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Weekend Reads - RAW 171006

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It's space week, so I've added an article about non-fiction books on space, my favourite being the one from the guy who killed Pluto as a planet. There's also an article about a possible ocean on Pluto's largest moon, one on how how many planets that could feasibly fit into a planetary habitable zone and for space travel, a veggie burger that bleds and tastes like meat, and more.

So when it's time to relax this weekend, grab your favourite beverage and have a read of the following articles.

Don't forget to check out some of my latest posts:






Now, with Space Week upon us, I wanted to share some of the best nonfiction books about space. These books have moved me, inspired me, even sometimes made me cry. They’ve made me frustrated with the rut our crewed space program seems stuck in while also being inspired by where we’ve been and where we can go from here. If you’re interested in books about space, these are some of the best of the best.

Pluto's moon Charon is the best sidekick a dwarf planet could hope for: Unwavering in its loyalty, content to be a minor character in somebody else's narrative. But two years after the New Horizons flyby, the largest of Pluto's five moons is finally getting some well-deserved time in the spotlight. New research suggests that Charon's storied history includes tectonic activity, cryovolcanism and, perhaps, a globe-spanning ocean.

A few months ago, astronomers announced the discovery of the spectacular TRAPPIST-1 7-planet system. Its central star is puny, just 8 percent the mass of our sun, 2,000 times fainter, and about the size of Jupiter. All seven planets are roughly Earth-sized, and they orbit extremely close to their star. The most exciting thing is, at least three (and perhaps up to four or five) live in the star’s habitable zone—if all stars had planetary systems like TRAPPIST-1, Earth would be 3.

Biting into an Impossible Burger is to bite into a future in which humanity has to somehow feed an exploding population and not further imperil the planet with ever more livestock.

We live in a fallen world, where awful, incomprehensible things happen. When an obvious and egregious injustice such as this one is done, we should stand where God does and see this as real evil, not as an illusion of evil. This means that our response to such should not be some sort of Stoic resignation but instead a lament with those around us who are hurting.


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