20 articles from SUNDAY 15.12.2019

Starwatch: the moon approaches the bright star in the lion's breast

Look east this week to find the constellation Leo, as the moon, entering its last phase, passes the bright white star RegulusThe moon slides through the constellation of Leo, the Lion, this week, passing the bright star Regulus along the way. The chart shows the view looking east from London at midnight tonight, as 16 December becomes 17 December 2019. The moon is approaching its last quarter...

Greta Thunberg in Twitter spat with German rail firm

Deutsche Bahn says activist’s tweet implied she had not been offered a seat on journey homeSwedish climate activist Greta Thunberg has been criticised by a German rail firm for what it said was her implication that she had spent a journey without a seat on an overcrowded train.The teenager tweeted a photograph of herself looking pensively out of the window of her German train on Saturday,...

Exoplanets can be made less habitable by stars' flares

Astronomers found that not all exoplanets in habitable zones will be able to maintain hospitable conditions for life. Exoplanets in close proximity to stars are subject to radiation bursts which can disrupt habitable conditions unless the exoplanet has significant atmospheric or magnetic shielding.

Race against time to launch Europe’s troubled mission to Mars

European Space Agency asks for help from Nasa with ExoMars project as trials fail and cost rises to €1bnSpace engineers are racing against time to fix major faults in the robot probe they plan to send to Mars next year. The complex parachute system that should slow ExoMars – Europe’s largest ever planetary mission – as it plunges into the Martian atmosphere failed catastrophically during...

This is what it takes to be a gold medal sprinter | Dina Asher-Smith

The attention after winning gold in Doha was amazing – but success really begins by staying focusedI love being the hunter. The one in pursuit. In training, I’ll latch on to the boys and chase them down. Even when I was younger, I tended to race girls who were older than me – at 17 I was racing 30-year-olds. It’s where I’m comfortable. But the hunter can go on to become the hunted. And...

May I have a word about… lasers and their more unusual uses | Jonathan Bouquet

How to tell a drug dealer from a pastry chef, the scientific wayScience is not my strong suit, but even I know the worth of lasers – eye surgery, sawing James Bond in half. But a recent report suggests myriad uses for these devices, from combating climate change to detecting fake whisky.According to Dr Robin Head, a scientist at M Squared Lasers, the use of lasers is why “we can suddenly...

Warming climate will impact dead zones in Chesapeake Bay

In recent years, scientists have projected increasingly large summer dead zones in the Chesapeake Bay, areas where there is little or no oxygen for living things like crabs and fish to thrive, even as long-term efforts to reduce nutrient pollution continue. Researchers from University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science factored in local impacts of climate change to make projections of...