Eleanor Griffiths

Scientists from the University of Vienna revealed that all the planets in the TRAPPIST-1 system are probably not suitable for the existence of living organisms due to the fact that they are devoid of atmosphere as a result of the harsh radiation of the parent star. This is reported in an article published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.

The researchers analyzed data from observations of the TRAPPIST-1 system and other red dwarfs, which allowed them to calculate the amount of high-energy radiation emitted by the star. They then modeled the effects of this radiation on the possible early atmospheres of the outer planets and determined their evaporation rates.

It turned out that on all worlds the atmospheres disappear quite quickly – in just a few hundred million years. If, instead of a red dwarf, the planets revolved around a yellow main-sequence star like the Sun, initially dense atmospheres would evolve into gaseous envelopes of varying thickness, as is now observed for Venus, Earth, and Mars. However, young red dwarfs emit even higher-energy radiation, so the atmospheres would evaporate even faster.

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Scientists from the Nagoya University Museum, Japan, have found that the cultural revolution in ancient humans 40-50 thousand years ago, when Homo sapiens surpassed Neanderthals, was a much more complex process than previously thought. This is reported in an article published in the journal Nature Communications.

Researchers have uncovered new circumstances for the cultural transition between the Middle and Upper Paleolithic. During the Middle Paleolithic period from 250,000 to 40,000 years ago, anatomically modern humans coexisted with Neanderthals and Archaic humans and had similar techniques for making stone tools. For example, they often used the levloa method, where debris was chipped away with a hammer-like tool

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Astronomers have established a new condition that favors the emergence of life on other planets. According to a study published in The Astrophysical Journal, organic compounds suitable for prebiotic chemistry are more likely to form in atmospheres rich in carbon monoxide than in high levels of carbon dioxide.

In 2009, NASA’s Kepler telescope demonstrated that 20-50% of visible stars may contain habitable rocky planets the size of Earth. However, the presence of liquid water alone does not guarantee that a planet is potentially habitable. On Earth, carbon compounds such as carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), and carbon monoxide (CO) play a crucial role in shaping the climate and biogeochemistry that favors the emergence of life.

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Scientists from the University of Hamburg predict that in the near future heat waves will become a common phenomenon in the Arctic and are the result of high levels of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. The research was published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment.

The authors found that conditions in the Arctic have changed dramatically since 2007. Between 2007 and 2021, there were 11 marine heat waves in the marginal zones of the Arctic Ocean, which resulted in an average temperature increase of 2.2 degrees Celsius above the seasonal norm and lasted an average of 37 days. Since 2015, marine heat waves have been observed in the Arctic every year

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