Each month, we look back on the best of the month’s Best of the Blogs.
This month’s discovery of seven Earth-like planets in a nearby star system captivated the world’s imagination. To share the excitement with us, NASA released a ‘3D virtual tour’ of one of the planets, TRAPPIST-1d. You can explore the artist’s rendering of an alien world by moving the view using your mouse or your mobile device. At about 40 light years away, astronomers predict we will know more about the planets, including if it hosts any life, in around a decade. [NASA]
Back on Earth, geologists this month claimed that the planet has a long-forgotten eighth continent submerged under the Pacific Ocean. Zealandia, they report, extends 1.9 million square miles and is 94 percent underwater. The land that peaks above the ocean surface is primarily the two islands of New Zealand and the island of New Caledonia. But this land mass is elevated relative to other parts of the ocean floors and is isolated from Australia. [Atlas Obscura]
The Knowwhere blog responded to President Donald Trump’s comment that he is keen on maps, by sharing a long history of fake maps and lying with geography. Someone even wrote a book on the matter, How to Lie with Maps. Expect more of Trump’s views of the world like that depicted above. [Knowwhere consulting]
A rapidly advancing crack in Antarctica’s fourth-largest ice shelf has scientists concerned that it is getting close to a full break. The rift has accelerated this year in an area already vulnerable to warming temperatures. Since December, the crack has grown 27 kilometres in the last two months. [New York Times]
Watch this! An inflatable globe and a kitchen knife was all this reporter needed to demonstrate explain map projections. Learn why it’s not possible to represent an ellipsoidal Earth as a flat shape without distortion of some kind and why the Mercator projection has historically been so widely popular despite so many possible options. [Vox]
