Apparently, the phosphine levels detected in the Venusian atmosphere are more consistent with production by microbial life, rather than natural processes, though that doesn't exclude other processes, similarly to the Martian meteorite in the Nineties.
This is a big fucking deal, by the way. It's not a smoking gun, but it's a big step towards finding extraterrestrial life. The scientists involved must be absolutely blown away.
I'm still pretty skeptical it's life, though hopefully it will generate lots of missions to Venus to further test the hypothesis. I mean, we don't even no what the biological process is that creates it, and we've already detected it on other worlds, in lower quantities. I know they claim to have eliminated known abiological mechanisms, but just a priori it seems far more likely that it's an unknown chemical process or some countervailing factor preventing it from breaking down (Venus is pretty weird and hasn't been explored much), than it is biology.
Arthur C Clarke (I think) long speculated about the possibility of life existing in a "habitable zone" layer inside the gas giants. The idea of entirely airborne species is pretty mind-blowing for us land-dwellers but in context it's no more preposterous than, say, fish.
Mars was extremely bright when rising in the night sky about half an hour ago - unfortunately has become rather overcast here now, but you can't miss it if the horizon's clear where you live.
The Agencia Espacial del Paraguay had a Space Week a few weeks ago.
Even though this is 8 hours, I think it's pretty thorough in case you're wondering how satellites are used for natural disasters or agriculutre.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFOzcrQV98o
It the top right it says "View Products on the NASA Disasters Mapping Portal" and it has unbelievably cool junk like this 3D rendering of a cloud structure of Hurricane Laura... https://nasa.maps.arcgis.com/apps/we...201d0635abf9e1
AmeriGeo The AmeriGEOSS community Platform is a regional resource to promote collaboration and coordination among the GEO members in the Americas. https://www.amerigeoss.org/
The Agencia Espacial del Paraguay had a Space Week a few weeks ago.
Even though this is 8 hours, I think it's pretty thorough in case you're wondering how satellites are used for natural disasters...
GoldenEye will give you a shorter overview of this part.
On a our little trip one night was spent in the middle of the outback in the Pilbarra and we were given a tour of the night sky. Three shooting stars and one satellite later we agreed it had been quite spectacular.
ITV news is running this story as "water was known to be on the dark side of the moon but has now been discovered on the sunlit side". I'm seriously not making that up.
The 2020 'Great conjunction' of Jupiter and Saturn falls on the winter solstice, a neat coincidence. Both planets are already visible to the naked eye in the night sky low in the south west after sunset, and by December 21st should be (to the eye) right next to each other. Through a telescope I expect it'll be quite an amazing sight.
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