Did you know one of Earth’s quasi-moons is a chunk of our actual moon? 🌕

A quasi-moon is a space rock that can appear from certain perspectives to be orbiting a planet. Earth has a few of these, including Kamoʻoalewa, discovered in 2016 and named for an "oscillating celestial object" in Hawaiian. Scientists believe it may be a chunk broken off from the moon when an impact created the Giordano Bruno crater about 10 million years ago! So here's the full picture: a piece of our moon, orbiting the Sun, that just happens to look like it's orbiting Earth.

A new drug is showing promise in treating Alzheimer’s! 🧠

The medication is called Diranersen and it targets tau tangles, toxic proteins connected to the disease. During this trial, the doctors were able to clear around 50% of these from patients’ spinal fluid, reducing the toxicity in the brain and slowing memory decline. What puzzles scientists now is the group that received the lowest dose of the drug showed the most improvement. With over 7 million Americans over the age of 65 affected by this illness, this is a huge leap in the right direction!

Up to 100 shooting stars per hour are about to light up the sky! 🌠

Active July 17 through August 24, the Perseid Meteor Shower hits its peak overnight August 12 to 13, when a completely new moon creates perfect viewing conditions. This year the Perseids also overlap with the Delta Aquariid meteor shower, stacking the odds in your favor for a sky full of streaks. Find dark skies, give your eyes time to adjust, and look up between midnight and dawn for the best show.

You can use a DIY cloud chamber to see radiation! ☢️

Alex Dainis shows us how to use uranium glass beads, sometimes called Vaseline glass. Uranium acts as a colorant in the glass, and most of its radiation stays trapped inside. But isopropyl alcohol and dry ice can still reveal it. As the alcohol condenses, charged particles leave visible tracks. With the beads inside, there's noticeably more activity than in tests without them. However, it's hard to say how much of this activity comes from the beads versus background radiation like cosmic rays.

A pair of planets with less density than cotton candy has been discovered! 🪐

One of NASA’s telescopes found two gas giants that can be classified in the rare “Super Puff” category. Despite being about the same size as Jupiter, they are a dozen times less dense. There are only a handful of these planets that we are aware of, and it is even more rare that they were found in the same star system.

You could see a shooting star every 3 minutes this summer! 

The Southern Delta Aquariid meteor shower is  active now through August 23, with it’s the peak activity during the early morning hours of July 31. Even better, it overlaps with the Alpha Capricornid Meteor Shower. The best views will be in the Southern Hemisphere and the southern United States. For the best chance of spotting meteors, head to a dark location away from city lights, let your eyes adjust, and look up.

Is a synthetic cell that eats, grows, and reproduces alive? 🧫

Researchers from the University of Minnesota have built a synthetic cell called “SpudCell” that performs three core functions of the cell cycle! It can grow, copy its own DNA and divide. However, they are not living. This is because they still depend on food and ribosomes to build proteins, they don’t have any immune defenses, and they can’t get rid of their own waste. Despite SpudCells not being alive, this is the closest we’ve gotten to turning dead chemistry to something living!

What is a rogue planet and how do they occur? 

Astrophysicist Erika Hamden explains how rogue planets are worlds that no longer orbit a star after being ejected from their planetary systems. Some may be several times more massive than Jupiter, and scientists think there could be countless rogue planets drifting through the darkness of interstellar space. These lonely worlds reveal that planet formation is a chaotic process.

This project is part of IF/THEN®, an initiative of Lyda Hill Philanthropies.

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