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Betelgeuse, one of the best-known stars in our sky, is actually much closer and smaller than we’d realised, astronomers have said.In fact, it might be another 100,000 years until it dies in an explosion, according to a new study. The research suggests that the star is actually much further from its end than many had thought.”It’s normally one of the brightest stars in the sky, but we’ve observed two drops in the brightness of Betelgeuse since late 2019,” said Meredith Joyce from the Australian National University, who led the study.”This prompted speculation it could be about to explode. But our study offers a different explanation. We know the first dimming event involved a dust cloud. We found the second smaller event was likely due to the pulsations of the star.” But as they did that research, the astronomers found that the star is actually smaller than we had realised. After calculating the star’s actual size, researchers re-evaluated how near it could be – and discovered that its relative proximity had tricked us.Read more”The actual physical size of Betelgeuse has been a bit of a mystery – earlier studies suggested it could be bigger than the orbit of Jupiter. Our results say Betelgeuse only extends out to two thirds of that, with a radius 750 times the radius of the Sun,” said László Molnár from the Konkoly Observatory in Budapest, a co-author on the paper.”Once we had the physical size of the star, we were able to determine the distance from Earth. Our results show it’s a mere 530 light-years from us — 25 percent closer than previously thought.” The star is still not so near that it would pose any danger on Earth when it explodes. But it is close enough that studying it will give detailed information on what happens to stars before they do, scientists said.”It’s still a really big deal when a supernova goes off. And this is our closest candidate. It gives us a rare opportunity to study what happens to stars like this before they explode,” said Dr Joyce in a. statement. 

On 22 September, the three astronauts serving aboard the International Space Station (ISS) were ordered to shelter near an escape craft in the Russian segment of the station. Nasa had detected a large piece of space debris heading towards them and initiated emergency thrusters to avoid what it called a “possible conjunction” with the object.It was the third time since January that the space station had been forced into an unscheduled manoeuvre, and once again highlighted the ever-growing issue of rogue debris in Earth’s orbit. Earlier this week, space junk tracker LeoLabs issued a warning that another major collision could be about to take place.Part of a discarded Chinese rocket and a decommissioned Soviet satellite were on course to pass within 25 metres of each other, with a 10 per cent probability of collision. Their combined mass of 2,800kg, together with a relative velocity of 53,000km/h, meant any collision would be catastrophic.“This is a potentially serious event,” former astronaut and LeoLabs co-founder Ed Lu said.”It is between two large objects and at high altitude, 991km. If there is a collision there will be lots of debris which will remain in orbit for a long time.”The hundreds – potentially thousands – of pieces of debris resulting from the crash would have exploded in different directions, creating countless more collision possibilities. Astronomer Jonathan McDowell, who is based at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, said it would increase the amount of space debris by “10 to 20 per cent”.A 1978 study by Nasa scientist Donald Kessler warned that the domino effect of such an event could create an impenetrable layer of debris that would make terrestrial space launches impossible – essentially trapping us on Earth.The research prompted Nasa to set up the Orbital Debris Program a year later, aimed at developing ways to monitor space junk and develop ways to remove it.The issue has only gotten worse since. There are currently an estimated 200,000 objects between 0.4 and 4 inches, and tens of thousands of objects larger than 4 inches, according to the United States Space Surveillance Network.

It’s part of an investigation into the influencer industry the watchdog launched two years ago. Regulators are concerned that Instagram wasn’t doing enough under consumer protection laws to stop hidden advertising, which is illegal in the U.K. They want to make it harder to mislead people with posts that aren’t labeled as ads. Influencers are online personalities with thousands of followers who can earn hefty fees from brands for endorsing or reviewing their products or services.“These changes mean there will be no excuse for businesses to overlook how their brands are being advertised either – making life a lot harder for those who are not upfront and honest with their followers,” CMA Chief Executive Andrea Coscelli said. Under the new policy, Instagram will ask users to confirm if they’re getting a reward for promoting a product or service and if they are, make them disclose it clearly.The company will also start using technology and algorithms to spot users who haven’t clearly revealed that their posts are advertisements, and then report those users to the businesses they’re promoting. Instagram is also opening up its “paid partnership” tool, so that any user can display a label at the top of a post. The changes apply to all U.K.-based users as well as anyone globally who is targeting Instagram users in the U.K. As part of its investigation, the competition authority last year secured formal commitments from 16 celebrities, including singers Ellie Goulding and Rita Ora, to label any posts that involved payments for or gifts of products they were pitching.

Slack appears to have stopped working properly again, with users seeing messages appear out of order – or not at all.The workplace chat app has been hit by a run of problems in recent weeks, often relating to users being able to read their messages as usual.Slack’s status page confirmed that it was aware of the issues and was working to find a fix.“Some users are struggling to connect to Slack, or facing trouble with the app operating slowly,” the company wrote. “We are currently investigating, and apologise for the inconvenience caused.”Updates that followed suggested that the company was struggling to find the cause of the issues. Some 90 minutes after they had begun, it posted an update suggesting that it had not yet identified the problem let alone any possible fix.Read more”We’re still investigating the cause of the performance issues that users may be facing,” it wrote.The problems come as many workplaces have moved to relying on apps like Slack and Zoom to keep their employees in contact through lockdowns and other measures.