Winter solstice, the shortest day of 2018, is Friday, December 21.
The solstice this year will be extra special because it will be followed the next day by a full moon known as the Cold Moon, and you might be able to see a meteor shower to boot.
First, CNN meteorologists Dave Hennen, Judson Jones and Brandon Miller help us understand the science behind the solstice.
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This is a supernova remnant in a nearby galaxy, the Small Magellanic Cloud. Donât miss the full-size of this stunning image from the Chandra X-ray Observatory: https://go.nasa.gov/2EFFL7z
âIn the early 21st century, perhaps the most important artistic genre is science fiction ⊠[It shapes] how people understand the most important technological, social, and economic developments of our time.â âYuval Noah Harari, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century.
It isnât unreasonable to think of drones as pesky technological nuisances. Our modern digital ecosystem regularly infringes on traditional notions of privacy and bombards our limited attention spans with stimuli. A swarm of drones hovering overhead seems like the physical manifestation of these intrusions and distractions. But we shouldnât swat them away just yet. Drones still have practical utility and the potential to change industries.
An Expanding Market
The appeal of drones in the consumer market is obvious. They can capture video footage from exciting angles, serving the vanity of a population obsessed with self-documentation. Beyond that, drones also have commercial and civil government applications that include firefighting, farming, construction, deliveries, and insurance claims. According to Goldman Sachs Research, this contributes to a $100 billion market opportunity between 2016 and 2020.
Had a great time with my regenerative biology Q&A session with Ayersville (Ohio, USA) Schools 2nd graders and high school advanced anatomy class â so happy to see kids out there that are interested in these topics at such a young age â creating the future, one mind at a time â https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_uu9f7nafc
Researchers from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, ETH Zurich, and Argonne National Laboratory, U.S, have described an extended quantum Maxwellâs demon, a device locally violating the second law of thermodynamics in a system located 1â5 meters away from the demon. The device could find applications in quantum computers and microscopic refrigerators cooling down tiny objects with pinpoint accuracy. The research was published Dec. 4 in Physical Review B.
The second law says that the entropy â that is, the degree of disorder or randomness â of an isolated system never decreases.
âOur demon causes a device called a qubit to transition into a more orderly state,â explained the studyâs lead author Andrey Lebedev of MIPT and ETH Zurich. âImportantly, the demon does not alter the qubitâs energy and acts over a distance that is huge for quantum mechanics.â
More information: Mireia Montes et al, Intracluster light: a luminous tracer for dark matter in clusters of galaxies, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (2018). DOI: 10.1093/mnras/sty2858, dx.doi.org/10.1093/mnras/sty2858
Provided by: ESA/Hubble Information Centre.
Weâre returning to the Moon, to stay, and nine American companies will work on developing technologies to get there. Watch the latest episode of Watch this Space with NASAâs Administrator Jim Bridenstine to learn how weâre going forward to the lunar surface.
