So, that's the impression the headline and summary gives, but if you RTFA, it does state that the current meshugas is not responsible for this. But it's not at all clear from the article that the cancellation predates this by quite a bit; several years. Studies of it began in tandem with development of Europa Clipper, but ultimately there wasn't enough funding for both, and that we weren't ready for it at this point.

It's not like there's hardware already built and ready to send up, either. Yes, there were studies, but the lander never even got to Phase A (Concept and Technology Development), which would have required a new start from Congress.

It's also not at all clear to me that you'd even want to send the same hardware to Enceladus that you'd designed for Europa. They both would land on ocean worlds, but apart from that, this would appear to be an entirely new mission concept.

Maybe you can't. Sounds like a skill issue to me.

Europa Clipper will have three principal investigations dedicated to probing the interior. The Europa Clipper Magnetometer will measure the induced magnetic field to constrain the salinity and thickness of the ocean. The ice-penetrating radar (REASON) will characterize the subsurface structure, constraining the thickness of the ice. The gravity and radio science experiment will track the tidal deformation of the ice shell, further constraining its thickness and rigidity. See this paper for more details.

In my case, my brain simply processes written text more easily than speech. There's not actually anything wrong with my hearing. But even with older stuff, even with perfect sound quality, I prefer to have the captions on. If I'm after information, I'd much rather read it than get it from a video. I'd rather read a paper than sit through a talk. And I vastly prefer text / email / slack / any form of messaging to a phone call.

Not at all. You just put it in a sippy cup. Prevents spillage if it slips out of your soapy hands. Super classy.

I can neither confirm nor deny that allegation.

Oof. Please, no! As someone who has gone to the grocery store during this time, those Instacart folks just make it worse for everyone else. Barreling around corners like their shopping cart is some kind of rig in a Mad Max movie. Blocking vast sections while they scan and bag their various items. Clogging up isles and crashing into me because they're too busy looking at their phones (ok, this last item is true of regular shoppers, but they seem to at least apologize when they notice).

Of course, that just drives more people to give it up and shop at home, and the cycle continues.

This! Also, even if the temperate region migrates north, the growing seasons (based on when in the year you have how much sunlight) will not shift accordingly. So it's not like the same crops can necessarily shift north even if the surface area were comparable.

It also is not really a metal asteroid. It was thought to be mostly metal when the mass was first measured, but as measurements improved, that's been revised downward. It's bulk density is around 4 g cm-3. So while there would be a substantial metal component, it's would have to be mostly rock. Unless it's really porous.

100 years Earth time. Because of relativity, if you were actually traveling at the speed of light, the trip would take no time at all in your reference frame.

I felt like back in the day (20-30 years ago) CNN was fairly centrist. Nowadays, it seems like it's just sensationalist. Doesn't really fit neatly on a left-right scale, they just go for what they think is more dramatic. It used to be my go-to for news, but I've given up on them. I find it hard to extract any actual information from their stories. This is all my own interpretation and I have nothing to back this up objectively.

OK, but you're gonna want to wear gloves to do that.

Well, that's an intellectually dishonest position, if ever there was one. It's bulls**t and you KNOW it's bulls**t. No, it's not over globally. But we know what DOESN'T work. And that's leaving it up to individuals to police themselves.

New Zealand locked down and they've basically crushed it. Sweden elected not to do much, and they're not doing so great wrt their neighbors.

Even in the US, there are clear correlations. In states that have implemented masking requirements, infection rates are way down. In states that leave it up to individual citizen, it's way up. No, the masks don't protect the wearers that well. What they do is protect everyone else. So leaving management of this disease up to individual choice doesn't work. Collective actions do. But that requires that we care about other people, and that's not what this country is about.

I'm not sure that would help much. The derivative of an exponential function is... another exponential function.

Any instances of "the," which have been removed from these places are prepended to highways. In the US, we take I-95 to New York (but please don't do this right now). In the UK, they take the A420 to Oxford.