An illustration of the surface of Jupiter’s moon, Io, the most volcanic body in the solar system. (Image credit: Ron Miller) Massive, months-long volcanic eruption roils Jupiter’s moon Io | Space
A massive volcanic eruption has been spotted emerging from Jupiter’s moon Io. The eruption was observed in the Fall of 2022 using the Io Input/Output observatory (IoIO) by Planetary Science Institute (PSI) senior scientist Jeff Morgenthaler.
One of Jupiter’s largest moons, Io is considered to be the solar system’s most volcanic body with its extreme conditions and yearly outbursts of volcanism caused by the tremendous gravitational influence of its parent planet.
The gravity of Jupiter, the solar system’s most massive planet, and that of two of the other large Jovian moons create powerful tidal forces within Io. This stretches and squeezes Io, the innermost of the four large Jovian moons, giving rise to violent volcanic activity. …
In a 3-2 split decision, justices ruled that privacy rights in the state constitution do extend to a woman’s right to an abortion.
US approves world’s first vaccine for declining honey bees - BBC News
For another, can we all stop using pollinator-killing chemicals?!
The State of Michigan added 9,793 confirmed and probable cases of COVID-19 over the past week, according to new numbers released Tuesday from the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services. …
One of the fractures making up the Cerberus Fossae system on Mars. The fractures cut through hills and craters, indicating their relative youth. Credit: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin (CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO)
Volcanic Activity on Mars Upends Red Planet Assumptions - Scientific American
For decades, planetary scientists assumed Mars was dead.
Geologically, that is. Smaller than Earth, the planet would have cooled faster than ours after it formed. It was, for a time, quite volcanically active. However, as the thinking goes, when the interior temperature gradually dropped, so too did the planet’s ability to generate large-scale geologic activity—such as huge volcanoes and marsquakes.
Recent discoveries, however, belie that belief. It just so happens that Mars is only mostly dead; scientists have found that a large region on Mars has been prone to quakes and even mild volcanic activity in recent geologic times, indicating something is brewing beneath the surface. But what?
Looking over data from several robotic Mars missions, a team of planetary scientists has come to the astonishing conclusion that an immense tower of hot material moving upward in the planet’s mantle is pushing on the crust from beneath, creating pressure that is cracking the surface and causing tectonic activity. Called a mantle plume, it may be a relatively new feature in the interior of Mars, and one that has analogues on—or, rather, under—Earth. It may even have implications for extant life on Mars—or more accurately, underneath it. The work was published in Nature Astronomy.
Mars was once a heavily volcanic planet. The surface is still dotted with these ancient mounds, including one called Olympus Mons. This monster is over 600 kilometers in diameter—roughly equal to the length of the state of Colorado—and towers 21 kilometers above the average surface elevation of its planet, about two and half times as high as Mount Everest. Though other volcanoes on Mars are smaller, they are still huge, and terribly old. …
Irish officials fined Meta $400 million for forcing Facebook and Instagram users to give up their data for targeted ads. It may get worse for the tech giant.
Oh, I certainly do hope so!
The Slow Death of Surveillance Capitalism Has Begun | WIRED
A European Union ruling against Meta marks the beginning of the end of targeted ads
Surveillance capitalism just got a kicking. In an ultimatum, the European Union has demanded that Meta reform its approach to personalized advertising—a seemingly unremarkable regulatory ruling that could have profound consequences for a company that has grown impressively rich by, as Mark Zuckerberg once put it, running ads. …
[This wired article sounds great, but I got a msg stating I’d used up all my free articles for the month. Bitch, it’s damn near 7AM on the 6th of January, and I haven’t visited yr site since Dec 12th and 7th 2022. Before that, it was once in Oct, once in Sept, once in June, twice in May, and once in March. Never again bothering w/them.]
Amazing photos of gorgeously green Comet C/2022 E3 (ZFT) |gallery | Space
Comet C/2022 E3 ZTF is already putting on a show as it makes its way through our solar system
Chris Schur of Payson, Arizona caught this image of comet C/2022 E3 ZTF, writing that the photo is a “really deep hour and a half exposure of the comet, showing the colors of the dust tail very well and a long tortured gas tail.”
Scientists find pair of black holes dining together in nearby galaxy merger - Phys.org
While studying a nearby pair of merging galaxies using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA)—an international observatory co-operated by the U.S. National Science Foundation’s National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO)—scientists discovered two supermassive black holes growing simultaneously near the center of the newly coalescing galaxy.
These super-hungry giants are the closest together that scientists have ever observed in multiple wavelengths. What’s more, the new research reveals that binary black holes and the galaxy mergers that create them may be surprisingly commonplace in the universe.
The results of the new research were published today in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, and presented in a press conference at the 241st meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) in Seattle, Washington.
At just 500 million light-years away from Earth in the constellation Cancer, UGC4211 is an ideal candidate for studying the end stages of galaxy mergers, which occur more frequently in the distant universe, and as a result, can be difficult to observe. When scientists used the highly sensitive 1.3mm receivers at ALMA to look deep into the merger’s active galactic nuclei—compact, highly luminous areas in galaxies caused by the accretion of matter around central black holes—they found not one, but two black holes gluttonously devouring the byproducts of the merger. Surprisingly, they were dining side-by-side with just 750 light-years between them. …
