Duffy says climate science will ‘move aside,' with NASA only focusing on space exploration
'All the climate science and all of the other priorities that the last administration had at NASA we're going to move aside, and all of the science that we do is going to be directed towards exploration, which is the mission of NASA,' Duffy, who also leads the Transportation Department, told Fox Business.
'That's why we have NASA — is to explore, not to do all of these earth sciences,' he added.
NASA, which stands for the National Aeronautics and Space Agency, explores both air and space. It has historically conducted science related to both Earth and space, including climate science.
A pivot away from climate science is not necessarily a surprise — the Trump administration has sought to deny and downplay climate change's impacts and has moved to dismantle science research, including by dismissing scientists working on the National Climate Assessment.
But moving to get rid of all climate science at the agency may still be an escalation.
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TRAPPIST-1d isn't the Earth-like planet scientists had hoped it to be, according to JWST data
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"Science isn't about hoping for a yes, it's about finding what's real. So here we've learned that TRAPPIST-1d is not an Earth twin." Astronomers discovered the TRAPPIST-1 system about eight years ago with the now-retired Spitzer Space Telescope. Soon they made the swarming exoplanets a priority for investigating their potential for life, with all seven roughly the size of Earth. Scientists were particularly interested in finding out whether the TRAPPIST planets have atmospheres, because red dwarfs are the most ubiquitous kind of star in the Milky Way. If these planets can retain atmospheres, even while subjected to close-range blasts of stellar radiation, perhaps an abundance of other worlds out there could, too. When TRAPPIST-1b and TRAPPIST-1c didn't appear to have atmospheres, the research community wasn't deterred, as neither sibling planet was predicted to have one, given how close they are to the star. 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Variability in the light signals can obscure or even imitate signals coming from a planet. After correcting for this problem in the data, the researchers found no clear signs of gases. That means scientists can rule out certain types of atmospheres, like the thick hydrogen-rich atmosphere of Neptune, or a cloud-free atmosphere akin to that of early Earth. But a few other potential scenarios could explain the results without the planet having to be a barren rock. It could have an extremely thin atmosphere, sort of like Mars, that would be difficult to detect with this method, Piaulet-Ghorayeb said, or it could have thick, high-altitude clouds blocking atmospheric signatures, perhaps like Venus. "We also learned something about what the best way to even look for water in the atmosphere of these temperate planets might be," she said. "Maybe transmission spectroscopy isn't it." Whether red dwarf stars, sometimes called M-type, can harbor planets with atmospheres is a key question for Webb to answer. The observatory has begun a massive study of rocky worlds, first reported by Mashable, specifically to figure out if planets orbiting closely around them could have air. Rather than transmission spectroscopy, the survey will rely on a different method, called the secondary eclipse technique, which avoids some of the stellar contamination issues. The team says not to give up on the TRAPPIST system just yet. After all, planets E, F, G, and H could have a better chance of holding onto their atmospheres because they're farther from the star's flares, which can strip away a planet's atmosphere. In particular, TRAPPIST researchers are looking forward to studying E, the fourth planet from the star. The challenge for Webb will be overcoming the planets' more extreme distance and colder environments, which make atmospheric readings more difficult. What makes Piaulet-Ghorayeb hopeful about the continued quest for rocky worlds with water and air is the milestone achieved. "For the first time, if there had been an Earth-like atmosphere on a temperate terrestrial planet, we could have found it," she said. "And I don't think that in any study before, with any instrument that we had before, we could really get to that level of precision." Solve the daily Crossword
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Opinion - Sean Duffy is doing his a great job at NASA, but it might not be enough
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