Using AI, Nasa discovers another solar system like ours; has 8 planets

A solar system with as many planets as our own has been discovered with the help of NASA's Kepler space telescope and artificial intelligence, the US space agency said.

"Our solar system now is tied for most number of planets around a single star," NASA said in a statement yesterday.

However, none of the planets are expected to be hospitable to life.

The eight-planet system -- the largest known outside of ours -- orbits a star called Kepler 90 some 2,545 light-years away.

"The Kepler-90 star system is like a mini version of our solar system," said Andrew Vanderburg, an astronomer at the University of Texas at Austin.

"You have small planets inside and big planets outside, but everything is scrunched in much closer."

The newly identified planet, Kepler-90i, is a rocky planet like Earth, but orbits its star once every 14.4 days, meaning a full year there is the same as two weeks on Earth.

"Kepler-90i is not a place I'd like to go visit, though," said Vanderburg.

"Its surface is likely far too hot."

NASA calculated its average temperature at about 426 degree Celsius -- as hot as Mercury, the closest planet to the Sun.

Scientists found it by using machine learning from Google.
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Volcano erupts in Bali; Indonesia shuts airport, 100,000 left stranded

Indonesia’s transportation ministry said on Tuesday it will extend the closure of Bali’s I Gusti Ngurah Rai International Airport for a further 24 hours because of ash from the eruption of the island’s Mount Agung volcano.

A report from local aviation navigation authorities showed that “aircraft flight channels are covered with volcanic ash” the ministry said in a statement.

Bali airport, about 60 km (37 miles) from the volcano, will be closed until 7 a.m. local time on November 29, it said.

Ten alternative airports have been prepared for airlines to divert inbound flights, including in neighboring provinces.

A separate notice showed Lombok airport had been reopened, after an earlier closure overnight due to the eruption.

Agung rises majestically over eastern Bali to a height of just over 3,000 meters (9,800 feet).

On Monday, authorities ordered 100,000 residents living near the volcano to evacuate immediately, warning that the first major eruption in 54 years could be “imminent”. An 8-10 km (5-6 miles) exclusion zone has been imposed around the summit.

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NASA's Hubble Space Telescope captures tiny Martian moon Phobos

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has beamed back images of the tiny Martian moon Phobos in its orbital trek around the red planet.

Over the course of 22 minutes, Hubble took 13 separate images, allowing astronomers to create a time-lapse video showing the diminutive moon's orbital path.

The Hubble observations were intended to photograph Mars, and the moon's cameo appearance was a bonus, scientists said.

A football-shaped object just 26x21x17 kilometres, Phobos is one of the smallest moons in the solar system.

The moon completes an orbit in just seven hours and 39 minutes, which is faster than Mars rotates.

Rising in the Martian west, it runs three laps around the Red Planet in the course of one Martian day, which is about 24 hours and 40 minutes.

It is the only natural satellite in the solar system that circles its planet in a time shorter than the parent planet's day.

About two weeks after the Apollo 11 manned lunar landing on July 20, 1969, NASA's Mariner 7 flew by the Red Planet and took the first crude close-up snapshot of Phobos.
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