livescience--2020-12-08--Giant pandas have winter poop parties, rolling around in horse manure

It seems only fitting that 2020 would be the year when we learn that , arguably the cutest of all bears , enthusiastically roll in horse manure — the fresher the better — leaving their entire bodies liberally covered in fresh feces .
But the pandas are doing it for a good reason ; these poo `` baths '' may help the bears keep warm in their mountain habitat , scientists recently discovered .
Researchers observed this stinky habit in wild Qinling giant pandas ( Ailuropoda melanoleuca qinlingensis ) , a subspecies that lives in the Qinling Mountains in China @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and wallowed in piles of fresh horse dung , and the frequency of their poop parties typically peaked when temperatures were low , according to a new study .
Related : In photos : The life of a giant panda In 10 years of observing the Qinling pandas in the wild , scientists began to notice that the bears would frequently display certain behaviors when they encountered fresh horse dung .
They would sniff the manure ; rub against the manure with their cheeks ; roll in the manure ; and finally smear @ @ @ @ @ @ @ better understand what the pandas were doing , the researchers installed 24 infrared camera traps in a protected area of the Qinling Mountains where more than 20 pandas lived , recording 38 instances of pandas ' poo parties between July 2016 and June 2017 .
`` We were surprised to find that the captured events occurred in certain months but not the whole year , implying a pattern of seasonal behavior , '' they wrote in the study , published Dec. 7 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ and April , and about 95 % of the feces festivities happened when temperatures were below 59 degrees Fahrenheit ( 15 degrees Celsius ) .
No poop-rolling occurred when temperatures were higher than 68 F ( 20 C ) , according to the study .
But what could explain the pandas ' fecal attraction ?
The scientists suspected that it might have something to do with two compounds that are plentiful in fresh horse manure — which the pandas preferred — but are scarce in older dung : beta-caryophyllene ( BCP ) and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ confirm this preference , the researchers tested captive pandas in the Beijing Zoo using artificial dunghills made of hay , and the captive pandas `` frequently visited '' the dunghills treated liberally with BCP and BCPO , but showed little interest in dunghills that were n't saturated with the compounds .
Because the panda 's poo-rolling was seasonal , the scientists questioned if temperature might be a factor , and they found that mice treated with BCP and BCPO were less susceptible to cold .
It 's possible that the nerve endings in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ compounds ; rolling in poo would then temporarily make the pandas less sensitive to winter 's chill , the researchers reported .
Wild pandas may have been introduced to this unexpected benefit by ancient trade routes in China that bisected their mountain habitats during the fourth century B.C.
, the scientists wrote .
With horses a constant presence on the road from the Kingdom of Shu ( in what is now Sichuan Province ) to the capital city of Chang'an ( known today as Xi'an , the capital of Shaanxi Province ) , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the scent of horse manure , leading them to investigate and eventually discover a smelly reward for their curiosity , according to the study .

It seems only fitting that 2020 would be the year when we learn that giant pandas , arguably the cutest of all bears, enthusiastically roll in horse manure — the fresher the better — leaving their entire bodies liberally covered in fresh feces.
But the pandas are doing it for a good reason; these poo "baths" may help the bears keep warm in their mountain habitat, scientists recently discovered.
Researchers observed this stinky habit in wild Qinling giant pandas (Ailuropoda melanoleuca qinlingensis), a subspecies that lives in the Qinling Mountains in China's Shaanxi Province. The pandas sniffed and wallowed in piles of fresh horse dung, and the frequency of their poop parties typically peaked when temperatures were low, according to a new study.
Related: In photos: The life of a giant panda
In 10 years of observing the Qinling pandas in the wild, scientists began to notice that the bears would frequently display certain behaviors when they encountered fresh horse dung. They would sniff the manure; rub against the manure with their cheeks; roll in the manure; and finally smear the manure over their bodies.
To better understand what the pandas were doing, the researchers installed 24 infrared camera traps in a protected area of the Qinling Mountains where more than 20 pandas lived, recording 38 instances of pandas' poo parties between July 2016 and June 2017.
"We were surprised to find that the captured events occurred in certain months but not the whole year, implying a pattern of seasonal behavior," they wrote in the study, published Dec. 7 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences .
Poop rolling happened most often between November and April, and about 95% of the feces festivities happened when temperatures were below 59 degrees Fahrenheit (15 degrees Celsius). No poop-rolling occurred when temperatures were higher than 68 F (20 C), according to the study.
That is not dirt. (Image credit: Fuwen Wei)
But what could explain the pandas' fecal attraction? The scientists suspected that it might have something to do with two compounds that are plentiful in fresh horse manure — which the pandas preferred — but are scarce in older dung: beta-caryophyllene (BCP) and caryophyllene oxide (BCPO). To confirm this preference, the researchers tested captive pandas in the Beijing Zoo using artificial dunghills made of hay, and the captive pandas "frequently visited" the dunghills treated liberally with BCP and BCPO, but showed little interest in dunghills that weren't saturated with the compounds.
Because the panda's poo-rolling was seasonal, the scientists questioned if temperature might be a factor, and they found that mice treated with BCP and BCPO were less susceptible to cold. It's possible that the nerve endings in pandas' skin contain receptors for the compounds; rolling in poo would then temporarily make the pandas less sensitive to winter's chill, the researchers reported.
Wild pandas may have been introduced to this unexpected benefit by ancient trade routes in China that bisected their mountain habitats during the fourth century B.C., the scientists wrote. With horses a constant presence on the road from the Kingdom of Shu (in what is now Sichuan Province) to the capital city of Chang'an (known today as Xi'an, the capital of Shaanxi Province), pandas would have acclimated over time to the scent of horse manure, leading them to investigate and eventually discover a smelly reward for their curiosity, according to the study.
Originally published on Live Science.


livescience--2020-12-08--Did the universe's creator hide a message in the cosmos?

Did the creator of the universe leave a hidden message in the cosmos for intelligent life ?
If so , scientists have yet to find it .
A search for a message on `` the most cosmic of all billboards , the Cosmic Microwave Background ( CMB ) , '' has failed , a new study finds .
The CMB is the oldest light in the universe , visible across all of space .
Its have been traveling since the first formed out of a haze of protons and electrons that filled the universe soon after the .
They form @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sky .
Physicists have long studied the CMB looking for features that might offer clues about the structure of the universe .
Michael Hippke , a affiliated with the Sonneberg Observatory in Germany , went looking for a sign from a creator in that background radiation .
But , either way , he did n't find one .
Leaving aside all the hidden assumptions in the question — that there is a cosmic creator , that a cosmic creator wants people to know about them , that the cosmic creator has an insight @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and can therefore predict the future — the CMB would be a good place to hide a message if you were a creator trying to target civilizations at our current level of development , said Avi Loeb , a Harvard astrophysicist who was n't involved in Hippke 's work published to the database on Nov. 29 .
( The paper has not been peer reviewed . )
`` There could be different media on which you 'd encode the message , '' Loeb said .
The CMB is a good option because we @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the first good microwave study of the sky in 1964 , as opposed to , say , gravitational waves , which require more technical equipment and we only detected in February 2016 .
`` It all depends on what level of intelligence you want to approach .
It 's almost like writing different sections of a newspaper for different audiences . ''
Another advantage to hiding a message in the CMB for a would-be cosmic creator is that right now , the CMB is visible from almost any vantage point in space , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Kansas astrophysicist who also was n't involved in this paper .
( The exception might be at the center of a very dense cluster of stars or dust . )
Related : From Big Bang to present : snapshots of our universe through time '' If I was a creator and I wanted to delay the slam-dunk evidence of , here is the message that says 'Hi guys , I created the universe .
And you 're welcome . '
And I wanted to make people work for that a little bit , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ subtle-yet-universally observable thing , '' Brande said .
In that case , humanity might have reached that level of subtlety fairly recently .
Hippke was n't the first researcher to speculate about the presence of a message in the CMB .
Steve Hsu of the University of Oregon and Anthony Zee of University of California , Santa Barbara wrote a paper proposing the idea in the journal in 2006 .
But they had much less CMB data to work with .
If you were a creator looking for a `` cosmic billboard '' @ @ @ @ @ @ @ subjects , the CMB has disadvantages as well as advantages .
Hippke wrote in the study .
For instance , the CMB will fade beyond recognition at about 100 billion years after the Big Bang , Brande said .
( We 're at 13.8 billion right now . )
That 's well within the period when the universe will still make new stars and when intelligent civilizations might develop .
It would be a bit odd , Brande said , to write a message to creation but erase it before the emergence of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the CMB probably does n't actually look the same from every point in space .
Mostly , the microwave radiation is a perfectly random `` static '' in the sky .
But there are slightly cooler spots and warmer spots , which physicists believe are signatures of early irregularities in the universe that later led to the formation of galaxies .
And that pattern of cool and warm would likely look different from different points in space .
Hippke got around that by not looking for a message in the image of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ power spectrum , '' a graph of the different energy levels underlying CMB radiation .
It 's at least possible , Hippke wrote , that the power spectrum would be consistent across the universe ( though most researchers think this is unlikely ) .
And even if it were n't , a creator might have set up the CMB to deliver one message to one part of space and a different message to a different part of space .
Related : 9 strange , scientific excuses for why humans have n't found aliens @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with using the CMB to send us a message .
`` The real problem I have with the microwave background is … what we see in the sky is a two-dimensional surface surrounding us , '' Loeb said .
It 's a view of that ancient moment in when the universe became clear that is particular to our neighborhood of space .
It 's the inner surface of a sphere with a 13.8 billion light year radius and Earth at the center .
That sphere is composed of all the points in space @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at the moment after the Big Bang when the universe became transparent .
A viewer in another galaxy would see a different 13.8 billion light year radius sphere centered on themselves , composed of what all the points that far away looked like at the same moment in time .
The further apart the two viewers are , the more different their views of the CMB would be .
`` The problem is , if I move away from Earth , to the center of the Milky Way galaxy or the Coma Cluster @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or somewhere else a great distance away , then the two-dimensional surface around that point would be a different sphere , '' Loeb said .
`` The sphere is always centered around the observer . ''
That 's important , Loeb said , because it means the CMB is n't really a billboard to the cosmos .
It 's a billboard to our particular location in the cosmos .
Sending coherent messages to the whole universe would be like manufacturing untold trillions of billboards , not one big one .
It might be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ there were one or many messages in the CMB power spectrums at different points in space .
But that 's a different project for the creator to have undertaken than the relatively simple one initially suggested by the paper .
( Loeb also noted that there are many expert cosmologists studying the CMB all the time looking for patterns , and it would be surprising if Hippke had found a pattern on a lark where all those scientists had failed . )
It 's also the case , Brande said , that there @ @ @ @ @ @ @ message in physics as opposed to some other science .
Why would n't the universe 's message be encoded in , say , the parts of the cell , or DNA , or the periodic table ?
While he sees the CMB as the best example of a subtle , universal thing , Brande said , `` my dad would probably say something different because he 's a geologist .
Like 'Why not do something with the physical chemistry of how planets are formed ?
Something you can pick up and look at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 's enough variation in basically every other easily-observable thing [ besides physics ] around us [ to rule it out ] . ''
Where to really find a message , if one is out there Loeb and Brande both said that despite their questions about the idea of the paper , there 's nothing wrong with a scientist looking into questions like this .
It 's an interesting way of framing some basic physical questions , Brande said .
And Loeb asked , `` Who does it hurt to look ? ''
No @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of religious feeling on any topic , but Avigayil Halpern , a rabbinical student at New York 's Hadar Institute , said that whatever the scientific merits of the project , it does n't work as theology .
`` The central problem … is that it fundamentally misunderstands who or what 'God ' is , '' Halpern said .
`` The implicit goal … seems to be to attempt to prove God 's existence , but it 's a category error to think that scientific evidence has something to say about if God @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 'self ' have a 'soul ' ?
In other words , a creator that wrote physical proof of itself on a cosmic billboard would n't be intelligible as the God she believes in .
`` It makes no more sense to assert that God can be found in a code written into the cosmic microwave background than to say that morality can be derived from the study of , '' she said .
`` Those looking to find God in the universe would do better to seek out the image of the Divine @ @ @ @ @ @ @ around them . ''
Religion is n't the only framework for imagining a creator though .
Some physicists , Loeb pointed out , imagine a sort of prosaic theology where our universe might be a laboratory experiment in some higher-order universe .
If Loeb were our creator , he said , the sign of his own existence that he would have left us would have been the capacity to create yet another universe within our own .
Right now , that 's impossible , he said .
But one day , perhaps when @ @ @ @ @ @ @ better understood , researchers will develop another universe in a laboratory , Loeb speculated .
If that happens , he said , it would make sense to understand it as a sort of message from a higher-order creator : Just like you have the ability to create universes , so too was your universe created .
Hippke , for his part , did n't find an intelligible message in the cosmos .
But he was able to convert the CMB power spectrum into a binary code — which is basic enough that it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ civilizations , Brande said : '' We may conclude that there is no obvious message on the CMB sky , '' Hippke wrote .
`` Yet , it remains unclear whether there is ( was ) a Creator , whether we live in a simulation , or whether the message is printed correctly in the previous section , but we fail to understand it . ''

A heatmap of the cosmic microwave background (CMB), derived from a 7-year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe study of the microwave sky, contains no obvious message from a creator. The more recent, detailed study of the sky known as Planck doesn't either. But that didn't stop researchers from looking.
Did the creator of the universe leave a hidden message in the cosmos for intelligent life? If so, scientists have yet to find it.
A search for a message on "the most cosmic of all billboards, the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB)," has failed, a new study finds. The CMB is the oldest light in the universe, visible across all of space. Its microwaves have been traveling since the first atoms formed out of a haze of protons and electrons that filled the universe soon after the Big Bang . They form a background radiation pattern across the whole sky. Physicists have long studied the CMB looking for features that might offer clues about the structure of the universe. Michael Hippke, a self-described "gentleman scientist" affiliated with the Sonneberg Observatory in Germany, went looking for a sign from a creator in that background radiation. But, either way, he didn't find one.
A beacon across the universe
Leaving aside all the hidden assumptions in the question — that there is a cosmic creator, that a cosmic creator wants people to know about them, that the cosmic creator has an insight into the minds of future intelligent creatures and can therefore predict the future — the CMB would be a good place to hide a message if you were a creator trying to target civilizations at our current level of development, said Avi Loeb, a Harvard astrophysicist who wasn't involved in Hippke's work published to the arXiv database on Nov. 29. (The paper has not been peer reviewed.)
If I was a creator and I wanted... [a] message that says 'Hi guys, I created the universe. And you're welcome.' And I wanted to make people work for that a little bit, I'd make it this sort of subtle-yet-universally observable thing Yoni Brande, University of Kansas
"There could be different media on which you'd encode the message," Loeb said. The CMB is a good option because we've been able to detect it since the first good microwave study of the sky in 1964, as opposed to, say, gravitational waves, which require more technical equipment and we only detected in February 2016. "It all depends on what level of intelligence you want to approach. It's almost like writing different sections of a newspaper for different audiences."
Another advantage to hiding a message in the CMB for a would-be cosmic creator is that right now, the CMB is visible from almost any vantage point in space, said Yoni Brande, a University of Kansas astrophysicist who also wasn't involved in this paper. (The exception might be at the center of a very dense cluster of stars or dust.)
Related: From Big Bang to present: snapshots of our universe through time
"If I was a creator and I wanted to delay the slam-dunk evidence of, here is the message that says 'Hi guys, I created the universe. And you're welcome.' And I wanted to make people work for that a little bit, I'd make it this sort of subtle-yet-universally observable thing," Brande said.
In that case, humanity might have reached that level of subtlety fairly recently.
Hippke wasn't the first researcher to speculate about the presence of a message in the CMB. Steve Hsu of the University of Oregon and Anthony Zee of University of California, Santa Barbara wrote a paper proposing the idea in the journal Modern Physics Letters A in 2006. But they had much less CMB data to work with.
(They also wrote in that paper that: "Our work does not support the Intelligent Design movement in any way whatsoever, but asks, and attempts to answer, the entirely scientific question of what the medium and message might be IF there was actually a message.")
An imperfect messenger
If you were a creator looking for a "cosmic billboard" on which to announce yourself to your subjects, the CMB has disadvantages as well as advantages. Hippke wrote in the study. For instance, the CMB will fade beyond recognition at about 100 billion years after the Big Bang, Brande said. (We're at 13.8 billion right now.) That's well within the period when the universe will still make new stars and when intelligent civilizations might develop. It would be a bit odd, Brande said, to write a message to creation but erase it before the emergence of its later denizens.
Perhaps more importantly, the CMB probably doesn't actually look the same from every point in space. Mostly, the microwave radiation is a perfectly random "static" in the sky. But there are slightly cooler spots and warmer spots, which physicists believe are signatures of early irregularities in the universe that later led to the formation of galaxies. And that pattern of cool and warm would likely look different from different points in space.
Hippke got around that by not looking for a message in the image of CMB itself, but in its "power spectrum," a graph of the different energy levels underlying CMB radiation. It's at least possible, Hippke wrote, that the power spectrum would be consistent across the universe (though most researchers think this is unlikely). And even if it weren't, a creator might have set up the CMB to deliver one message to one part of space and a different message to a different part of space.
Related: 9 strange, scientific excuses for why humans haven't found aliens yet
But there is a bigger issue with using the CMB to send us a message.
"The real problem I have with the microwave background is … what we see in the sky is a two-dimensional surface surrounding us," Loeb said.
It's a view of that ancient moment in space-time when the universe became clear that is particular to our neighborhood of space. It's the inner surface of a sphere with a 13.8 billion light year radius and Earth at the center. That sphere is composed of all the points in space 13.8 billion light-years from Earth as they looked at the moment after the Big Bang when the universe became transparent. A viewer in another galaxy would see a different 13.8 billion light year radius sphere centered on themselves, composed of what all the points that far away looked like at the same moment in time. The further apart the two viewers are, the more different their views of the CMB would be.
It makes no more sense to assert that God can be found in a code written into the cosmic microwave background than to say that morality can be derived from the study of chemistry. Avigayil Halpern, Hadar Institute
"The problem is, if I move away from Earth, to the center of the Milky Way galaxy or the Coma Cluster [321 million light-years from Earth] or somewhere else a great distance away, then the two-dimensional surface around that point would be a different sphere," Loeb said. "The sphere is always centered around the observer."
That's important, Loeb said, because it means the CMB isn't really a billboard to the cosmos. It's a billboard to our particular location in the cosmos. Sending coherent messages to the whole universe would be like manufacturing untold trillions of billboards, not one big one. It might be possible to structure the universe such that there were one or many messages in the CMB power spectrums at different points in space. But that's a different project for the creator to have undertaken than the relatively simple one initially suggested by the paper. (Loeb also noted that there are many expert cosmologists studying the CMB all the time looking for patterns, and it would be surprising if Hippke had found a pattern on a lark where all those scientists had failed.)
It's also the case, Brande said, that there's no particular reason to locate a message in physics as opposed to some other science. Why wouldn't the universe's message be encoded in, say, the parts of the cell, or DNA, or the periodic table?
While he sees the CMB as the best example of a subtle, universal thing, Brande said, "my dad would probably say something different because he's a geologist. Like 'Why not do something with the physical chemistry of how planets are formed? Something you can pick up and look at?' But I do think there's enough variation in basically every other easily-observable thing [besides physics] around us [to rule it out]."
Where to really find a message, if one is out there
Loeb and Brande both said that despite their questions about the idea of the paper, there's nothing wrong with a scientist looking into questions like this. It's an interesting way of framing some basic physical questions, Brande said. And Loeb asked, "Who does it hurt to look?"
No one can speak for the full diversity of religious feeling on any topic, but Avigayil Halpern, a rabbinical student at New York's Hadar Institute, said that whatever the scientific merits of the project, it doesn't work as theology.
"The central problem … is that it fundamentally misunderstands who or what 'God' is," Halpern said. "The implicit goal … seems to be to attempt to prove God's existence, but it's a category error to think that scientific evidence has something to say about if God exists."
Related: Does your 'self' have a 'soul'?
In other words, a creator that wrote physical proof of itself on a cosmic billboard wouldn't be intelligible as the God she believes in.
"It makes no more sense to assert that God can be found in a code written into the cosmic microwave background than to say that morality can be derived from the study of chemistry ," she said. "Those looking to find God in the universe would do better to seek out the image of the Divine as reflected in the faces of those around them."
Religion isn't the only framework for imagining a creator though. Some physicists, Loeb pointed out, imagine a sort of prosaic theology where our universe might be a laboratory experiment in some higher-order universe.
If Loeb were our creator, he said, the sign of his own existence that he would have left us would have been the capacity to create yet another universe within our own.
Right now, that's impossible, he said. But one day, perhaps when the ingredients that made our universe are better understood, researchers will develop another universe in a laboratory, Loeb speculated. If that happens, he said, it would make sense to understand it as a sort of message from a higher-order creator: Just like you have the ability to create universes, so too was your universe created.
Hippke, for his part, didn't find an intelligible message in the cosmos. But he was able to convert the CMB power spectrum into a binary code — which is basic enough that it would likely be recognizable to most intelligent civilizations, Brande said:
1110101110111010101111111101010111100000010110100101101001010010111011100111110101100110110011101000010110000111100001100011100101101000101000101011010010100001111100011100111110111100010001001100011100101101110010010100010100111000100101001010000111011001010100110101100101100010001101100100100111010110110010101001100101100100101111010100011111111010011011000101111010101001001110011011010101101000011000010110101110011001110001010010011100111111010100011010000000011010110010001011010100000111100000010110101000001111000
"We may conclude that there is no obvious message on the CMB sky," Hippke wrote. "Yet, it remains unclear whether there is (was) a Creator, whether we live in a simulation, or whether the message is printed correctly in the previous section, but we fail to understand it."
Originally published on Live Science.


livescience--2020-12-08--Hurricane Season: How Long It Lasts and What to Expect

Whipping winds , torrential downpours , power outages and floods — hurricane season in the Atlantic brings a host of dramatic and dangerous weather with it .
But when exactly does the Atlantic hurricane season start and how long does it last ?
And what can people do to prepare in the face of the most dangerous storms on Earth ?
From hurricane naming conventions to staying safe in a storm , we 'll detail all you need to know about this year 's hurricane season .
( The Atlantic has seen its busiest hurricane season ever in 2020 , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
11 . )
Hurricanes so far this season : • Hurricane Eta ( Landfalls : Nov. 2 , Peurto Cabeza , Nicaragua ; Nov. 8 , Sancti Spiritus Province , Cuba ; Nov. 9 , Lower Matecumbe Key , Florida ; still active and approaching Florida 's western coastline as of Nov. 11 ) • How to Build an Emergency Preparedness Kit • Hurricanes Normally Peak on This Day Hurricanes are tropical cyclones .
When a tropical cyclone 's sustained winds reach 39 to 73 mph ( 63 to 118 km/h ) @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and it gets a name from a list put out by the World Meteorological Organization .
Once those sustained winds reach 74 to 95 mph ( 119 to 153 km/h ) , that storm becomes a Category 1 hurricane .
According to the Saffir-Simpson scale , here are the sustained winds linked to categories 2 through 5 hurricanes : Hurricanes are the most violent storms on Earth , according to NASA .
At heart , hurricanes are fueled by just two ingredients : heat and water .
Hurricanes are seeded over the warm @ @ @ @ @ @ @ air above the ocean 's surface takes in heat and moisture .
As the hot air rises , it leaves a lower pressure region below it .
This process repeats as air from higher pressure areas moves into the lower pressure area , heats up , and rises , in turn , producing swirls in the air , according to NASA .
Once this hot air gets high enough into the atmosphere , it cools off and condenses into clouds .
Now , the growing , swirling vortex of air and clouds grows @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
So , the first condition needed for hurricanes is warmer waters in the Atlantic Ocean , which cause a number of other conditions favorable to hurricanes .
`` When the waters are warmer , it tends to mean you have lower pressures .
It means a more unstable atmosphere , which is conducive to hurricanes intensifying , '' said Phil Klotzbach , an atmospheric scientist at Colorado State University .
`` These thunderstorms , which are the building blocks of hurricanes , are better able to organize and get going . ''
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ or the change in wind direction with height into the atmosphere , Klotzbach said .
`` When you have a warm tropical Atlantic , you have reduced levels of wind shear , '' Klotzbach told Live Science .
`` When you have a lot of wind shear it basically tears apart the hurricane . ''
The individual ingredients for hurricanes , however , do n't pop up at random ; they are guided by larger weather systems .
`` There are two dominant climate patterns that really control the wind and pressure patterns @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Bell , the lead seasonal hurricane forecaster for NOAA 's Climate Prediction Center in Washington , D.C .
The first is the El Niño/La Niña cycle .
During an El Niño , in which ocean water around the northwestern coast of South America becomes warner than usual , Atlantic hurricanes are suppressed , while La Niña creates more favorable conditions for hurricanes , Bell said .
The second climate pattern is the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation ( AMO ) , which is , as the name implies , a trend that lasts anywhere from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with warmer waters in the Atlantic and stronger African monsoons , Bell said .
`` When this pattern is in its warm phase , or a warmer tropical Atlantic Ocean , we tend to see stronger hurricane patterns for decades at a time , '' Bell told Live Science .
A warm-phase AMO conducive to hurricanes prevailed between 1950 and 1970 and since 1995 , Bell said .
Officially , the Atlantic hurricane season starts on June 1 and runs until Nov. 30 .
In the Eastern Pacific Ocean , hurricane season begins @ @ @ @ @ @ @ according to the National Weather Service .
However , most of these storms hit during peak hurricane season between August and October , on both coasts , according to the National Weather Service 's Climate Prediction Center .
To make their predictions , scientists analyze a host of factors , from wind speed to sea surface temperatures .
Because the El Niño/La Niña cycle typically materializes in summer or early fall , forecasts done too early have limited meaning , Bell said .
[ A History of Destruction : 8 Great Hurricanes ] @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as above-normal ( between 12 and 28 tropical storms and between seven and 15 hurricanes ) ; near-normal ( Between 10 and 15 tropical storms and between four and nine hurricanes ) and below-normal ( Between four and nine tropical storms and two to four hurricanes ) .
During this season , according to NOAA , there was a 70 % chance of 2020 having between 13 and 19 named storms , of which six to 10 could become hurricanes .
Of these , three to six could become major hurricanes , with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ) or higher .
With 29 named storms , 12 hurricanes and five major hurricanes , the 2020 season has surpassed even those high expectations .
Which cities get hit the most by hurricanes ?
According to HurricaneCity , a hurricane-tracking website , here are the top 10 cities most frequently hit or affected by hurricanes since record-keeping began in 1871 : • Cape Hatteras , North Carolina : Every 1.34 years ( affected by 110 hurricanes since 1871 ) • Cayman Islands ( most affected area in the Caribbean ) : Every @ @ @ @ @ @ @ speeds of 38 mph ( 58 km/h ) , it is officially a tropical storm .
At 74 mph ( 119 km/h ) , the storm has reached hurricane levels .
At that point , scientists use a 1 to 5 scale known as the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale to classify hurricane strength , with category 1 being the least severe hurricanes and category 5 being the strongest .
Some scientists have also proposed adding a category 6 to account for storms that are well beyond the highest sustained wind speed for a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ argued against using just wind speed as a metric to determine a storm 's severity and potential damage , arguing that other metrics such as storm surge height or rainfall could provide better insight into a storm 's ferocity .
However , the National Hurricane Center ( NHC ) has argued that metrics like storm surges can be hard to predict because local differences in the shape of the terrain of the ocean floor leading up to the coastline can determine the height of storm surges .
Hurricanes , tropical storms and typhoons @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , but the nomenclature reveals where they form .
Tropical cyclone refers to any storm that formed 300 miles ( 482 km ) south of the equator , whereas hurricanes are storms formed in the Northeast Pacificand Atlantic , typhoons are tropical storms that form in the Northwest Pacific and cyclone is the term used for storms in the South Pacific and Indian Ocean , according to NOAA 's ocean service .
Hurricanes initially were named in honor of the feast day for a Catholic saint .
For instance , Hurricane San Felipe @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or the feast day of Saint Phillip , according to the National Hurricane Center .
Hurricanes that struck on the same day would be distinguished by a suffix placed on the later one , Live Science previously reported .
For example , a storm that struck on Sept. 13 , 1928 , was dubbed Hurricane San Felipe II , to distinguish it from the 1876 storm .
However , by the 1950s , the naming convention changed and in the U.S. , hurricanes were given female names based on the international alphabet , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of calling storms by female names only was abandoned in 1978 .
Despite the seemingly open-ended possibilities , meteorologists do not have free reign in deciding names .
The World Meteorological Organization ( WMO ) has a long list of alphabetical storm names that repeats on a six-year cycle .
The organization aims for clear and simple names .
Names are in English , Spanish , Dutch and French , to account for the many languages spoken by people potentially affected by hurricanes .
`` Experience shows that the use of short , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as spoken communications is quicker and less subject to error than the older , more cumbersome , latitude-longitude identification methods .
These advantages are especially important in exchanging detailed storm information between hundreds of widely scattered stations , coastal bases and ships at sea , '' the organization says on its website .
If a storm was so devastating that using the name again would be insensitive , the group meets and agrees to strike the name from the list .
For instance , people do n't have to worry about facing the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Hattie or Opal again , because those names have been retired , according to the NHC .
For the 2020 hurricane season , meteorologists prepared the following list of names for storms in the North Atlantic , Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico , according to the WMO : This list of names was exhausted on Sept. 18 , when Tropical Storm Wilfred formed over the eastern Atlantic .
For the second time in history , meteorologists moved on to using Greek letters to name storms .
Staying safe during the hurricane season @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a plan .
People can plan for hurricanes using a simple guide at Ready.gov .
Plans need to be worked out for all family members .
And for those animal lovers out there , Fido and Mr. Whiskers also need an escape plan .
This plan includes figuring out how to determe whether it 's safe to hunker down at home during a storm or whether you are in an evacuation zone .
If so , there is likely a specific route you should take in the event of an evacuation , as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Science previously reported .
If you are in an evacuation zone , you also need to figure out accommodations during the storm — this could be anything from staying with family and friends to renting a motel to staying in a shelter .
Family members often have trouble reaching each other during hurricanes , so determining a preset meeting place and protocol can be helpful .
Sometimes , local cellphone lines are overloaded during a storm , so consider texting .
Another alternative is to have a central out-of-state contact who can relay @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a storm , pets should be leashed or placed in a carrier , and their emergency supplies should include a list of their vaccinations as well as a photo in case they get lost , according to the Humane Society for the United States .
Also important is finding someone who can care for them , in the event that a hotel or shelter does not accept pets .
During an emergency , they should also be wearing a collar with the information of an out-of-state contact in case they get separated from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Anyone who lives in a hurricane-prone area would do well to protect their property in advance of a flood .
Because hurricanes often cause their damage when trees fall on property , homeowners can reduce the risk of damage by trimming trees or removing damaged trees and limbs , according to Ready.gov .
Another easy step is to make sure rain gutters are fixed in place and free of debris .
Reinforcing the roof , doors and windows , including a garage door , is also important , according to Ready.gov .
Power @ @ @ @ @ @ @ if the power is cut off for long periods of time .
A power generator needs to be kept outside , as they produce dangerous levels of carbon monoxide .
People who are very serious about prevention may even consider building a `` safe room '' — a fortified room designed to withstand the punishing winds of a tornado or hurricane , according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency pamphlet `` Taking Shelter from the Storm : Building a Safe Room for Your Home or Small Business , '' ( FEMA , 2014 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ also need to have a stash of emergency supplies , ideally placed in multiple locations throughout a dwelling .
According to Ready.gov , a basic disaster kit should include : • A gallon of water per person per day for at least three days • A whistle to get help • A wrench or pliers for turning off busted pipes

Toward the end of the Atlantic hurricane season, the International Space Station orbits about 259 miles (417 kilometers) above Trinidad and Tobago as Hurricane Sam churns in the Atlantic Ocean in the fall of 2021.
Hurricane season in the Atlantic brings a host of dramatic and dangerous weather, from whipping winds, torrential downpours, power outages and flash floods. And as climate change has been tied to an increase in hurricane intensity, these impacts could continue to worsen.
But when exactly does the Atlantic hurricane season of 2022 start, and how long does it last? And how do hurricanes form? What can people do to prepare in the face of the most dangerous storms on Earth? From hurricane formation science to naming conventions to storm safety tips, this Live Science guide will run down all you need to know about this year's hurricane season. The 2022 Atlantic hurricane season is predicted to bring higher-than-average activity, meaning more ferocious storms.
Even though the National Hurricane Center has forecast an above-average hurricane season for 2022, the first and, to date, only named storm of the year, Tropical Storm Alex, emerged five days after the season started on June 1.
What are hurricanes?
Hurricanes are tropical cyclones. When a tropical cyclone's sustained winds reach 39 to 73 mph (63 to 118 km/h), it is considered a tropical storm and it gets a name from a list put out by the World Meteorological Organization. Once those sustained winds reach 74 to 95 mph (119 to 153 km/h), that storm becomes a Category 1 hurricane. According to the Saffir-Simpson scale, here are the sustained winds linked to categories 2 through 5 hurricanes:
Category 2: 96 to 110 mph (154 to 177 km/h)
Category 3: 111 to 129 mph (178 to 208 km/h)
Category 4: 130 to 156 mph (209 to 251 km/h)
Category 5: 157 mph or higher (252 km/h or higher)
Named storms of 2022
Tropical Storm Alex: June 5, north of the Abaco Islands, in the northern Bahamas
How do hurricanes form?
Hurricanes are the most violent storms on Earth, according to NASA. At heart, hurricanes are fueled by just two ingredients: heat and water. Hurricanes are seeded over the warm waters above the equator, where the air above the ocean's surface takes in heat and moisture. As the hot air rises, it leaves a lower pressure region below it. This process repeats as air from higher pressure areas moves into the lower pressure area, heats up, and rises, in turn, producing swirls in the air, according to NASA. Once this hot air gets high enough into the atmosphere, it cools off and condenses into clouds. Now, the growing, swirling vortex of air and clouds grows and grows and can become a thunderstorm.
So, the first condition needed for hurricanes is warmer waters in the Atlantic Ocean, which cause a number of other conditions favorable to hurricanes.
"When the waters are warmer, it tends to mean you have lower pressures. It means a more unstable atmosphere, which is conducive to hurricanes intensifying," said Phil Klotzbach, an atmospheric scientist at Colorado State University. "These thunderstorms, which are the building blocks of hurricanes, are better able to organize and get going."
Another key factor: wind shear, or the change in wind direction with height into the atmosphere, Klotzbach said. "When you have a warm tropical Atlantic, you have reduced levels of wind shear," Klotzbach told Live Science. "When you have a lot of wind shear it basically tears apart the hurricane."
(Storms that form on different sides of the equator have different spin orientations, thanks to Earth's slight tilt on its axis, according to NASA.)
NASA's Terra satellite captured this thermal (heat) image of Category 5 Hurricane Maria in 2017. Yellow and orange are the warm ocean waters, and blue and white are the hurricane's tall, cool cloud tops. (Image credit: NASA)
How climate patterns affect hurricanes
The individual ingredients for hurricanes, however, don't pop up at random; they are guided by larger weather systems. "There are two dominant climate patterns that really control the wind and pressure patterns across the Atlantic," said Gerry Bell, the lead seasonal hurricane forecaster for NOAA's Climate Prediction Center in Washington, D.C.
The first is the El Niño/La Niña cycle. During an El Niño, in which ocean water around the northwestern coast of South America becomes warmer than usual, Atlantic hurricanes are suppressed, while La Niña creates more favorable conditions for hurricanes, Bell said.
The second climate pattern is the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO), which is, as the name implies, a trend that lasts anywhere from 25 to 40 years and is associated with warmer waters in the Atlantic and stronger African monsoons, Bell said.
"When this pattern is in its warm phase, or a warmer tropical Atlantic Ocean, we tend to see stronger hurricane patterns for decades at a time," Bell told Live Science.
A warm-phase AMO conducive to hurricanes prevailed between 1950 and 1970 and since 1995, Bell said.
El Niño is associated with above-average equatorial sea-surface temperatures. El Niño's signature warmth is apparent in the November 2015 map. (Image credit: NASA Earth Observatory maps by Joshua Stevens, using data from Coral Reef Watch.)
Hurricane outlook: 2022
The 2022 Atlantic hurricane season officially started on June 1 and will run until Nov. 30. In the Eastern Pacific Ocean, hurricane season begins May 15 and ends Nov. 30, according to the National Weather Service. However, most of these storms hit during peak hurricane season between August and October, on both coasts, according to NOAA's Climate Prediction Center.
The Climate Prediction Center classifies hurricane seasons as above-normal (between 12 and 28 tropical storms and between seven and 15 hurricanes); near-normal (between 10 and 15 tropical storms and between four and nine hurricanes) and below-normal (between four and nine tropical storms and two to four hurricanes).
Following in the tracks of the record-breaking hurricane seasons of 2020 and 2021, this year is expected to pack a punch, with a 65% chance of above-normal activity forecast , the center said. The NOAA forecasters are predicting this season will bring 14 to 21 named storms, or those with winds of 39 mph (63 km/h) or higher. Of those, six to 10 are expected to reach hurricane status, with three to six of those strengthening into major hurricanes, or storms with winds of 111 mph (179 km/h), according to NOAA .
To make their predictions, scientists analyze a host of factors, from wind speed to sea-surface temperatures. Because the El Niño/La Niña cycle typically materializes in summer or early fall, forecasts done too early have limited meaning, Bell said.
Are hurricanes getting stronger?
Potential tropical storm Paulette captured on Sept. 23, 2020, after it returned from the dead. (Image credit: NOAA/NESDIS/STAR GOES-East Band 13)
Yes. On average, the world is seeing stronger tropical cyclones (a term that encompasses fast-rotating storms such as hurricanes and typhoons) more often than in decades past. According to an analysis of 4,000 tropical cyclones from 1979 to 2017, researchers concluded in 2020 that due to global warming these storms are not only getting stronger , but we are experiencing the strongest of the pack more frequently, Live Science reported. In another study, scientists discovered that compared with six decades ago, hurricanes that blast Bermuda are twice as strong, they reported online March 2, 2021 in the journal Environmental Research Letters .
We can thank climate change for another hurricane downer: Global warming is leading to so-called zombie storms, or those that peter out and then get refueled to sort of rise from the dead, Live Science reported. For instance, in September 2020, the Category 1 hurricane Paulette made landfall in Bermuda, strengthened into a Category 2 and then weakened and died out some 5.5 days later. That wasn't the end of her story, though, because she regained strength and reached tropical storm strength about 300 miles (480 kilometers) off the Azores Islands. And according to scientists, such zombie storms could become more frequent, as waters warm up and give once-dead storms new life, according to Live Science.
Which cities have the most hurricanes?
A flooded park is seen in Rodanthe as Hurricane Dorian hits Cape Hatteras in North Carolina on Sept. 6, 2019. (Image credit: JOSE LUIS MAGANA/AFP via Getty Images)
According to HurricaneCity, a hurricane-tracking website, here are the top 10 cities most frequently hit or affected by hurricanes since record-keeping began in 1871:
Cape Hatteras, North Carolina: Every 1.30 years (115 named tropical storms since 1871) Morehead City, North Carolina: Every 1.49 years (99 named storms) Grand Bahamas Island, Bahamas: Every 1.61 years (93 named storms) Wilmington, North Carolina: Every 1.67 years (90 named storms) Cayman Islands (most affected area in the Caribbean Sea): Every 1.69 years (89 named storms) Great Abaco Island, Bahamas: Every 1.76 years (85 named storms) Bermuda: Every 1.79 years (84 named storms) Andros Island, Bahamas: Every 1.85 years (81 named storms) Savannah, Georgia: Every 1.90 years (79 named storms) Sable Island, Nova Scotia: Every 1.90 years (79 named storms)
The Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale
Once a storm has wind speeds of 38 mph (58 km/h), it is officially a tropical storm. At 74 mph (119 km/h), the storm has reached hurricane levels. At that point, scientists use a 1 to 5 scale known as the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale to classify hurricane strength, with Category 1 being the least severe hurricanes and Category 5 being the strongest. Some scientists have also proposed adding a Category 6 to account for storms that are well beyond the highest sustained wind speed for a Category 5 hurricane.
Source: NOAA's National Hurricane Center
Scientists know that the scale has its limitations. "This scale does not take into account other potentially deadly hazards such as storm surge, rainfall flooding and tornadoes," according to the National Hurricane Center.
How are hurricanes named?
Hurricanes initially were named in honor of the feast day for a Catholic saint. For instance, Hurricane San Felipe occurred on Sept. 13, 1876, or the feast day of Saint Phillip, according to the National Hurricane Center. Hurricanes that struck on the same day would be distinguished by a suffix placed on the later one, Live Science previously reported. For example, a storm that struck on Sept. 13, 1928, was dubbed Hurricane San Felipe II, to distinguish it from the 1876 storm.
However, by the 1950s, the naming convention changed and in the U.S., hurricanes were given female names based on the international alphabet, according to the NHC. The practice of calling storms by female names only was abandoned in 1978.
Despite the seemingly open-ended possibilities, meteorologists do not have free reign in deciding names. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has a long list of alphabetical storm names that repeats on a six-year cycle. The organization aims for clear and simple names. Names are in English, Spanish, Dutch and French, to account for the many languages spoken by people potentially affected by hurricanes.
"Experience shows that the use of short, distinctive given names in written as well as spoken communications is quicker and less subject to error than the older, more cumbersome, latitude-longitude identification methods. These advantages are especially important in exchanging detailed storm information between hundreds of widely scattered stations, coastal bases and ships at sea," the WMO said.
If a storm was so devastating that using the name again would be insensitive, the group meets and agrees to strike the name from the list.
For instance, people don't have to worry about facing the wrath of a Hurricane Katrina, Ike, Hattie or Opal again, because those names have been retired, according to the NHC.
For the 2022 Atlantic hurricane season, meteorologists prepared the following list of names for storms in the North Atlantic, Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico, according to the WMO:
Alex
Bonnie
Colin
Danielle
Earl
Fiona
Gaston
Hermine
Ian
Julia
Karl
Lisa
Martin
Nicole
Owen
Paula
Richard
Shary
Tobias
Virginie
Walter
How to prepare for a hurricane
Staying safe during the hurricane season starts with a simple step: Have a plan. People can plan for hurricanes using a simple guide at Ready.gov. Plans need to be worked out for all family members. And for those animal lovers out there, Fido and Mr. Whiskers also need an escape plan.
This plan includes figuring out how to determine whether it's safe to hunker down at home during a storm or whether you are in an evacuation zone. If so, there is likely a specific route you should take in the event of an evacuation, as many roads may be closed, Live Science previously reported.
If you are in an evacuation zone, you also need to figure out accommodations during the storm — this could be anything from staying with family and friends to renting a motel to staying in a shelter.
Family members often have trouble reaching each other during hurricanes, so determining a preset meeting place and protocol can be helpful. Sometimes, local cellphone lines are overloaded during a storm, so consider texting. Another alternative is to have a central out-of-state contact who can relay messages between separated family members.
During a storm, pets should be leashed or placed in a carrier, and their emergency supplies should include a list of their vaccinations as well as a photo in case they get lost, according to the Humane Society for the United States. Also important is finding someone who can care for them, in the event that a hotel or shelter does not accept pets. During an emergency, they should also be wearing a collar with the information of an out-of-state contact in case they get separated from you, according to the HSUS.
How to storm-proof your home
Anyone who lives in a hurricane-prone area would do well to protect their property in advance of a flood. Because hurricanes often cause their damage when trees fall on property, homeowners can reduce the risk of damage by trimming trees or removing damaged trees and limbs, according to Ready.gov.
Another easy step is to make sure rain gutters are fixed in place and free of debris. Reinforcing the roof, doors and windows, including a garage door, is also important, according to Ready.gov.
Power generators can also be an important tool if the power is cut off for long periods of time. A power generator needs to be kept outside, as they produce dangerous levels of carbon monoxide.
People who are very serious about prevention may even consider building a "safe room" — a fortified room designed to withstand the punishing winds of a tornado or hurricane, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency pamphlet .
List of emergency supplies
People living in hurricane country also need to have a stash of emergency supplies, ideally placed in multiple locations throughout a dwelling. According to Ready.gov, a basic disaster kit should include:
A gallon of water per person per day for at least three days
A three-day supply of non-perishable food
A battery-powered or hand-crank radio
A flashlight with extra batteries
A first aid kit
A whistle to get help
Dust mask
Moist towelettes, garbage cans and plastic ties for sanitation
A wrench or pliers for turning off busted pipes
Maps
A can opener for food
And cellphone chargers
Originally published on Live Science.


livescience--2020-12-09--SpaceX aborts Starship SN8 prototype test launch at last second

We 'll have to wait a little longer to see SpaceX 's latest prototype make its highly anticipated big hop .
The vehicle , known as Starship SN8 ( `` Serial No .
8 '' ) , was scheduled to launch on an 8-mile-high ( 12.5 kilometers ) test flight Tuesday ( Dec. 8 ) from SpaceX 's South Texas facility , near the Gulf Coast village of Boca Chica .
And it nearly happened .
But less than 2 seconds before liftoff , just after 5:30 p.m. EDT ( 2230 GMT and 4:30 p.m. local Texas time ) , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more of its three and automatically aborted the flight .
It 's unclear at the moment when SN8 will get its next chance to fly ; that depends on what caused the abort and how difficult it will be to fix .
But there are launch windows available on both Wednesday and Thursday ( Dec. 9 and Dec. 10 ) , SpaceX representatives said .
SpaceX is developing Starship to take people and cargo to the moon , Mars and other distant destinations .
The transportation system consists of two elements , both @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reusable : a 165-foot-tall ( 50 meters ) stainless-steel spacecraft called Starship and a giant rocket called Super Heavy .
The final Starship will sport six Raptors and be powerful to launch itself off the moon and Mars .
It will need Super Heavy , however , to escape Earth 's much deeper gravity well .
( Super Heavy , which will be powered by about 30 Raptors , will land back on Earth shortly after launching Starship to orbit . )
SpaceX is iterating toward the final Starship design via a series @ @ @ @ @ @ @ already taken to the sky .
But all three of those vehicles — known as Starhopper , SN5 and SN6 — had just a single Raptor and reached a maximum altitude of about 500 feet ( 150 m ) on their jaunts .
So space fans have been very much looking forward to SN8 's big hop , which is much more demanding .
And SN8 is far more complex than any of its predecessors ; it has a nose cone and orientation-stabilizing flaps , for example , whereas Starhopper , SN5 and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fun and dramatic to watch the big silver vehicle fly high — whenever that may be .
Mike Wall is the author of `` Out There '' ( Grand Central Publishing , 2018 ; illustrated by Karl Tate ) , a book about the search for alien life .
Follow him on Twitter @ michaeldwall .
Follow us on Twitter @ Spacedotcom or Facebook .

We'll have to wait a little longer to see SpaceX's latest Starship prototype make its highly anticipated big hop.
The vehicle, known as Starship SN8 ("Serial No. 8"), was scheduled to launch on an 8-mile-high (12.5 kilometers) test flight Tuesday (Dec. 8) from SpaceX's South Texas facility, near the Gulf Coast village of Boca Chica.
And it nearly happened. But less than 2 seconds before liftoff, just after 5:30 p.m. EDT (2230 GMT and 4:30 p.m. local Texas time), SN8 detected something abnormal with one or more of its three Raptor engines and automatically aborted the flight.
Related: Starship and Super Heavy: SpaceX's Mars-colonizing vehicles in images
SpaceX's Starship SN8 rocket prototype stands atop its test stand at the company's Boca Chica, Texas facility during an attempted high-altitude launch test on Dec. 8, 2020. (Image credit: SpaceX)
It's unclear at the moment when SN8 will get its next chance to fly; that depends on what caused the abort and how difficult it will be to fix. But there are launch windows available on both Wednesday and Thursday (Dec. 9 and Dec. 10), SpaceX representatives said.
SpaceX is developing Starship to take people and cargo to the moon, Mars and other distant destinations. The transportation system consists of two elements, both of which are designed to be fully reusable: a 165-foot-tall (50 meters) stainless-steel spacecraft called Starship and a giant rocket called Super Heavy.
The final Starship will sport six Raptors and be powerful to launch itself off the moon and Mars. It will need Super Heavy, however, to escape Earth's much deeper gravity well. (Super Heavy, which will be powered by about 30 Raptors, will land back on Earth shortly after launching Starship to orbit.)
SpaceX is iterating toward the final Starship design via a series of prototypes, three of which have already taken to the sky. But all three of those vehicles — known as Starhopper, SN5 and SN6 — had just a single Raptor and reached a maximum altitude of about 500 feet (150 m) on their jaunts.
So space fans have been very much looking forward to SN8's big hop, which is much more demanding. And SN8 is far more complex than any of its predecessors; it has a nose cone and orientation-stabilizing flaps, for example, whereas Starhopper, SN5 and SN6 resembled flying silos.
It will be fun and dramatic to watch the big silver vehicle fly high — whenever that may be.
Mike Wall is the author of "Out There" (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a book about the search for alien life. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook.


livescience--2020-12-09--Sahara's 'Godzilla' dust storm may have been triggered by warming in the Arctic

An enormous dust cloud dubbed `` Godzilla '' that surged over the Sahara Desert in June and then blew toward the U.S. may have reached its record-breaking size and density due to warming in the Arctic .
Unusual wind patterns near the coast of western Africa whipped the Sahara storm to its gargantuan size , and could have been caused by reduced sea ice and rising ocean temperatures , according to research presented on Monday ( Dec. 7 ) at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union ( AGU ) , held virtually this year due to the COVID-19 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of June , a `` train '' of wind circled the globe , effectively trapping a high-pressure system in northwest Africa that intensified northeasterly winds over the Sahara for four days , displacing vast quantities of dust .
This wind activity coincided with a period of record lows for the extent of Arctic sea ice , hinting at a link between a warming Arctic and global wind patterns , the scientists reported .
From late spring through early fall each year , the Saharan Air Layer ( SAL ) — a mass of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ three to five days from the Sahara Desert into the atmosphere , according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ( NOAA ) .
These clouds reach altitudes up to 20,000 feet ( 6,000 meters ) and can travel thousands of miles across the Atlantic Ocean , darkening skies as far west as the U.S. Gulf Coast and seeding the Amazon River Basin in South America with nutrient-rich sediments .
But the 2020 `` Godzilla '' storm was exceptional , becoming the Sahara 's biggest and most concentrated dust cloud on record .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Caribbean by June 22 , Live Science .
The dust cloud then arrived at the Gulf Coast on June 25 , lending to the skies and causing air quality alerts ( as well as spectacular sunsets ) in multiple states .
In some regions , the cloud carried about 70 % more dust than the average storm , with plumes extending more than 5,000 miles ( 8,000 kilometers ) across the Atlantic and toward the Caribbean and the southern U.S. , the scientists reported in a study , published Dec. 1 in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ energized and fed the dust storm also intensified the African Easterly Jet — a jet stream over the Sahara — `` which rapidly transported the dust towards the Caribbean and southern United States , '' lead study author Diana Francis , lead author Diana Francis , a senior research scientist at the Khalifa University of Science and Technology in the United Arab Emirates , .
Arctic sea-ice cover was also exceptionally low in June 2020 , `` around the lowest on record in the period of satellite observations , '' the researchers reported @ @ @ @ @ @ @ shaped a large-scale anomaly in which Arctic winds dipped farther south than they normally do , potentially disrupting other wind patterns and leading to the formation of the high-pressure system and persistent northeasterly winds that birthed Godzilla .
`` If such patterns become more common in a warmer world , it is plausible that these extreme dust outbreaks will increase in frequency in the future , '' the scientists wrote in their paper .
Prior studies have also shown that when dense dust clouds hover over the Atlantic , they can suppress tropical @ @ @ @ @ @ @ surprisingly , June 's monster dust storm was followed by one of the most active on record , said study co-author Amato Evan , an associate professor at Scripps Institution of Oceanography , Climate , Atmospheric Science and Physical Oceanography at the University of California , San Diego .
`` Either 2020 is just a year where everything is upside-down , or we really need to reevaluate our understanding of how dust impacts that climate system , '' Evans said in the statement .

This animation of the progression of the Saharan dust cloud across the Atlantic Ocean from June 15 to 25, 2020 combines OMPS aerosol index and VIIRS visible imagery from NASA/NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite. The dust plume moved from Africa's west coast over the Atlantic into the Caribbean Sea and up through the Gulf of Mexico. The largest and thickest part of the plume is visible over the eastern and central Atlantic Ocean.
An enormous dust cloud dubbed "Godzilla" that surged over the Sahara Desert in June and then blew toward the U.S. may have reached its record-breaking size and density due to warming in the Arctic.
Unusual wind patterns near the coast of western Africa whipped the Sahara storm to its gargantuan size, and could have been caused by reduced sea ice and rising ocean temperatures, according to research presented on Monday (Dec. 7) at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU), held virtually this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
During most of the month of June, a "train" of wind circled the globe, effectively trapping a high-pressure system in northwest Africa that intensified northeasterly winds over the Sahara for four days, displacing vast quantities of dust. This wind activity coincided with a period of record lows for the extent of Arctic sea ice, hinting at a link between a warming Arctic and global wind patterns, the scientists reported.
Related: Astronaut photo: Sahara dust enters Caribbean skies
From late spring through early fall each year, the Saharan Air Layer (SAL) — a mass of dry, dust-choked air — rises every three to five days from the Sahara Desert into the atmosphere, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). These clouds reach altitudes up to 20,000 feet (6,000 meters) and can travel thousands of miles across the Atlantic Ocean, darkening skies as far west as the U.S. Gulf Coast and seeding the Amazon River Basin in South America with nutrient-rich sediments.
But the 2020 "Godzilla" storm was exceptional, becoming the Sahara's biggest and most concentrated dust cloud on record. It formed on June 13, reaching the Caribbean by June 22, Live Science previously reported . The dust cloud then arrived at the Gulf Coast on June 25, lending a hazy brownish tint to the skies and causing air quality alerts (as well as spectacular sunsets) in multiple states.
In some regions, the cloud carried about 70% more dust than the average storm, with plumes extending more than 5,000 miles (8,000 kilometers) across the Atlantic and toward the Caribbean and the southern U.S., the scientists reported in a study, published Dec. 1 in the journal Geophysical Research Letters .
Saharan dust plume, seen by the NOAA-20 satellite on June 17, 2020. (Image credit: NOAA)
The high-pressure system that energized and fed the dust storm also intensified the African Easterly Jet — a jet stream over the Sahara — "which rapidly transported the dust towards the Caribbean and southern United States," lead study author Diana Francis, lead author Diana Francis, a senior research scientist at the Khalifa University of Science and Technology in the United Arab Emirates, said in a statement .
Arctic sea-ice cover was also exceptionally low in June 2020, "around the lowest on record in the period of satellite observations," the researchers reported in the study. This could have shaped a large-scale anomaly in which Arctic winds dipped farther south than they normally do, potentially disrupting other wind patterns and leading to the formation of the high-pressure system and persistent northeasterly winds that birthed Godzilla.
"If such patterns become more common in a warmer world, it is plausible that these extreme dust outbreaks will increase in frequency in the future," the scientists wrote in their paper.
Prior studies have also shown that when dense dust clouds hover over the Atlantic, they can suppress tropical cyclones by cooling ocean waters. But surprisingly, June's monster dust storm was followed by one of the most active hurricane seasons on record, said study co-author Amato Evan, an associate professor at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Climate, Atmospheric Science and Physical Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego.
"Either 2020 is just a year where everything is upside-down, or we really need to reevaluate our understanding of how dust impacts that climate system," Evans said in the statement.
Originally published on Live Science.


livescience--2020-12-09--The strange story of how nuns uncovered 'House of Jesus' in Nazareth

The house where supposedly grew up is back in the news , as archaeologist Ken Dark 's new book on the Nazareth home is shining a spotlight on the team of sisters who completed much of the excavation and their discoveries .
It was `` one of the earliest examples of a major program of excavations initiated and directed by women '' Dark wrote in the book , `` The Sisters of Nazareth Convent : A Roman-period , Byzantine , and Crusader site in central Nazareth '' ( Palestine Exploration Fund , 2021 ) , noting that it was the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Mère Giraud , who led these excavations .
`` It was also probably the only 19th-century excavation with a mostly female team , '' Dark told Live Science .
As , the house was cut into a rocky hillside and dates to the early first century .
It was n't until centuries later that people began to venerate the structure as Jesus ' home .
Whether Jesus really grew up there is unknown .
Related : See images of the 'Jesus ' house and Nazareth artifacts Dark noted that it was remarkable @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the site before part of it was destroyed when their convent was built next to the site .
`` It was one of the first 'rescue excavations ' — excavations in advance of the destruction of archaeological evidence by construction in this instance — in the Middle East , '' Dark told Live Science in an email .
The finds by the 19th-century nuns , as well as the convent 's excavation records , helped Dark determine that the house dates to the early first century and that a church protecting the site @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was built during the fourth century.At the time it was built , the church would have been just a `` cave church '' — a church located within a cave — before expanding to include buildings on the surface .
A fourth-century pilgrim named `` Egeria '' seems to have written about this church in the late-fourth century in a text often called the `` Itinerarium Egeriae , '' describing it as `` a big and very splendid cave in which she [ the Virgin Mary ] lived .
An altar has been @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cave is the place from which she drew water . ''
Related : Images : The Church of the Holy Sepulchre The people who constructed the church were careful to protect not only the early first-century house but also a tomb that was built in the mid- to late first century , after the house had been abandoned .
People may have believed that it was the tomb of St. Joseph , the father of , leading to the extra care , Dark said .
During their excavation of the church , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with human bones inside , suggesting that a saint may have been buried in the church centuries after Jesus ' time .
When the Crusaders took control of around 1099 , they quickly rebuilt the Church of the Nutrition , dedicating a considerable amount of resources to its rebuilding despite their perilous military situation .
The military position would deteriorate to the point where Nazareth was taken by a Muslim army in 1187 .
The Crusaders were often at war with different Muslim states in the region .
The sisters ' work revealed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ They found a knight 's spurs had been left hanging on the wall of a chapel , possibly as an offering by a knight .
Those who were in charge of the church apparently knew the site was doomed .
At the time , the house of Jesus was hurriedly sealed up in hopes of protecting it , the sisters found .
Though the church was burned down during a Crusader war , the house of Jesus was left intact and not unsealed until the sisters did their 19th-century excavation work .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ century and today , it is used by the Sisters of Nazareth nuns .
`` Although few in number , the nuns undertake a wide range of charitable work in addition to their religious duties : running a school , tending to the ill and helping local disadvantaged people of all backgrounds in many other ways '' Dark wrote .
The sisters still watch over the artifacts and excavation records from the late 19th-century excavations , although some of the artifacts have gone missing since that time .
Pilgrims and tourists also come @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
When reached by Live Science , the modern-day Sisters of Nazareth declined comment on the excavation work of their 19th-century predecessors .

Archaeologists think this is the early first century house that was venerated as being the house that Jesus grew up in.
The house where Jesus supposedly grew up is back in the news, as archaeologist Ken Dark's new book on the Nazareth home is shining a spotlight on the team of sisters who completed much of the excavation and their discoveries.
It was "one of the earliest examples of a major program of excavations initiated and directed by women" Dark wrote in the book, "The Sisters of Nazareth Convent: A Roman-period, Byzantine, and Crusader site in central Nazareth" (Palestine Exploration Fund, 2021), noting that it was the leader of the Sisters of Nazareth nuns, Mère Giraud, who led these excavations. "It was also probably the only 19th-century excavation with a mostly female team," Dark told Live Science.
As Live Science reported in 2015 , the house was cut into a rocky hillside and dates to the early first century. It wasn't until centuries later that people began to venerate the structure as Jesus' home. Whether Jesus really grew up there is unknown.
Related: See images of the 'Jesus' house and Nazareth artifacts
Church of the Nutrition
Image 1 of 4 This image shows a capital that would have been at the end of a column. It is from the Church of the Nutrition and dates back around 1,500 years to the time of the Byzantine Empire. (Image credit: K.R.Dark) This column is from the Church of the Nutrition and dates back around 1,500 years to the time of the Byzantine Empire. Copyright K.R.Dark (Image credit: K.R.Dark) Part of a Greek inscription. It is from the Church of the Nutrition and dates back around 1,500 years to the time of the Byzantine Empire. (Image credit: K.R.Dark) Archaeologists think this is the early first century house that was venerated as being the house that Jesus grew up in. (Image credit: K.R.Dark)
Dark noted that it was remarkable that the sisters took care to excavate the site before part of it was destroyed when their convent was built next to the site. "It was one of the first 'rescue excavations' — excavations in advance of the destruction of archaeological evidence by construction in this instance — in the Middle East," Dark told Live Science in an email.
The finds by the 19th-century nuns, as well as the convent's excavation records, helped Dark determine that the house dates to the early first century and that a church protecting the site, called Church of the Nutrition, was built during the fourth century.At the time it was built, the church would have been just a "cave church" — a church located within a cave — before expanding to include buildings on the surface. A fourth-century pilgrim named "Egeria" seems to have written about this church in the late-fourth century in a text often called the "Itinerarium Egeriae," describing it as "a big and very splendid cave in which she [the Virgin Mary] lived. An altar has been placed there, and within the actual cave is the place from which she drew water."
Related: Images: The Church of the Holy Sepulchre
The people who constructed the church were careful to protect not only the early first-century house but also a tomb that was built in the mid- to late first century, after the house had been abandoned. People may have believed that it was the tomb of St. Joseph, the father of Jesus , leading to the extra care, Dark said.
During their excavation of the church, the sisters found the remains of a sarcophagus with human bones inside, suggesting that a saint may have been buried in the church centuries after Jesus' time.
When the Crusaders took control of Nazareth around 1099, they quickly rebuilt the Church of the Nutrition, dedicating a considerable amount of resources to its rebuilding despite their perilous military situation. The military position would deteriorate to the point where Nazareth was taken by a Muslim army in 1187. The Crusaders were often at war with different Muslim states in the region.
The sisters' work revealed the final days of the church. They found a knight's spurs had been left hanging on the wall of a chapel, possibly as an offering by a knight. Those who were in charge of the church apparently knew the site was doomed. At the time, the house of Jesus was hurriedly sealed up in hopes of protecting it, the sisters found. Though the church was burned down during a Crusader war, the house of Jesus was left intact and not unsealed until the sisters did their 19th-century excavation work.
Modern-day Nazareth sisters
The convent was built in the late 19th century and today, it is used by the Sisters of Nazareth nuns. "Although few in number, the nuns undertake a wide range of charitable work in addition to their religious duties: running a school, tending to the ill and helping local disadvantaged people of all backgrounds in many other ways" Dark wrote.
The sisters still watch over the artifacts and excavation records from the late 19th-century excavations, although some of the artifacts have gone missing since that time. Pilgrims and tourists also come to see the house and other remains. When reached by Live Science, the modern-day Sisters of Nazareth declined comment on the excavation work of their 19th-century predecessors.
Originally published on Live Science.


livescience--2020-12-09--Archaeologists find vast network of Amazon villages laid out like the cosmos

Billions of lasers shot from a helicopter flying over the Brazilian Amazon Rainforest have detected a vast network of long-abandoned circular and rectangular-shaped villages dating from 1300 to 1700 , a new study finds .
The round villages all had remarkably similar layouts , with elongated mounds circling a central plaza , like marks on a clock .
`` These latter elongated mounds , when seen from above , look like the rays of the sun , which gives them the common name of 'Sóis , ' '' the Portuguese word for `` suns , '' the researchers wrote in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of a new archaeological focus on the pre-Columbian Amazon .
Within the past 20 years , researchers have learned that the rainforest 's southern rim was home to a great diversity of soil-sculpting cultures that engineered the landscape before the Europeans arrived .
Within the past decade , scientists have uncovered the remnants of so-called `` mound villages , '' which are shaped as circles or rectangles , and connected by road networks .
Archaeologists , however , had yet to look for mound villages in the Brazilian state of Acre , so @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to survey the area with lidar — or light detection and ranging .
With this technique , billions of lasers shot from overhead ( in this case , from a helicopter ) penetrate the rainforest 's canopy and map the landscape below .
The lidar survey , combined with satellite data , revealed a remarkable 25 circular mound villages and 11 rectangular mound villages , the researchers said .
Another 15 mound villages were so poorly preserved , they could not be categorized as either circular or rectangular , the team added .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ diameter of 282 feet ( 86 meters ) , while the rectangular villages tended to be smaller , with an average length of 148 feet ( 45 m ) .
Further analysis of the `` sun '' villages revealed they had carefully planned roads ; each circular mound village had two `` principal roads '' that were wide and deep ( up to 20 feet , or 6 m , across ) with high banks , and smaller `` minor roads '' that led to nearby streams .
Most of the villages were @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 3 miles ( 4.4 km ) apart , the researchers found .
The principal roads often connected one village to another , creating a vast community network in the rainforest , the researchers said .
The distinctive and consistent way Indigenous people arranged these villages suggests that they had specific social models for the way they organized their communities , the researchers said .
It 's even possible that this configuration was meant to represent the cosmos , they noted .
The intricate road system , however , `` is hardly a surprise @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wrote in the study .
`` Early historical accounts attest to the ubiquity of road networks across the Amazon .
They are mentioned since the 16th-century account of [ the Spanish Dominican missionary ] Friar Gaspar de Carvajal , who observed wide roads leading from the riverine villages to the interior . ''
Later , in the 18th century , Col. Antonio Pires de Campos , `` described a vast population inhabiting the region , with villages connected by straight , wide roads that were constantly kept clean , '' the researchers added @ @ @ @ @ @ @ practiced by the people in these mound villages .
But preliminary research suggests that this culture 's ceramics were `` cruder '' than those of the culture that preceded them , known as the Geoglyphs , who lived in that region from about 400 B.C .
to A.D. 950 .
The study was published in April in the , and was just featured on Channel 4 's `` Jungle Mystery : Lost Kingdoms of the Amazon , '' in the U.K. , which also featured other ancient findings from the Amazon , including @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ice age .

Lidar technology revealed long-abandoned villages that look like the rays of a sun.
Billions of lasers shot from a helicopter flying over the Brazilian Amazon Rainforest have detected a vast network of long-abandoned circular and rectangular-shaped villages dating from 1300 to 1700, a new study finds.
The round villages all had remarkably similar layouts, with elongated mounds circling a central plaza, like marks on a clock.
"These latter elongated mounds, when seen from above, look like the rays of the sun, which gives them the common name of 'Sóis,'" the Portuguese word for "suns," the researchers wrote in the study.
Related: Amazon photos: Trees that dominate the rainforest
The discovery is part of a new archaeological focus on the pre-Columbian Amazon. Within the past 20 years, researchers have learned that the rainforest's southern rim was home to a great diversity of soil-sculpting cultures that engineered the landscape before the Europeans arrived. Within the past decade, scientists have uncovered the remnants of so-called "mound villages," which are shaped as circles or rectangles, and connected by road networks.
Archaeologists, however, had yet to look for mound villages in the Brazilian state of Acre, so an international group of researchers teamed up to survey the area with lidar — or light detection and ranging. With this technique, billions of lasers shot from overhead (in this case, from a helicopter) penetrate the rainforest's canopy and map the landscape below.
The lidar survey, combined with satellite data, revealed a remarkable 25 circular mound villages and 11 rectangular mound villages, the researchers said. Another 15 mound villages were so poorly preserved, they could not be categorized as either circular or rectangular, the team added.
Image 1 of 5 A view of the Amazon rainforest from the helicopter during the lidar survey. (Image credit: University of Exeter) A bird's-eye view of round villages in the Amazon. (Image credit: University of Exeter; Iriarte, J, et al. 2020; CC BY 4.0) Two roads connecting villages in what is now Acre, Brazil. (Image credit: University of Exeter; Iriarte, J, et al. 2020; CC BY 4.0) Examples of circular villages that look like the face of clocks. Scale Bar = 50 m. (Image credit: University of Exeter; Iriarte, J, et al. 2020; CC BY 4.0) A principal road (in red) connecting the connecting the Caboquim and Boa Esperança villages. Scale bar = 100 m. (Image credit: University of Exeter; Iriarte, J, et al. 2020; CC BY 4.0)
The circular mound villages had an average diameter of 282 feet (86 meters), while the rectangular villages tended to be smaller, with an average length of 148 feet (45 m). Further analysis of the "sun" villages revealed they had carefully planned roads; each circular mound village had two "principal roads" that were wide and deep (up to 20 feet, or 6 m, across) with high banks, and smaller "minor roads" that led to nearby streams.
Most of the villages were close to each other — just about 3 miles (4.4 km) apart, the researchers found. The principal roads often connected one village to another, creating a vast community network in the rainforest, the researchers said.
The distinctive and consistent way Indigenous people arranged these villages suggests that they had specific social models for the way they organized their communities, the researchers said. It's even possible that this configuration was meant to represent the cosmos, they noted.
Image 1 of 2 Study co-researcher Mark Robinson mounts the lidar sensor to the helicopter. (Image credit: University of Exeter) Mark Robinson integrates the lidar sensor with the helicopter. (Image credit: University of Exeter)
The intricate road system, however, "is hardly a surprise for Amazonian archaeologists," the researchers wrote in the study. "Early historical accounts attest to the ubiquity of road networks across the Amazon. They are mentioned since the 16th-century account of [the Spanish Dominican missionary] Friar Gaspar de Carvajal, who observed wide roads leading from the riverine villages to the interior." Later, in the 18th century, Col. Antonio Pires de Campos, "described a vast population inhabiting the region, with villages connected by straight, wide roads that were constantly kept clean," the researchers added.
Little is known about the culture practiced by the people in these mound villages. But preliminary research suggests that this culture's ceramics were "cruder" than those of the culture that preceded them, known as the Geoglyphs, who lived in that region from about 400 B.C. to A.D. 950.
The study was published in April in the Journal of Computer Applications in Archaeology , and was just featured on Channel 4's "Jungle Mystery: Lost Kingdoms of the Amazon," in the U.K., which also featured other ancient findings from the Amazon, including a sprawling, 8-mile-long 'canvas' of rock art in Colombia dating to the last ice age.
Originally published on Live Science.


livescience--2020-12-09--Saturn and Jupiter to almost 'kiss' this winter solstice

Saturn and Jupiter will appear to almost kiss this winter solstice , although not because of some cosmic hanging overhead .
Rather , the two gas giants will look as though they 're very close in the night sky in an event known as a `` great conjunction , '' which happens roughly every 20 years .
In reality , Saturn and Jupiter will be hundreds of millions of miles apart from each other .
This year 's great conjunction will be exceptionally close — just a tenth of a degree apart , or one-fifth of a full moon 's @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Jupiter looked this cozy was July 16 , 1623 , back when the famous Italian astronomer was alive , , a Live Science sister site .
Related : Cassini 's greatest hits : Best photos of Saturn and its moons Stargazers tracking Jupiter and Saturn since this summer will have noticed the planets slowly sidle up to each other .
As the solar system 's largest planet , Jupiter is usually one of the brightest planets , but lately it 's been shining even more brightly , because of Saturn 's close presence @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Space.com reported .
The last great conjunction happened on May 28 , 2000 .
The two planets appear to rendezvous so infrequently because their orbits are mismatched .
Jupiter takes nearly 12 Earth years to circle the sun , and Saturn takes nearly 30 .
On top of that , these gaseous planets travel on differently tilted `` tracks '' around the sun , so they rarely appear this close to one another ( at least from Earth 's perspective ) during great conjunctions , Michael Brown , an astronomer at Monash @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Post .
Before the very close 1623 great conjunction , which was likely impossible to see from Earth because the planets appeared so close to the sun , the last visible and seemingly intimate meeting between Jupiter and Saturn happened in March 1226 , Brown told the Post .
Sky-gazers hoping to see the cosmic `` meeting '' this — the `` shortest day '' of the year in the Northern Hemisphere — should look just above the horizon in the southwest , about an hour after sunset , according to NASA .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ the naked eye , and if you have a telescope or binoculars , the planets will appear in the same field of view .
`` In fact , Saturn will appear as close to Jupiter as some of Jupiter 's moons , '' .
The next great conjunctions will appear on Nov. 2 , 2040 , and April 7 , 2060 , but during both of those events , the planets will appear 1.1 degrees apart , or 11 times farther than this month 's view , .
To see the next super-close @ @ @ @ @ @ @ maybe their children or grandchildren ) will have to wait until March 15 , 2080 .

On Dec. 21, sky gazers looking just above the horizon will see Saturn and Jupiter appearing very close to one another.
Saturn and Jupiter will appear to almost kiss this winter solstice, although not because of some cosmic mistletoe hanging overhead.
Rather, the two gas giants will look as though they're very close in the night sky in an event known as a "great conjunction," which happens roughly every 20 years. In reality, Saturn and Jupiter will be hundreds of millions of miles apart from each other.
This year's great conjunction will be exceptionally close — just a tenth of a degree apart, or one-fifth of a full moon's diameter. The last time Saturn and Jupiter looked this cozy was July 16, 1623, back when the famous Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei was alive, according to Space.com , a Live Science sister site.
Related: Cassini's greatest hits: Best photos of Saturn and its moons
Stargazers tracking Jupiter and Saturn since this summer will have noticed the planets slowly sidle up to each other. As the solar system's largest planet, Jupiter is usually one of the brightest planets, but lately it's been shining even more brightly, because of Saturn's close presence to its left (the east), Space.com reported.
In this close-up illustration, Jupiter and Saturn appear quite cozy when seen with binoculars. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)
The last great conjunction happened on May 28, 2000. The two planets appear to rendezvous so infrequently because their orbits are mismatched. Jupiter takes nearly 12 Earth years to circle the sun, and Saturn takes nearly 30. On top of that, these gaseous planets travel on differently tilted "tracks" around the sun, so they rarely appear this close to one another (at least from Earth's perspective) during great conjunctions, Michael Brown, an astronomer at Monash University in Australia, told The Washington Post.
Before the very close 1623 great conjunction, which was likely impossible to see from Earth because the planets appeared so close to the sun, the last visible and seemingly intimate meeting between Jupiter and Saturn happened in March 1226, Brown told the Post.
Sky-gazers hoping to see the cosmic "meeting" this winter solstice — the "shortest day" of the year in the Northern Hemisphere — should look just above the horizon in the southwest, about an hour after sunset, according to NASA. You should see the kissing planets with the naked eye, and if you have a telescope or binoculars, the planets will appear in the same field of view. "In fact, Saturn will appear as close to Jupiter as some of Jupiter's moons," NASA wrote in a statement .
The next great conjunctions will appear on Nov. 2, 2040, and April 7, 2060, but during both of those events, the planets will appear 1.1 degrees apart, or 11 times farther than this month's view, according to timeanddate.com . To see the next super-close great conjunction, sky watchers (or maybe their children or grandchildren) will have to wait until March 15, 2080.
Originally published on Live Science.