Finding indicators of life on Jupiter's icy moon Europa will likely be more complicated than just taking snapshots of the world's surface, a new study suggests.
Why it matters: Europa is thought to be one of the best places to search for life in the solar system, with its subsurface ocean that could be habitable, but scientists are learning more about just how difficult it might be to actually find those signs of life.
Low-income residents and communities of color in the U.S. face much higher and more dangerous urban heat extremes than people living in richer and whiter city neighborhoods, new peer-reviewed research shows.
Driving the news: Areas with higher rates of poverty can see summer land surface temperatures up to a whopping 4°C, or 7°F, higher than the richest areas, the paper in Earth's Futurefinds.
Billionaire entrepreneurs are fundamentally changing the public's relationship with space.
Why it matters: Richard Branson and Jeff Bezosare thrusting the industry into a new era of marketing for mass appeal, angling to make citizens into customers and changing the rhetoric around space in the process.
Lawsuits filed Monday are seeking damages from Dow Chemical and its successor company over a bug killer that allegedly causes brain damage in children, AP reports.
Why it matters: Chlorpyrifos is approved for use on over 80 crops, per AP. But studies show the pesticide damages the brains of fetuses and children. It was banned for household use in 2001.
The latest in a series of severe heat waves to affect the West continues Monday, although conditions are not expected to be quite as extreme as they were during the weekend.
The big picture: The heat, combined with a deepening drought and lightning strikes, has set more than 1 million acres of land in California, Oregon, Washington, and Canada ablaze, with smoke obscuring the skies thousands of miles away.
Wildfires were burning across more than 768,000 acres of land in 12 western U.S. states, and over 500,000 acres in Canada on Sunday amid another searing heat wave.
Driving the news: Many of the wildfires started when a severe heat wave erupted in June and lasted into July, first hitting southwestern British Columbia before migrating eastward.
