Rare Glimpse of Earth-Sized Rocky Exoplanet

Direct observations from a NASA space telescope have for the first time revealed the atmospheric void of a rocky, Earth-sized world beyond our own solar system orbiting the most common type of star in the galaxy, according to a study released on Monday. The research, published in the scientific journal Nature, also shows the distant planet's surface is likely to resemble the barren exterior of the Earth's moon or Mercury, possibly covered in dark volcanic rock. The planet lies about 48.6 light years from Earth and is one of more than 4,000 so-called exoplanets identified over the past two decades circling distant stars in our home galaxy, the Milky Way. Known to astronomers as LHS 3844b, this exoplanet about 1.3 times the size of Earth is locked in a tight orbit - one revolution every 11 hours - around a small, relatively cool star called a red dwarf, the most prevalent and long-lived type of star in the galaxy. The planet's lack of atmosphere is probably due to intense radiation from its parent red dwarf, which, though dim by stellar standards, also emits high levels of ultraviolet light, the study says. The study will likely add to a debate among astronomers about whether the search for life-sustaining conditions beyond our solar system should focus on exoplanets around red dwarfs - accounting for 75 percent of all stars in the Milky Way - or less common, larger, hotter stars more like our own sun.

The principal finding is that it probably possesses little if any atmosphere - a conclusion reached by measuring the temperature difference between the side of the planet perpetually facing its star, and the cooler, dark side facing away from it. A negligible amount of heat carried between the two sides indicates a lack of winds that would otherwise be present to transfer warmth around the planet. "The temperature contrast on this planet is about as big as it can possibly be," said researcher Laura Kreidberg of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She is lead author of the study. Similar analysis previously was used to determine that another exoplanet, 55 Cancri e, about twice as big as Earth and believed to be half-covered in molten lava, likely possesses an atmosphere thicker than Earth's. This exoplanet, unlike LHS 3844b, orbits a sun-like star. The planet in the latest study was detected last year by NASA's newly launched Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, an orbiting telescope that pinpoints distant worlds by spotting periodic, dips in the light observed from their parent stars when an object passes in front of them. But it was follow-up observations from another orbiting instrument, the Spitzer Space Telescope, which can detect infrared light directly from an exoplanet, that provided new insights about its features.

New WI-FI chips

Qualcomm on Tuesday announced a new range of Wi-Fi chips designed to work with Wi-Fi 6, the newest version of the technology and one that Qualcomm hopes will help boost sales of its separate 5G chips. Qualcomm is the biggest supplier of mobile phone chips but has been looking to expand beyond that as the global phone market has stagnated in recent years. The San Diego-based tech company has been pushing instead into chips for automobiles, headphones, laptops and other devices. Its Wi-Fi chips are found in devices such as the “mesh” Wi-Fi routers made by Alphabet's Google and designed to help provide better coverage over an entire household. Separately, Qualcomm is also working with phonemakers such as Samsung Electronics to bring chips for 5G, the next generation of wireless data networks, to phones. With the new series of Wi-Fi chips, Qualcomm is hoping its two lines of business will one day come together. Both Wi-Fi 6, a new standard expected to fully roll out by 2022, and 5G technology differ from their predecessors in that they are designed to work more closely together, allowing Wi-Fi routers to more seamlessly hand off connections with mobile phones and other devices that use both kinds of networks.

Moreover, unlike previous 4G technology where the networks were primarily owned by telecommunications companies, 5G technology will allow businesses to build their own private 5G networks to better connect large campuses, factories and other locations that remain difficult to blanket with Wi-Fi. Cristiano Amon, Qualcomm's president and chief of its chip division, said the company hopes to one day sell chips for both technologies to the makers of business networking gear. “You should expect in the future to see us talking about integrated platforms that have both millimeter-wave [5G technology] and Wi-Fi 6,” Amon told Reuters in an interview.

Local Emergency Feature.

Facebook announced on Tuesday that it was rolling out a tool that aims to provide users with potentially life-saving information in emergencies, as it seeks to improve its public image and play down its reputation as a network that aids the spread of misinformation. Local Alerts, which it has been testing since last year in 300 cities including Charlotte, St. Louis and Miami and now plans to offer across the United States, is intended to provide reliable information to people caught up in events such as mass shootings and extreme weather, it said in a blog post. Alongside other social media companies, Facebook has faced a barrage of international criticism for the way its platform has been used to spread conspiracy theories and extremist views and it is keen to focus attention instead on its role as a connector of friends and family. The world's largest social media network already offers users the ability to let friends know they are safe during emergencies with a feature called Safety Check, but said it wanted to do more.


With Local Alerts, Facebook account holders in local government and among first responders such as the police and fire departments can send out messages that are then spread more widely by Facebook. It was not immediately clear how useful the service was in its pilot phase. When asked if Local Alerts to date have been deployed quickly enough to make a difference or have been employed in situations where users were in danger, Facebook declined to give examples, citing the privacy of its account holders. It also said the speed at which alerts were disseminated was dependent on the account holders.

In one example, when a disgruntled student opened fire during the last day of classes at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte in April, the City of Charlotte Government's Facebook page sent a Local Alert notifying nearby residents when it was safe to return. The alert was posted more than two hours after the shooting, said Ken Brown, Charlotte's Interim Media Relations Manager. Some local authorities contacted by Reuters said they were using Local Alerts alongside other services to warn citizens of danger. Mt. Juliet Police Department in Tennessee said it uses a combination of Facebook Local Alerts, mobile text messages through the Nixle platform, and posts on local community media service Nextdoor to send emergency notifications. The local authorities said they had sent alerts over emergencies including road closures, bad weather, and missing people. "I grew up in Kansas and this is the time of year when we get a lot of tornadoes," Jimmy O'Keefe, Facebook's head of Product Marketing for News Publishing, said. "This tool would have given us a lot of peace of mind if it was around back then."