I love scale videos and this is a good, and humourous, one.

I'd call that pleasantly brisk.

Also there's over a km of insulating ice with maybe thermal vents from the planet's interior feeding into the subsurface lakes. Maybe. It happens on Earth.

Surface seismic measurements would be a relatively easy way to start investigating.

"Its brightness is 5 billion times that of the Sun."

Bloody hell!

This idea strains credulity somewhat.

"Looking for the Shadows of Trees On Exoplanets to Detect Multicellular Life"
... using imaging where, as is quite likely for the near future, you only have a single pixel encompassing the exoplanet.

Apparently, tree shadows have a reasonably unique reflectance signature.
Who knew?
And it may be possible to categorise that from a single pixel.
Hmm!
www.universetoday.com/148164/heres-a-clever-idea-looking-for-the-shadows-of-trees-on-exoplanets-to-detect-multicellular-life/

The problem with long exposures taken by Earthbound telescopes is that atmospheric conditions vary over the exposure duration, blurring the image

The answer is high tech, computer controlled adaptive optics.

Take a look at the images in this link to see the huge improvements in resolution available by using this technology.


astronomynow.com/2020/10/05/stunning-new-view-of-the-carina-nebula-shows-power-of-adaptive-optics/

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptive_optics

short but interesting article about the research leading to the discovery of the supermassive black hole at the centre of our galaxy that led to the shared award of this year's Nobel Prize for physics for Andrea Ghez. 

Also includes a further and quite astonishing demonstration of adaptive optics.

astrobites.org/2020/10/13/the-nobel-prize-in-physics-2020-andrea-ghez/

A new study updates and substantially changes what we know about the red supergiant star Betelgeuse.

Of the two main recent dimming events, one is confirmed as the expelling of a large dust cloud in our direction, the other is due to a size pulsation.

"... essentially, sound waves were the cause of Betelgeuse's pulsation."

"It's burning helium in its core at the moment, which means it's nowhere near exploding," Dr. Joyce said.

"We could be looking at around 100,000 years before an explosion happens."

If it's still helium burning in its core then its still in a long term stable state. It's only when the helium runs out and the balance between outward energy pressure and inward gravitational force ends that the star collapses and rebounds in a supernova event.

So, no imminent supernova it seems.

phys.org/news/2020-10-supergiant-star-betelgeuse-smaller-closer.html

Remember the 'mole' digging, or rather failing to dig into the Martian surface as part of the Insight Mars Lander mission?

The dang thing kept popping out of the hole it was trying to dig. Embarrassing.

Well, after months of work, with the lander's robotic arm being used to press on the top of the mole to try and help it dig down, the arm has been retracted and lo and behold the mole is not visible, all that can be seen is the copper cable that is attached to the top of the mole, which is the actual temperature probe, sticking out of the Martian soil.

So progress of a sort.
Details and vid sequence on this link.

www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/nasa-insights-mole-is-out-of-sight

On its way to the planet Mercury the Bepi- Colombo probe does a flyby of Venus.

Say 'Hi' to the microbes that may be living in the clouds.

news.google.com/articles/CAIiEKMO3fvVuSRQsPvWSDxH21oqMwgEKioIACIQiaYKTaVj4jekEifjHCx8jCoUCAoiEImmCk2lY-I3pBIn4xwsfIww37rKBg?hl=en-GB&gl=GB&ceid=GB%3 enjoy