This Week In Science

It’s time for “Nerd News,” covering the most important news for your brain.

Here’s a quick rundown of this week in science . . .

1.  How many ants would you guess there are in the world?  Whatever you’re thinking, it’s more.  A study in Germany put the number at 20 QUADRILLION ants.  That’s 20,000 trillion, or about 2.5 million ants for every human.

2.  In space news:  The James Webb telescope took a wild picture of Neptune . . . and NASA released audio of a meteorite crashing into Mars.  It’s the first audio recording of something hitting another planet.

3.  Speaking of crashing into stuff:  Next Monday is the big day for NASA’s “DART” mission, short for “Double Asteroid Redirection Test.”  They’re crashing a one-and-a-half-ton spacecraft into an asteroid at 13,000 miles an hour to see if it changes its orbit.  So if a big one ever comes our way, maybe we can deflect it.

4.  A study found that in theory, it might be fairly cheap and easy to refreeze the north and south poles to keep global warming at bay.  For $11 billion a year, we could have planes spray aerosol in the atmosphere to shield them from sunlight.

5.  And in case you missed it, the U.S. Space Force debuted its official song this week called “Semper Supra”.  It means “always above”.  (Here’s the audio.)