When a meteor speeds into Earth’s atmosphere, it lights up due to intense friction with the air—generating extreme heat. That heat makes the meteor glow, but here's the cool part: the color of that glow tells us what it's made of!

Just like fireworks, different elements shine in different colors when heated. As the meteor blazes through the sky at tens of kilometers per second, atoms in both the meteor and the surrounding air get excited—and they release light in specific wavelengths. The result? A fiery, colorful display that reveals the meteor’s chemical makeup.

#MeteorShower #SpaceScience #WhyItGlows #AstroFacts

Salar de Uyuni is the largest salt flat on Earth, covering approximately 10,582 square kilometers (4,086 square miles).

It is located in the southwestern part of Bolivia, near the crest of the Andes at an elevation of about 3,656 meters (11,995 feet) above sea level.

Key Features:

Geological Origin: Salar de Uyuni was formed as a result of the gradual evaporation of prehistoric lakes, primarily
Lake Minchin, which once covered the area. Over thousands of years, layers of salt and minerals were left behind.

Endorheic Basin: It is an endorheic basin, meaning it has no outlet to rivers or oceans, so water only leaves through evaporation, concentrating the salts.

Salt Crust: The flat has a crust of salt up to 10 meters thick, beneath which lies a brine rich in lithium, making the area a major source of this important mineral.

Mirror Effect: During the rainy season (usually December to April), a thin layer of water can cover the salt flat, creating a perfect mirror effect that reflects the sky, making it a surreal and otherworldly landscape.

Tourism and Culture: Salar de Uyuni is a major tourist destination, attracting visitors for its unique landscape, natural beauty, and the famous train graveyard near the town of Uyuni.

Slovak Bryndzové Halušky – Potato Dumplings with Sheep Cheese

The national dish of Slovakia — soft potato dumplings mixed with tangy bryndza sheep cheese and topped with fried bacon.

Ingredients (Serves 3):

• 500g potatoes, grated
• 150g all-purpose flour
• 200g bryndza cheese (or feta as substitute)
• 100g bacon, diced
• Salt

Instructions:

1. Mix grated potatoes with flour and a pinch of salt to form a sticky dough.
2. Drop small portions into boiling salted water; cook until dumplings float (\~3 mins).
3. Fry diced bacon until crispy.
4. Drain dumplings and mix with bryndza cheese.
5. Top with fried bacon and serve immediately.

Slovak Tip:
Serve with sour cream or chives for added flavor.

A remarkable scientific breakthrough has enabled a man who lost his ability to speak to communicate in real time using a brain-computer interface (BCI) that converts his brain activity directly into synthetic speech.

This system, developed by researchers at the University of California, Davis, uses electrodes implanted in the man's brain to detect neural signals associated with intended speech.

These brain signals are instantly interpreted and transformed into vocalized speech using artificial intelligence.

The BCI achieves near-instantaneous synthesis—within just 25 milliseconds—making the communication feel natural and conversational.

The resulting synthetic voice is capable of reflecting variations in pitch, emphasis, and intonation, which are critical elements for emotional expression and natural conversation.

According to Sergey Stavisky, a neuroscientist involved in the project, this is the first instance of a system that can produce real-time, expressive voice directly from neural activity.

This technology not only allows the patient to converse but even enables singing, demonstrating its fluidity and expressiveness.

The implications are vast: this could restore meaningful communication to people with conditions like ALS, brainstem stroke, or spinal cord injury, where speech capability is lost.

This research builds upon earlier BCI efforts but sets a new bar in terms of immediacy and speech quality.

It marks a significant step toward giving a natural voice back to individuals with severe physical limitations

WASP-121 b, an exoplanet located 855 light-years from Earth, is one of the most extreme worlds ever discovered. This scorching hot Jupiter is tidally locked to its star, with one side eternally scorched and the other cloaked in night.

On its blistering day side, temperatures soar above 3,000 K (2,700°C / 4,900°F), while the night side cools to around 1,500 K (1,226°C / 2,240°F). This dramatic contrast fuels violent winds that rip across the planet at incredible speeds, dragging atoms and water molecules from day to night.

On the cooler night side, metal clouds begin to form—composed of vanadium, iron, chromium, calcium, sodium, magnesium, and nickel. Scientists believe aluminum and oxygen may bond to create corundum—the mineral that, when laced with traces of other metals, forms liquid rubies and sapphires that may rain down from the sky.

Researchers aim to use the James Webb Space Telescope to search for carbon monoxide, unlocking new clues about the formation of hot Jupiters like WASP-121 b.

RESEARCH PAPER
Thomas Mikal-Evans et al., Diurnal variations in the stratosphere of the ultrahot giant exoplanet WASP-121b, Nature Astronomy (2022)