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Juno grabs glimpse of Ganymede
NASA’s Juno spacecraft has captured the first close-up images of Jupiter’s moon Ganymede in more than 20 years. Juno came within 1,038 kilometres of the world, which is bigger than Mercury. More images are on their way from the spacecraft and will allow scientists to piece together a colour version of the spectacular portrait of the Jovian satellite. “We are going to take our time before we draw any scientific conclusions, but until then we can simply marvel at this celestial wonder,” said Scott Bolton, principal investigator of the Juno mission, in a NASA statement. Bask in all the raw images as NASA makes them available on its website.
Lasers could push tiny craft to other stars
Spacecraft propelled by lasers could allow us to explore planetary systems without waiting several lifetimes. Researchers propose that around 100 million individual lasers on Earth could accelerate an ultralight spacecraft to Alpha Centauri within 20 years. The plan is another step forwards for the Starshot Breakthrough Initiatives, funded by tech billionaire Yuri Milner, which in 2018 outlined the 100-atom-thick solar sail that would also be required. “We already have several crafts — Voyager included — [in interstellar space], but it will be many human lifetimes before they reach anywhere near another star,” says astrophysicist Chathura Bandutunga.
Reference: Journal of the Optical Society of America B paper & Nature Materials paper (from 2018)
Features & opinion
No cookie-cutter strategy for reproducibility
The replication crisis won’t be solved with broad brushstrokes, argues sociologist David Peterson, whose work has revealed why some scientists greet reform efforts with scepticism. Part of the problem is that many reformers come from a narrow swathe of academia, such as psychology and social and behavioural sciences. Reformers “need to demonstrate that they understand how specific fields operate before they push a set of practices”, writes Peterson. “Otherwise, efforts could be resisted as extensions of bureaucracy, rather than embraced as routes to more robust research.”
Climate-policy models need to get real
There is good news for decarbonizing the global economy: political support is at an all-time high, and most carbon emissions come from countries that have committed to reach ‘net zero’ by mid-century. But to plan how to get there, analysts use computer models that don’t recognize the difficult trade-offs faced by decision makers, argue ten climate-policy experts. They outline exactly how insights from political economy lead to 11 ways that models can better reflect social realities and possibilities.
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Daily briefing: Stunning close-up images of Ganymede - Nature.com
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