson, CEO and co-founder of Aurora, in a release on Thursday. "Now, we are the first company to successfully and safely operate a commercial driverless trucking service on public roads." The trucks are equipped with computers and sensors that can see the length of over four football fields. In four years of practice hauls the trucks' technology has delivered over 10,000 customer loads. As of Thursday, the company's self-driving tech has completed over 1,200 miles without a human in the truck. Aurora is starting with a single self-driving truck and plans to add more by the end of 2025.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Gene Hackman's secret burial and unmarked grave where only a cryptic tribute lies... all orchestrated by children he cut from $80m will
Hackman and and his wife Betsy Arakawa were both found dead and partially mummified in their ranch on Feb. 26. They had died a week apart.
Primark shoppers 'running' to stores over 'stunning' new outfit
Primark shoppers are desperate to get their hands on a new outfit after spotting it on social media - and they think it looks "amazing"
Bizarre Oklahoma home for sale featuring replica Oval Office leaves internet divided
A Broken Arrow, Oklahoma home listed for just over $200,000 has garnered widespread attention online for its most unusual feature.
Rachael Stirling reveals she was 'scared' of her famous mother Dame Diana Rigg and says she 'disapproved' of her following in her TV footsteps
Rachael Stirling has admitted she was 's*** scared' of her famous mother Dame Diana Rigg.
British StormShroud drones that make RAF F-35 and Typhoon fighter jets INVISIBLE to enemy radars rolled out - as PM vows to 'stand up to Putin' with more advanced aerial tech
Sir Keir Starmer visited the defence contractor's headquarters on Friday and was given a showcase of the new autonomous drone's capabilities.
Trans players could be banned from women's snooker as well as football and cricket - as Stonewall charity is criticised for claiming gender ruling isn't law
Sex Matters has claimed Stonewall is encouraging organisations 'to act unlawfully' by suggesting they keep allowing trans women to use female-only spaces.