Month: January 2017

Enlarge / Venus, as seen by the Akatsuki spacecraft, displaying the bow-shaped feature. Lighter colors reflect higher light emissions; the white regions are about 233 Kelvin. (credit: ©Planet-C)

The Akatsuki spacecraft arrived in orbit of Venus in December 2015, and it quickly captured a very strange feature: an atmospheric disturbance in the shape of a bow. The feature is enormous, stretching from the planet’s north pole to its south (10,000 kilometers, or 6,200 miles in total), and it's visible in both infrared and (dimly) ultraviolet light.

Images from this mission were recently released, and researchers have had the chance to review them and do some science. They’ve concluded that the mysterious structure is probably a gravity wave, caused by mountains on the surface and propagating up into the atmosphere. It’s “the only reasonable interpretation,” according to a new paper on the feature.

Gravity waves—not to be confused with gravitational waves, the kind recently observed by LIGO—are waves in a fluid, like water or air, caused by gravity. When some of the fluid is displaced upwards, gravity tries to correct it and restore equilibrium, a process that creates waves. The Earth’s atmosphere also has gravity waves created by the influence of mountains, which displace air upwards.

Enlarge / Donald Trump takes the oath of office Friday, becoming the 45th president of the United States.

Donald J. Trump won the US presidency in November on a campaign that repudiated both his opponent and the Obama administration. Today he took the oath of office and became the nation's 45th president—despite the political pundits and polls predicting victory for his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton.

The Republican's ascendancy from billionaire real estate mogul to the world's most powerful elected official promises to usher in a new era, one that includes a remaking of the Supreme Court and alterations of US policy when it comes to space, broadband, healthcare, manufacturing, immigration, cyber defense, the environment, and even foreign relations (from diplomacy to the reliance on foreign labor enjoyed by companies like Apple). All of these potential changes only seem more imminent due to the fact that the newly inaugurated Trump, and his Vice President Mike Pence, enjoy a GOP-controlled House and Senate.

Space: The final frontier

As president-elect, Trump already named several key posts in his administration. But one pick that is still to come has star-gazers sitting uneasy—we don't currently know who will lead NASA and replace Charles Bolden.

Enlarge (credit: Chris Young)

AT&T has raised its non-contract phone activation and upgrade fee from $20 to $25, the latest increase for a fee that didn't even exist until July 2015.

As the mobile carrier switched from contracts to device payment plans, AT&T initially did not charge an activation and upgrade fee for customers who brought their own phone or bought one from AT&T on an installment plan. But in July 2015, AT&T started charging a $15 activation fee to customers who don't sign two-year contracts. (AT&T also raised the activation/upgrade fee for contract customers from $40 to $45 in July 2015.).

The activation fee for non-contract customers was raised from $15 to $20 in April 2016 and was just raised again to $25, PhoneScoop reported today. The $25 fee is charged for new activations or upgrades when customers purchase devices on installment agreements, AT&T says. Customers who bring their own phone to the network are charged the $25 fee when they activate a new line of service, but not when they upgrade phones on an existing line.