Astronomers have found a super-earth exoplanet inside its star’s habitable zone.

Worlds without end: Astronomers have found a super-earth exoplanet inside its star’s habitable zone.

The planet is large enough that it might be more like Neptune, but if it should have any earth-sized moons they will definitely be capable of supporting life.

Update: The science paper included a wonderful graphic comparing the solar system of this star with that of our own solar system. I have posted this graphic below the fold. HD40307g is the potentially habitable planet.
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A house-sized asteroid will zip past the Earth in February at a distance less than 14,000 miles.

Chicken Little report: A house-sized asteroid will zip past the Earth in February at a distance less than 14,000 miles.

The asteroid, referred to as 2012 DA14, has a diameter of approximately 45m and an estimated mass of 130,000 tonnes. It was discovered at the start of 2012 and is set to travel between the Earth and our geostationary communication satellites on 15 February 2013. At a distance of just 22,500km this will be the closest asteroid ‘fly by’ in recorded history. Asteroid and comet researchers will be gathering at the University of Central Florida (UCF) in Orlando, U.S., to watch the event, but experts say there is no chance of a collision – this time.

The claim that this is the closest “fly by” in recorded history sounds bogus to me, but because of the size of this asteroid the fly-by will nonetheless be quite interesting. Scientists should be able to get a very good look at 2012 DA14 as it goes by.

This is the first time since 1988 that climate hasn’t been mentioned in the presidential debate cycle

Good news: “This is the first time since 1988 that climate hasn’t been mentioned in the presidential debate cycle.”

When you try to sell government policy based on crisis, and that crisis doesn’t take place as predicted, and in fact is shown to be based on fraud and dishonesty, the sales job will eventually fail. Thus, better to forget the whole thing and make believe it never happened.

Using modern technology scientists think they have a chance of decoding the oldest known undeciphered writing.

Using modern technology scientists think they have a chance of decoding the oldest known undeciphered writing.

In a room high up in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, above the Egyptian mummies and fragments of early civilisations, a big black dome is clicking away and flashing out light. This device, part sci-fi, part-DIY, is providing the most detailed and high quality images ever taken of these elusive symbols cut into clay tablets. This is Indiana Jones with software. It’s being used to help decode a writing system called proto-Elamite, used between around 3200BC and 2900BC in a region now in the south west of modern Iran.

The first analysis of the water from Lake Vostok, buried deep under the Antarctic icecap, has shown no evidence of life.

The first analysis of the water from Lake Vostok, buried deep under the Antarctic icecap, has shown no evidence of life.

Bulat and his colleagues counted the microbes present in the ice sample and checked their genetic makeup to figure out the phylotypes. They counted fewer than 10 microbes/ml — about the same magnitude they would expect to find in the background in their clean room. And three of the four phylotypes they identified matched contaminants from the drilling oil, with the fourth unknown but also most likely from the lubricant.

The scientists note that this is a preliminary result. Further drilling for new deeper samples will take place in 2013.

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