Latest news with #Kepler
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Sells 3.3 Million in 33 Days — Not Bad for a Game Some Thought Was Going to Get Crushed by The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has hit another impressive milestone: 3.3 million sales in 33 days. That's a lot of threes! Publisher Kepler Interactive and developer Sandfall Interactive announced the sales today, after the turn-based RPG crossed 1 million sales in its first three days of release. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 launched on April 24 across PC and console, but also straight into Xbox Game Pass as a day-one title. It also launched up against Bethesda's RPG behemoth The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered. But despite being in a subscription service and having that tough competition, Clair Obscur has carved out a significant slice of sales success for itself. It's worth noting the 3.3 million sales figure does not include additional downloads through Xbox and PC Game Pass. Kepler declared Clair Obscur 'a commercial success' and 'a feat for an independent production.' 'The game was developed by a small studio made up of around 30 core team members, some of whom were working on a video game project for the very first time,' Kepler added. When Bethesda shadow-dropped The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered amid the launch of fellow role-playing game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, most thought there could be only one winner. However, it turned out that there was plenty of room for both games to succeed. Indeed, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has done so well that French President Macron has praised the development team. Be sure to check out our tips for the important things to know before heading into the game. Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ or confidentially at wyp100@
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Science
- Yahoo
A hidden 'super-Earth' exoplanet is dipping in and out of its habitable zone
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. A huge "super-Earth" with an extreme climate that results in it being habitable for only part of its orbit has been discovered orbiting a star 2,472 light years away. And the most remarkable thing is, it was discovered without even being directly detected. The discovery of the exoplanet, a super-Earth called Kepler-735c, is all down to something called transit timing variations, or TTVs for short. Let's set the scene. One of the primary ways of discovering exoplanets is by looking for when they transit, or pass in front of, their star. As they do so, they block a small fraction of that star's light, and, based on the size of this dip in stellar brightness, we can determine how large the transiting planet must be. Indeed, this was how the most successful exoplanet hunter so far, NASA's Kepler space telescope, discovered over 3,300 confirmed exoplanets and thousands more candidates. There are downsides to detecting exoplanets via transits, however. One is that the technique is biased toward planets on short orbits close to their star, which means they transit more often and are easier to see. Transits also require a precise alignment between the orbital plane of a planetary system and our line of sight. Even a small tilt might mean we cannot see planets on wider orbits transiting. Those unseen planets on wider orbits can still make their presence felt, however, in the form of TTVs. Ordinarily, transits are as regular as clockwork, but in some cases astronomers have noticed that a planet's transit can be delayed, or occur ahead of schedule, and that this is being caused by the gravity of other planets tugging on the transiting world. Sometimes we can see those other planets transiting as well — the seven-planet TRAPPIST-1 system is a great example. Often, though, we can't see the planet that is causing the variations, but the size and frequency of the TTVs can tell us about the orbital period and mass of these hidden worlds. One such planet that has been found to experience TTVs is Kepler-725b. It's a gas giant planet orbiting a yellow sun-like star that was discovered by the now-defunct Kepler spacecraft. "By analyzing the TTV signals of Kepler-725b, a gas giant planet with a 39.64-day period in the same system, the team has successfully inferred the mass and orbital parameters of the hidden planet Kepler-725c," Sun Leilei, of the Yunnan Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said in a statement. Sun is the lead author of a new study revealing the existence of this hidden world. Kepler-725c's mass is quite significant — 10 times greater than the mass of Earth. This places it in the upper echelons of a type of planet called super-Earths — giant, probably rocky worlds. We don't have an example of a super-Earth in our solar system, so we don't really know what such planets are like. Planetary scientists are still grappling with theoretical models that attempt to describe the properties of super-Earth worlds. Would they be wrapped in a dense atmosphere? Could they maintain plate tectonics? How would their higher surface gravity affect the evolution of life? Definitive answers to these questions have not yet been forthcoming. Meanwhile, the planet's orbit is unusual to say the least. It is highly elliptical, with an eccentricity of 0.44. For comparison, Earth's orbit has an eccentricity of 0.0167 and is therefore close to circular; at the other extreme, an orbital eccentricity of 1 would be parabolic. Kepler-7825c's orbit is oval-shaped, meaning that at some points in its orbit it is much closer to its star than at other times. While overall Kepler-725c receives 1.4 times as much heat from its star as Earth does from the sun, this is just the average over the course of its orbit, and at times it is receiving less. If Kepler-725c has an atmosphere, then the difference in solar heating at different times in its orbit could wreak havoc on its climate. In fact, the high orbital eccentricity actually means that the exoplanet only spends part of its orbit in the habitable zone, which is a circular zone around the star at a distance where temperatures are suitable for liquid water on a planet's surface. Related Stories: — Exoplanets: Everything you need to know about the worlds beyond our solar system — Scientists discover super-Earth exoplanets are more common in the universe than we thought — Does exoplanet K2-18b host alien life or not? Here's why the debate continues Does this mean that Kepler-725c is only habitable for part of its 207.5-Earth-day year? What would happen to any life that might exist on the planet during the periods that it is outside of the habitable zone? Again, these are theoretical problems that scientists have been wrestling with, but now the existence of Kepler-725c suddenly makes them very real problems. However, because we do not see Kepler-725c transit, it will not be possible to probe its atmosphere with the James Webb Space Telescope, which uses sunlight filtered through a planet's atmosphere to make deductions about the properties and composition of that atmosphere. Fortunately, there may be more such worlds out there to study. It is expected that when the European Space Agency's PLATO (PLAnetary Transits and Oscillations of stars) spacecraft launches in 2026 as our most sensitive exoplanet-detecting mission yet, it will be able to find many more worlds through TTVs. And, unlike radial velocity and transit measurements, which tend to be biased toward finding short-period exoplanets, TTVs open a window onto planets on wider orbits that are not seen to transit. "[Kepler-725c's discovery] demonstrates the potential of the TTV technique to detect low-mass planets in habitable zones of sun-like stars," said Sun. By doing so, the TTV method will help further the search for life in the universe, if only in providing more statistics as to the numbers of habitable zone planets that are out there. The discovery of Kepler-725c was reported on Tuesday (June 3) in the journal Nature Astronomy.
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Yahoo
Intel "Xe4" and AMD "GFX13" codenames surface for next-gen 'Druid' GPUs
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. It seems that the software divisions at AMD and Intel are setting the stage for their next-generation GPU offerings. The internal codenames for these GPUs, Intel's Xe4 and AMD's GFX13, have been spotted by Kepler and x86isdeadandback at X, as noted by VideoCardz. While this does not allude to the specifications, it shows that both teams are actively pouring resources into the development of their future graphics products. Intel officially confirmed its fourth-generation Arc GPUs would be codenamed Druid, employing the Xe4 architecture, a while back. The firm has been notably quiet regarding its future GPU roadmap following Alchemist. With limited pre-launch hype, the desktop launch of Battlemage (Xe2) last December was also somewhat of a surprise. That being said, the successor to Battlemage, codenamed Celestial (Xe3), will arrive with Intel's Panther Lake CPUs, which are scheduled for HVM (High Volume Manufacturing) later this year. Based on employee reports, Celestial has reportedly reached pre-silicon validation, where hardware design flaws are identified and resolved before committing to manufacturing. Tom Peterson's comments support this, stating Celestial's hardware is "baked", with software optimization the remaining task. He also added that the hardware teams have moved on to the next project, Druid (Xe4). Based on commits to the Dawn repository, developers are starting to integrate support for Xe4, which should fall under Intel's Gen15 umbrella. Internally, AMD uses GFXxx codenames to represent or identify different GPU IP blocks. We often find these designations, tied to the GPU architecture, like GFX12 for RDNA 4, in Linux kernel patches or firmware packages. According to a patch shared by leaker Kepler, AMD's next-generation GPUs will be part of the GFX13 series. As of now, the exact architecture has not been revealed, so the likely choices are between UDNA 1 and RDNA 5. AMD has outlined its intent to unify the genome of its gaming-centric RDNA and compute-centric CDNA families under the banner of UDNA, similar to Vega. For comparison, Nvidia has taken a mixed approach with its products. Volta and Turing were separate architectures for data centers and consumers. Ampere combined the two foundations, but with the rise of generative AI, Nvidia dissected the two again with Hopper and Ada Lovelace. Blackwell now serves as the unified backbone of these two segments. A unified architecture leads to simplified development and better software support, but it might require compromising on specialized applications, which in this case will probably be gaming, if not carefully handled. That being said, we're still several years away from both of these GPU launches. Since Celestial on desktop is anticipated for a 2026-27 reveal, it would be logical to expect Druid to follow sometime in 2028 or later. Assuming AMD adheres to its typical two-year cadence between GPU launches, desktop products based on GFX13 might be slated for late 2026 or early 2027. Follow Tom's Hardware on Google News to get our up-to-date news, analysis, and reviews in your feeds. Make sure to click the Follow button.
Yahoo
02-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Penn State planning on removal of Kepler Barn after failed fundraiser
PINE GROVE MILLS, Pa. (WTAJ) — After months of fundraising, the effort to raise money to save Kepler Barn was unsuccessful. Penn State initially planned to tear down the barn, but after community outcry, decided to delay the decision. The university gave the community until June 1 to raise $500,000, saying that would be the cost to maintain the barn. A university spokesperson confirmed to WTAJ that the campaign was unsuccessful, saying the Historic Barn and Farm Foundation of PA was 'unable to meet the agreed upon fundraising target for stabilizing the barn.' With the deadline passed, the university will now begin 'exploring options for the barn's eventual removal.' The spokesperson notes the planning will include considerations for 'potential avenues to salvage and reuse materials from the original barn.' In the statement, the spokesperson wrote that no date has been set for when the barn will come down. On the fundraiser's website, it says that if the campaign is unsuccessful, 'all donors will be contacted to determine their preference for the use of the money.' The full statement from Penn State reads: 'While we greatly appreciate the fundraising efforts led by the Historic Barn and Farm Foundation of PA (HBFF), they have informed us that they were unable to meet the agreed upon fundraising target for stabilizing the barn. Since the fundraising target was not met, we will now begin exploring options for the barn's eventual removal, but no specific dates have been set. Included in that planning will be considering potential avenues to salvage and reuse materials from the original barn. Please note that Penn State, through the Pasto Agricultural Museum, has been working to preserve the legacy of the Kepler farm and the dozen other family farms that now make up the 2,220-acre Russell E. Larson Agricultural Research Center at Rock Springs. Museum staff and student interns are nearing completion of the first phase of the 'Land and Legacy of Rock Springs' initiative, which will launch at Ag Progress Days 2025 with an interactive exhibit, digital story map, and physical artifacts aimed to preserve local agricultural heritage. ' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
New York Times
02-06-2025
- General
- New York Times
Scientific Discoveries, and Dreams, in the Balance
One of the joys of science journalism is in seeing dreams come true — watching scientists push their career chips across the table, on behalf of a vision or a mission that will take years to achieve, and finally win. Their stories are sagas of passion, curiosity and sacrifice. William Borucki, a space scientist who didn't have a Ph.D., and his collaborator, David Koch, spent 20 years trying to convince NASA that a space telescope could find planets by detecting their shadows on other stars. NASA rejected their proposal five times until ultimately relenting. 'It's a wonderful thing to have someone tell you over and over again everything that is wrong with your experiment,' Mr. Borucki once said. He changed the galaxy: The Kepler satellite, launched in 2009, discovered more than 4,000 exoplanets in a small patch of the Milky Way, suggesting that there were as many as 40 billion potentially habitable planets in the Milky Way alone. Scientists involved in the effort to detect the space-time ripples known as gravitational waves tell a similar story. In the 1970s and 80s, when Rainer Weiss, a physicist at M.I.T., and Kip Thorne of Caltech started talking to the National Science Foundation about the possibility of observing these waves, 'everybody thought we were out of our minds,' Dr. Weiss once said. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
