Tag: Science

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The Rings of Quaoar

Shakespeare once wrote, “there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” Certainly, scientists have been finding that out for centuries; every time we think we have a handle on how the universe works, some new discovery throws us a curveball. A recent discovery by scientists at the University of Sheffield in England has tossed a new one into the field of planetary science. The dwarf planet Quaoar has rings.

Quaoar is one of the dwarf planets that lie out past Pluto, in the Kuiper Belt. At approximately 1,110 kilometers across, Quaoar is roughly half of Pluto’s size, and its distance from the sun gives it an average temperature of 44 Kelvin, or -229 degrees Celsius. It has a small moon, named Weywot, orbiting Quaoar at roughly 14,500 km.

Quaoar isn’t the only dwarf planet known to have rings; the dwarf planets Chariklo and Haumea also have them. But the unusual thing about Quaoar’s rings – the thing that has thrown a curveball to scientists – are where those rings are.

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Mutant 59, Where Are You?

We have a plastic problem; it’s harmful to life, lasts practically forever, and there’s too much of it. Of all the substances our civilization uses, plastic is the hardest to recycle. So much so, that a CBC investigation a few years back found that most recycling companies didn’t recycle the plastic, but either burned it (producing an even more toxic residue), or just sent it to the landfill. A fair chunk of Canada’s plastic has been shipped (illegally) to other countries for disposal, much to those countries’ displeasure. We’re finding plastic everywhere, from the oceans to the ice caps to even inside our bodies.

While some governments (including Canada) have begun to ban the use of single-use plastics like bags and packaging, there’s still enough plastic floating around to cause real harm to Earthly life. Is there some way we can deal with it all and get a cleaner world?

Well, if you can’t recycle the plastic conventionally, we may have to turn to unconventional means… like eating it. Science fiction’s toyed with this idea a few times since the 1970s, starting (to my knowledge at least) with the 1971 novel Mutant 59: The Plastic Eaters by Gerry Davis and Kit Pedlar. In the novel, a well-meaning scientist tries to create a bacterium that can consume plastic. Now scientists at the University of Queensland have found something similar: a worm capable of eating plastic.

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