Science This Week | Webb confirms its first exoplanet, Greenland faced warmest decade in thousand years and more

Find the latest news and updates in the world of science.

This week has been full of new findings and studies in the world of science. From the Webb Telescope confirming its first planet to finding microbes that eat viruses for nourishment, catch all the latest updates here.

Using data from the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT), scientists from India and Canada have detected a radio signal emanating from atomic hydrogen of a distant galaxy. Atomic hydrogen emits radio waves of 21 cm wavelength which can be traced by low frequency radio telescopes. As the radio signal detected by the scientists is extremely weak, it is possible that it is being emitted from a distant galaxy. 

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) kicked off the year by confirming its first exoplanet ever. The exoplanet, named LHS 475 b, is nearly the same size as our home planet with its diameter being 99% of Earth’s. At a distance of 41 light-years away (quite close by astronomical standards), the exoplanet is located in the Octans constellation and was observed relatively easily by the JWST.

Scientists used a laser beam to guide lightning for the first time in the hopes of avoiding deaths due to deadly bolts. Lightning strikes between 40-120 times a second worldwide and kills and damages property, yet the lightning rod is the primary protection against them. The equipment, built by the scientists, shot a laser beam from the top of a Swiss mountain that guided a lightning bolt for more than 50 metres. 

A new study by researchers at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln have said that a particular genus of plankton can eat viruses as well as “grow and divide given only viruses to eat”. Though other cells have been known to consume viruses to destroy them, plankton of genus Halteria, “eat” viruses to fulfil their biological needs. They have been found to ingest 10,000 to a million viruses a day and the use the energy generated to increase their population and also provide food for zooplanktons. 

In what is to be believed the world’s oldest runestone, archaeologists in Norway have found a runestone that was inscribed almost 2,000 years ago. Carbon dating the objects found around the runestone suggested that it was carved sometime between 1 AD and 250 AD. The brown sandstone rock measuring about 30 by 30 cm was found in a burial site near Tyrifjorden, Norway. 

Researchers have found that the 2001 to 2011 decade was the warmest in the last thousand years at high elevations of the Greenland Ice Sheet. The region was 1.5 degree Celsius than the previous century. Analysing ice cores from the area, researchers have found that if global emission rate is not curbed, the ice sheet is projected to contribute up to 50 cm to global mean sea-level by 2100,