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New Solar System Discovered

European astronomers on Tuesday said they had found a distant star orbited by at least five planets in the biggest discovery of so-called exoplanets since the first was logged 15 years ago. One of the planets is nearly the mass of Earth.

…European astronomers on Tuesday said they had found a distant star orbited by at least five planets in the biggest discovery of so-called exoplanets since the first was logged 15 years ago.

The star is similar to our sun and its planetary lineup has an intriguing parallel with own solar system, although no clue has so far been found to suggest it could be a home from home, they said.

The star they studied, HD 10180, is located 127 light-years away in the southern constellation of Hydrus, the male water snake, the European Southern Observatory (ESO) said in a press release.

The planets were detected over six years using the world’s most powerful spectograph, an instrument to capture and analyze light signatures, at ESO’s telescope at La Silla, Chile.

The method consists of observing a star and seeing how the light that reaches Earth “wobbles” as a result of the gravitational pull of a passing planet.

The tiny fluctuation in light can then be used as a telltale to calculate the mass of the transiting…

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New Solar System Discovered

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Drought drives decade-long decline in plant growth

Earth has done an ecological about-face: Global plant productivity that once flourished under warming temperatures and a lengthened growing season is now on the decline, struck by the stress of drought. This could both amplify climate change and undermine a biofuels strategy to deal with it.

…or there is something new and unmeasured in the mix perhaps acetaldehyde from ethanol emissions (as far as I can tell, no one has tested to see what effect that might have), or some more virulent reaction with increase in radiation from cell towers.
I started out writing letters and making phone calls to anyone I could think of who would have knowledge about this topic from foresters to atmospheric physicists to government agencies. For the most part, it is nigh impossible to get any of them to acknowledge the existential threat that is occurring right in front of their noses. Just like coral bleaching in the sea, it appears we are willing to sacrifice the foundation of the ecosystem to sustain our habit of wantonly burning fuel as our source of energy.
I am hopeful that you have the background to look into this. As a mother I am quite frankly terrified by the rapidity of destruction because it is going to lead to severe food shortages and all the social unrest that will shortly follow. It is going to take…

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Drought drives decade-long decline in plant growth

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