habitable

Exact time left for Earth in the habitable zone before ocean collapse

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For as long as humanity has been aware, it has wondered when and how the end of the world will come. Far from apocalyptic prophecies, science has a much more calculated, cold and inevitable response, since it is clear that the Earth has an expiration date, or at least its capacity to host life as we know it does. It has been calculated. A classic study published in the magazine Astrobiology In 2013 by researcher Andrew Rushby, he calculated the “habitability window” that our planet has left. The magic number, popularized from these physical and climate models, is around at 1.8 billion yearswhich is the average value that we find in the range between 1,750 and 3,250 million years. The problem is that this date is not entirely real, since within 1.8 billion years there will be no type of life on our planet, but for human beings and complex life the expiration date is much earlier. The culprit. To understand how scientists arrived at the figure of 1.8 billion years, we must look at the Sun. And, like any star of its type, our Sun is subject to a process of stellar evolution that means that, as it consumes its nuclear fuelits core contracts and heats up, causing the outer layers to expand and, therefore, its luminosity does not stop growing. Here Rushby’s team did not make a simple random prediction, but rather their methodology consisted of combining models of this evolution of solar brightness with parameters of the greenhouse effect and the energy balance of the Earth. What they were looking for was to calculate the exact moment at which the Earth will leave the so-called “habitable zone.” A little further. The habitable zone is that orbital strip around a star where temperatures allow the existence of liquid water on the surface of a rocky planet. But as the Sun becomes brighter and hotter, that fringe moves toward the edges of the solar system, while the planet does not move from its orbit. And that is a problem. All this means that when the Earth crosses the inner limit of this zone, the increase in solar radiation will trigger a runaway greenhouse effect, similar to what Venus suffers today. The effects of this will be the evaporation of the oceans, which will contribute to the greenhouse effect, trapping heat even more and accelerating the process until the Earth loses its liquid water irreversibly. And with it life. Different types of life. It is crucial to differentiate what “habitable” means in astrobiological terms versus what we consider “habitable” in our daily lives. A very important fact is that the Earth is approximately 4.545 billion years old, and life in its simplest forms emerged surprisingly early about 3.7-4.3 billion years ago. With all this we mean that the end of life will be staggered, starting with affecting complex life like us, which are extremely fragile to thermal variations. This makes the authors emphasize that the conditions for animal and human life will be greatly lost before reaching those 1.8 billion years. The last to die. The Apocalypse of 1.8 billion years refers to the last breath of the planet. In that final scenario, when the oceans are evaporating, only the most resistant extremophile microorganisms will be able to survive in isolated niches such as pockets of groundwater at very high temperatures before facing total extinction. Looking to the future. At this point, one might wonder what point it is to calculate exactly when the oceans will dry up eons from now if humanity today has more pressing problems. And the answer lies in the search for other planets, since by perfectly understanding how the “window of life” evolves in our solar system, astronomers have tools to apply to exoplanets that we are discovering thousands of light years away. In this way, knowing how long a planet’s habitability lasts depending on its host star helps us know where to look. We may find a planet in the “habitable zone” of its star, but if calculations reveal that it has only been there for a few million years, it is likely that complex life has not had time to evolve yet. Images | Javier Miranda In Xataka | Ryan MacDonald, astronomer, on the future of the Earth: “The death of the star is not the end, but the beginning of a new chapter”

House renovations used to be to make them more habitable. Now they can also be converted into Lego sets

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At the beginning of October we count that the lack of space in modern homes or the impossibility of collecting quantities of LEGO due to how much they occupy had led to the creation of a business especially aimed at those who do not want to give up building new sets, but do not need to keep them. Brick Borrow rent LEGO sets…which are then returned. It happens that more and more people are directly renovating their house to make room for it. to these jewels. Domestic brick utopias. I was telling it on the weekend the wall street journal. In recent years, the rise of adult collecting Lego has transformed entire domestic spaces into carefully designed and detailed miniature worlds, urban landscapes, beaches with bathers and functional amusement parks. Of all, the case by Christie Northin Salt Lake City, is especially representative: he has torn down walls, renovated his basement and spent more than $100,000 in building and displaying his Lego city, which he accesses through a fingerprint scanner and which he is considering monitoring with cameras to observe when he travels. The origin. The woman started as a hobby to combat boredom during the pandemic, but became your emotional refugea task where methodical construction and imagination combine into something he describes as “feeding the soul.” In his brick world you can see a mix of technical dedication, nostalgia and the search for a personal space in the face of everyday routines. Adult collecting. The truth is that Lego has been able to cultivate, especially since 2020, a growing base adult amateurmany of whom could not afford the most ambitious sets during their childhood, but today they have income and a sentimental motivation to rebuild what they before it was inaccessible. The problem is not only economic, but also spatial: the largest sets can occupy entire tables or even entire rooms, forcing coexistence decisions, as in the case by Steve Isomwhich has assembled more than 275 sets and has given its dining room, office and shelves to spaceships suspended from the ceiling and monumental models like a titanic shelf or an Eiffel Tower almost meter and a half. His wife tolerates the hobby, but imposes clear limits: The bedroom is left out of the invasion of bricks. This negotiation silent It is repeated in many homes, where the passion for building clashes with shared aesthetics, functionality and the simple space available. Architecture, interior design and adaptation. The transformation of the home into a gallery of Lego pieces has even given rise to a specific demand in interior architecture. He architect Jeff Pelletierhimself a fan, claims to have designed more than twenty houses with rooms dedicated to Lego, mostly for adults. His advice includes Avoid rooms with direct light to avoid discoloring the pieces and use closed display cases to reduce dust. In other cases, it suggests integrate small Lego pieces as discreet decorative accents on shelves, walls or artistic compositions that imitate famous works. These solutions seek balance passion and aestheticspreserving the visual identity of the home without eliminating the collector’s creative space. Even in the real estate market, agents like Niko Cejic they claim that houses with Lego rooms can be more attractive, providing character and differentiation compared to the neutral standardization of so many contemporary interiors. The home as an emotional refuge. Beyond the hobby, these Lego rooms reflect an emotional need profound in a context of increasingly fast-paced lives, demanding jobs and changing family structures. Evan Rubinfor example, finds in his Lego room an oasis of manual repetition and visual calm, a selective return to a childhood reinterpreted. Many homeowners describe these constructions as a way to regain creativity in the face of monotonous routines, and also as a way to build an identity within the home. They told in the Journal that the replacement of more traditional life projects (such as raising children in increasingly smaller and late-term homes) is intertwined with this phenomenon: pets, plants and Lego appear where cribs once appeared. The house is no longer just a place to live, but a stage in which to reconstruct an intimate version of oneself. Tiny “real” worlds. Ultimately, the lego roomshidden in basements, domestic extensions or carefully reserved rooms, aim to be one (another) cultural manifestation of a contemporary desire for belonging, refuge and creative control. If you will, they also represent a silent, patient and manual response to digital speed, constant productivity and the pressure of adulthood. The worlds built with bricks They do not replace the outside world, of course, but they offer continuity between the child who played and the adult who seeks his own space in the midst of obligations, schedules and demands. Ultimately, in those miniature cities There is a simple and universal statement: although life pushes us to grow, there will always be parts of us that need to continue building. Image | Brickset, PXHere In Xataka | The secret to continuing to accumulate LEGO sets is not to keep them. This rental service helps you with that. In Xataka | One thousand euros for the Star Wars Death Star: the most expensive Lego set to date does not make all fans happy

The Curiosity Rover has found its best track so far that Mars was a habitable planet

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NASA’s indefatigable Curiosity Rover has found one of the most forceful evidence until the date of the past habitability of Mars. But also of the fragility of this habitable ecosystem. The finding. Curiosity arrived in Mars on August 6, 2012. Covered with dust and with deteriorated wheelscontinues to put the Gale crater in which he landed. In a stretch of 89 meters of rocky strata, on the slopes of Mount Sharp, a discovery has caught the attention of scientists. According to a study Published in Science magazineX -ray crystallography instruments and Curiosity gas analysis have detected large amounts of siderita, an iron carbonate ore, between sulfate rich rocks. Why it is important. Although I know They had detected carbonates on Marsthis discovery is exceptional for several reasons. First, the abundance of Siderita: it reaches between 4.8 and 10.5% of the weight of three perforated samples, which have been baptized as Tapo Caparo, Ubajara and Sequoia. Second, the purity of the siderita. It is almost pure feco3, with very little magnesium or calcium, which contrasts with other Martian carbonates. Third, its coexistence with highly soluble salts in water: calcium sulfates and magnesium sulfates. All this fits with an ancient evaporation process. What tells us about the old Mars. The formation of this siderite implies that the Martian atmosphere contained sufficient carbon dioxide to dissolve in water and react with the rocks. When precipitating as mineral, the CO2 was kidnapped In the rocks. The Gale crater was a lake that gradually dry out over time, leaving behind these layers of different salts or minerals. The study estimates that recent samples could house between 2.6 and 36 millibars of atmospheric CO2, up to six times the current CO2 pressure on Mars, confirming that There was once an important carbon deposit interacting with surface water, a key requirement for habitability. An incomplete cycle. But the story does not end there. The team found evidence that part of the siderite that formed was subsequently destroyed. A close sample (nicknamed Canaima) lacked a siderite, but contained abundant iron oxyhydroxides. Samples with siderita (tapo caparo, ubajara, sequoia) also contained these oxides in variable quantities. Researchers believe that it is due to a diagenesis process. Subsequent fluids interacted with the rocks, partially dissolving the siderite. This destruction oxidized the iron forming oxihydroxides, and released part of the CO2 previously kidnapped again to the atmosphere. This training cycle (CO2 kidnapping) and partial destruction (CO2 release) constitutes the best evidence so far of a Old carbon cycle on Mars. However, Siderita’s persistence indicates that it was a partial and incomplete cycle: more carbon was kidnapped than was subsequently released, unlike the carbon cycle of planet Earth, which has maintained a greater balance over geological time. A fragile habitability. The discovery reinforces the idea of ​​a habitable primitive Mars with liquid water interacting with a CO2 rich atmosphere until The warm and wet days are over. He tells us that the planet was habitable, but also that habitability is something very fragile. Perhaps a lesson about the climatic stability of our own planet in the face of climate change. Mars, once again, serves as a planetary laboratory to understand the evolution and fragility of the habitable worlds. Image | POT In Xataka | NASA’s Curiosity robot has opened a rock on Mars by accident. A yellow treasure has just revealed

There is a potentially habitable planet only 59 light years from Earth. The IAC has just discovered it from the Canary Islands

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Spain has a lot to say in the search for potentially habitable explanets. On this occasion, an international team led by researchers from the Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands (IAC) has discovered a planet in the habitable zone of its star, just 59 light years from Earth. The finding. The newly discovered planet is called GJ 3998 d. It is a superstierra, which means that it is significantly larger than our planet, in this case with a mass six times greater than land. The important thing about GJ 3998 d is that orbits its star Within the “habitable zone”which means that it could have liquid water on its surface, whenever it is a rocky planet like ours. The habitable area. This new exoplanet orbit the GJ 3998which is a red dwarf. This type of star is much smaller and colder than the sun, so the habitable zone is at a lesser distance. GJ 3998 D completes an orbit around its star in approximately 42 days, a sixth part of what lasts a land year. Despite the proximity to the red dwarf, it only receives 20 % more radiation than the earth, which makes it a candidate to house the necessary conditions for life. Neighbors. Another point in favor of this new extrasolar planet is that it is relatively close to us, 59 light years away, which makes it a perfect candidate for more detailed studies in the future. Scientists plan to investigate whether GJ 3998 D has atmosphere and if there are signs of oxygen, which would be a strong indicator of the possible existence of extraterrestrial life. But for this they will have to wait for the future spectrograph Andes of the Extremely large telescope (Elt) of that, who will be able to analyze the composition of his atmosphere. Or to the telescope Exo Life Finder (ELF), currently in development by the Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands. A red dwarf galaxy. Red dwarfs are particularly interesting because they are very common in our galaxy. They constitute almost three quarters of all known stars. In addition, its low mass facilitates the detection of planets that orbit around it. GJ 3998 has three known planets: GJ 3998 B, GJ 3998 Cy the newly discovered GJ 3998 d. This discovery was possible thanks to the Hades project, an international initiative that uses the Nazionale Galileo telescope (TNG) at the Rocque de los Muchachos Observatory, in La Palma, to look for planets around small and near stars. Image | Gabriel Pérez Díaz (SMM, IAC) In Xataka | The Webb Telescope has observed a planet so extreme that the clouds are rock and in the cold night 600 ºC ago

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