Scientists Unveil First Ever Pictures of Multiple Planets around a Sunlike Star

Trouble viewing? View in your browser. View all Scientific American publications.

             

July 24, 2020

Dear Reader, Astronomers have captured images of multiple planets orbiting a sunlike star, for the first time ever. But the snapshots of this planetary system reveal it to be no place like Earth. Read our lead story to learn about their findings. Also in space news, Florida will soon reopen Cape Canaveral to polar space launches. SpaceX aims to launch the first mission later this year. Next up, a fossil trapped in amber was thought to be a dinosaur but is likely a lizard. And lastly, advances in genomics have allowed researchers to reconstruct the remarkable evolutionary history of oak trees. The cover story from our August issue has the details.

Sunya Bhutta, Senior Editor, Audience Engagement @sunyaaa

Space Scientists Unveil First Ever Pictures of Multiple Planets around a Sunlike Star The two giant worlds, each much larger than Jupiter, constitute only the third multiplanet system ever imaged By Karen Kwon

Space Cape Canaveral Prepares for First Polar Launches in 60 Years   Florida will soon reopen to launches for pole-orbiting spacecraft  By Irene Klotz

Evolution World's Smallest Dinosaur is Probably a Lizard Paper that reported the animal's discovery was retracted following new evidence from a similar fossil By Giuliana Viglione,Nature magazine

Weather How COVID-19 Decreases Weather Forecast Accuracy Meteorologists take advantage of weather data collected by commercial jetliners at different altitudes and locations. Fewer flights mean less data. By Julia Rosen | 02:33

Evolution How Oak Trees Evolved to Rule the Forests of the Northern Hemisphere Genomes and fossils reveal their remarkable evolutionary history By Andrew L. Hipp,Paul S. Manos,Jeannine Cavender-Bares

Policy & Ethics Policy Can Clash with Affordable Housing Efforts to green buildings and encourage public transit could unintentionally price out low-income residents By Jennifer Hijazi,E&E News

Policy & Ethics Reimagining Colleges and Universities to Make Them More Equitable COVID-19 could amplify the persistent lack of diversity in higher education—but the pandemic also gives us a chance to fix it By Shirley M. Malcom

Evolution Cricket Avoids Being Bat Food by Doing Nothing The sword-tailed cricket can discern bats' echolocation signals by only responding to calls of a certain volume—at which point it plummets out of their approach. By Emily Schwing | 03:29

Computing A Nixon Deepfake, a 'Moon Disaster' Speech and an Information Ecosystem at Risk A new video re-creates a history that never happened, showing the power of AI-generated media By Jeffery DelViscio

Public Health Coronavirus News Roundup: July 18-July 24 Here are pandemic highlights for the week By Robin Lloyd

FROM THE STORE Scientific American Health & Medicine For just $19.99 per year, your subscription includes six bi-monthly digital issues and every digital Health & Medicine issue ever published!

ADVERTISEMENT

FROM THE ARCHIVE Astronomers Watch as Planets Are Born High-resolution images of the debris disks around stars are revealing how solar systems form By Meredith A. MacGregor | June 2020

LATEST ISSUES

Questions?   Comments?

Download the Scientific American App

To view this email as a web page, go here. You received this email because you opted-in to receive email from Scientific American. To ensure delivery please add news@email.scientificamerican.com to your address book. Unsubscribe     Manage Email Preferences     Privacy Policy     Contact Us