James' World 2

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An asteroid from space slammed into the Earth’s surface 66 million years ago, leaving a massive crater underneath the sea and wreaking havoc with the planet.

No, it’s not that asteroid, the one that doomed the dinosaurs to extinction, but a previously unknown crater 248 miles off the coast of West Africa that was created right around the same time. Further study of the Nadir crater, as it’s called, could shake up what we know about that cataclysmic moment in natural history.

Uisdean Nicholson, an assistant professor at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, happened on the crater by accident – he was reviewing seismic survey data for another project on the tectonic split between South America and Africa and found evidence of the crater beneath 400 meters of seabed sediment.

“While interpreting the data, I (came) across this very unusual crater-like feature, unlike anything I had ever seen before,” he said.

“It had all the characteristics of an impact crater.”

To be absolutely certain the crater was caused by an asteroid strike, he said that it would be necessary to drill into the the crater and test minerals from the crater floor. But it has all the hallmarks scientists would expect: the right ratio of crater width to depth, the height of the rims, and the height of the central uplift – a mound in the center created by rock and sediment forced up by the shock pressure.

“The discovery of a terrestrial impact crater is always significant because they are very rare in the geologic record. There are fewer than 200 confirmed impact structures on Earth and quite a few likely candidates that haven’t yet been unequivocally confirmed,” said Mark Boslough, a research professor in Earth and Planetary Sciences at the University of New Mexico. He was not involved in this research but agreed that it was probably caused by an asteroid.

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A diagram, incorporating seismic observations and computer simulations, of how the Nadir Crater formed.  Courtesy Republic of Guinea, TGS and Western Geco

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Dear Prudence,

My long-term boyfriend has developed a habit that’s driving me nuts. Whenever he gets tired of his beard, he shaves it into a retro, ridiculous mustache or sideburns. The first few times he did it, I thought it was funny—until I realized I would be living with “the Tom Selleck” or “the Elvis” for more than a few hours. Now I just cringe every time he picks up his razor. He works in a creative field where he can get away with it (and I don’t), so maybe that’s part of it, but in my opinion, your mid-30s is too old for ironic facial hair, especially at formal events like weddings. He knows I hate it but continues to do it regularly. Does he need to grow up, or do I need to let it go? I don’t care if he has a beard, a mustache, or goes clean-shaven. I just don’t want to sit across from Gen. Burnside at dinner!

There’s always a balance to be struck between making a reasonable request (like “Please don’t wear a handlebar mustache to Florin’s wedding”) and acknowledging your boyfriend’s right to style his facial hair as he likes it. You say he knows you hate it, but I’m not sure you two have sat down for a conscientious discussion, or if you just said, “Oh God, not the Yosemite Sam” when he last pulled out his clippers. If you haven’t yet done the former, tell him you recognize that it’s his choice and that he may get something out of that look beyond just ironic pleasure at an old-timey set of mutton chops. You might ask him to share what exactly he likes about that look, so you have a better sense of where he’s coming from. But if it’s something he only does out of boredom and whimsy, and he’s not especially attached to the looks, tell him that you vastly prefer him either bearded or clean-shaven. Once you’ve said your piece, it’s time to let it go. After that, there’s not much more you can do to make your case about his face. —Danny M. Lavery

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Photo illustration by Slate. Photo by Getty Images Plus.

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A blazing gas giant shrouded in dusty red clouds has been revealed in unprecedented observations of a planet beyond our solar system.

The observations, which astronomers said marked a “historic moment for astronomy”, are the first direct images of a planet beyond our solar system by Nasa’s $10bn (£8.65bn) James Webb space telescope. They are also the first images of an exoplanet using infrared light, which gives a far more precise indication of a planet’s mass and temperature and will allow astronomers to detect the movement of clouds drifting across the planet’s sky.

“This is really a historic moment for astronomy,” said Prof Sasha Hinkley, an astronomer based at the University of Exeter, who co-led the observations. “James Webb is going to open the door to a whole new class of planets that have been completely out of reach to us and by observing them at a broad range of wavelengths we can study their compositions in a much more in-depth way.

“We will be able to detect the presence of weather.”

Directly imaging exoplanets is a huge technical challenge because the host star is so much brighter. The focus of the latest observations, HIP 65426 b, is a gas giant about five to 10 times the mass of Jupiter located 385 light-years from Earth in the Centaurus constellation.

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An image shows the exoplanet HIP 65426 b in different bands of infrared light, as seen from the James Webb space telescope. Photograph: Nasa/ESA/CSA, A Carter (UCSC), the ERS 1386 team, and A. Pagan (STScI)

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China has discovered a crystal from the Moon made of a previously unknown mineral, while also confirming that the lunar surface contains a key ingredient for nuclear fusion, a potential form of effectively limitless power that harnesses the same forces that fuel the Sun and other stars.

The crystal is part of a batch of lunar samples collected by China’s Chang’e-5 mission, which landed on the Moon in 2020, loaded up with about four pounds of rocks, and delivered them to Earth days later. After carefully sifting through the samples—which are the first Moon rocks returned to Earth since 1976—scientists at the Beijing Research Institute of Uranium Geology spotted a single crystal particle, with a diameter smaller than the width of a human hair.

The crystal is made of the novel mineral Changesite—(Y), named after the Chinese Moon goddess, Chang’e, that also inspired China’s series of lunar missions. It was confirmed as a new mineral on Friday by the Commission on New Minerals, Nomenclature and Classification (CNMNC) of the International Mineralogical Association (IMA), according to the Chinese state-run publication Global Times.

Change site—(Y) is the sixth new mineral to be identified in Moon samples and the first to be discovered by China. Before China, only the U.S. and Russia could claim to have discovered a new Moon mineral. It is a transparent crystal that formed in a region of the northern lunar near-face that was volcanically active about 1.2 billion years ago.

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Image: Twitter/@PDChina

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The National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s does more than create ambitious telescopes that can see the beginning of time and send people to the moon and back. It’s also responsible for Michael Phelps’ swimsuit, LASIK surgery, and the selfie. The everyday products listed below are only 15 of the more than 2,000 consumer products NASA considers “spinoff technology” from the space program. They are all based on technology and discoveries either developed directly by NASA, in partnership with NASA, or through funding from NASA.

If your mattress, pillow, couch, desk chair, or bike seat contains memory foam (aka “tempur” or “temper foam”), you can thank NASA. The material was developed by NASA-funded aeronautical engineer Charles Yost and used to create better shock-absorbing aircraft seats for test pilots.

The computer mouse was invented at Stanford in the early 1960s by Doug Englebart, whose research into interactive computer inputs was funded by NASA. The research was championed by NASA’s Bob Taylor, who moved on to manage Xerox and further developed the computer mouse.If you ever check your temperature with an infrared thermometer like I do, you wouldn’t be able to do it without NASA. The space agency developed infrared thermometers to gauge the temperature of distant cosmic object, and the technology eventually found its way to home thermometers used by hypochondriacs everywhere.

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Photo: Dima Zel (Shutterstock)

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It would be mixing ad campaigns if not metaphors to say that Swedes think differently about design, but I think there’s something to it: Saab was famously left field, even down to where it located the ignition switch; Volvo carefully treads its own path with safety foremost in its mind but with crisp modern design. And then there’s Koenigsegg.

Located at a former Swedish fighter base, this company has been ploughing its own furrow through the automotive superlatives: supercars, hypercars, now megacars. But always in its own way—how else to explain a three-cylinder engine with pneumatic actuators instead of camshafts, a V8 with no flywheel, or a transmission with seven clutches that’s both nine-speed automatic but also six-speed manual, with clutch pedal no less?

At this year’s Monterey Car Week, few are as close to automotive royalty as the company’s eponymous founder, Christian von Koenigsegg. The company’s stand at one end of The Quail was among the most mobbed throughout the day, as young TikTokkers in their best suits competed for his attention, or maybe just another look at his latest creation, the CC850. Part 50th birthday present to himself, part celebration of the company entering its third decade, it’s a new take on Koenigsegg’s first offering, the CC8S.

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Making a success of the supercar game is not easy, but Christian von Koenigsegg’s company has survived two decades and continues to develop innovative new technology that’s years ahead of the competition. Ars talked to him to find out what he’s most proud of.

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Yulia Petrova | Getty

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