Word: earthly
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Langford stood huddled against the evening chill in lonely Australian farmland and watched as the east coast of Africa shone in the midday sun. Using little more than a backyard telescope and a clever idea, she became the first person in history to see the continents and oceans of Earth by watching their reflections in the Moon. (See pictures of Earth from space...
...Anyone who has gazed at the bright sliver of a crescent Moon in clear skies has probably also noticed that the dark side is not entirely dark. The faint glow rounding out the Moon is earthshine: light from the bright day side of Earth shining on the night side of the Moon. Scientists have studied earthshine for decades - but Langford, along with her colleagues at Melbourne and Princeton Universities, decided it would make a perfect test case for detecting oceans and landmasses on a faraway alien world...
...Although modern technology has made "exoplanets" commonplace, with almost 350 already known and more found each day, astronomers are still eluded by the holy grail of astrobiology - signs of a planet capable of supporting life like our own. If we hope to find an Earth-like world around another star, we must first be sure we would recognize...
...experiment was surprisingly inexpensive: The whole set-up only cost about $15,000 - next to nothing for a piece of groundbreaking astronomical research. "Earthshine is such a simple idea that we have known about for such a long time," says Langford, "but it makes looking at Earth as a 'prototype' Earth-like planet so easy! An amateur astronomer could definitely take this data...
Presidents pushing people around is old hat, of course. But Sarkozy's criticisms of some of the most powerful leaders on earth is rare. Merkel in particular might feel slighted. Sarkozy's threat to bolt London's G20 summit earlier this month if Washington and London didn't bend to his demands on stimulus strategies and financial market regulations was made with the support of Merkel - who put her previous disdain and mistrust of Sarkozy aside in order to back...