NEWS IN BRIEF

Wet Jupiter

Water makes up 0.25 per cent of Jupiter’s atmosphere – around three times the levels in the Sun – according to recent observations from NASA’s Juno spacecraft. Water helps control how planets grow. As Jupiter was the first planet to form,

understanding how much water it has helps to determine how much was in the early Solar System.

Spaceport protested

Plans to build a Scottish spaceport have been criticised by environmental group Extinction Rebellion as

reckless. Following an official

submission to develop the

site, which would launch up to 12 satellites a year, the

group raised concerns that it could endanger nearby

peatland, Flow County –

which is in the running for World Heritage Site status.

Evidence of aliens?

On 14 February, a Berkeley SETI Research Center

project hunting for alien

transmissions, Breakthrough Listen, made over two

petabytes of radio and optical observations public. This is the second release by

the project, this time making

radio data from the plane of the Milky Way available. See

bit.ly/SETIdata for details.