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Artist's conception

Epsilon Eridani is a star in the constellation of Eridanus. Viewable from most of Earth's surface along a declination 9.46° south of the celestial equator, it is 10.5 light-years away and has an apparent magnitude of 3.73. It is the third-closest individual star or star system visible to the unaided eye. Estimated at less than a billion years old, the young star has a higher level of magnetic activity than the present-day Sun, with a stellar wind 30 times as strong. Epsilon Eridani is smaller and less massive than the Sun, with a greater proportion of hydrogen and helium. It is a main-sequence star of spectral class K2, which means that energy generated at the core through nuclear fusion of hydrogen is emitted from the surface at a temperature of about 5,000 K, giving it an orange hue. Observations for more than twenty years have yielded evidence of a giant planet orbiting the star, making it one of the nearest systems with a candidate exoplanet. The detection of this planet, Epsilon Eridani b, was announced by Bruce Campbell, Gordon Walker and Stephenson Yang in 1987. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

An Ordnance Factory Board Mine Protected Vehicle

An OFB MPV

... that an Indian Police official called the Ordnance Factory Board Mine Protected Vehicles (example pictured) "coffins on wheels"?
... that August Buchner, a professor of poetry and rhetoric at the University of Wittenberg, wrote the libretto for a lost ballet-opera by Heinrich Schütz?
... that the 1994 New Jersey Rockin' Rollers, led by Manon Rhéaume, defeated Erin Whitten and the Pittsburgh Phantoms, in the first professional roller hockey game with two women as goaltenders?
... that the Palestine Exploration Fund's Survey of Western Palestine suggested that the depopulated Palestinian village of Dayr Muhaysin was a Crusader village, held as a fief of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre?
... that the Gobi big brown bat is thought to include butterflies in its diet?
... that the British art historian Humphrey Brooke grew more than 500 varieties of rose?
... that Saturday Night! – The Album was described as "artless" in The Washington Post?

In the news

Frank-Walter Steinmeier

A suicide bombing at a protest rally in Lahore, Pakistan, kills at least 18 people and injures more than 90 others.
La La Land wins in five categories, including Best Film, at the British Academy Film Awards.
Frank-Walter Steinmeier (pictured) is elected President of Germany.
Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed is elected President of Somalia.
In association football, the Africa Cup of Nations concludes with Cameroon defeating Egypt in the final.

On this day...

February 14: Valentine's Day

Salman Rushdie

1779 – English explorer James Cook was killed near Kealakekua when he tried to kidnap Kalaniʻōpuʻu, the ruling chief of the Island of Hawaii.
1943 – World War II: General Hans-Jürgen von Arnim's 5th Panzer Army launched a concerted attack against Allied positions in Tunisia.
1961 – Lawrencium, the metallic radioactive synthetic element with atomic number 103, was first made at the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley.
1979 – Adolph Dubs, United States Ambassador to Afghanistan, was kidnapped by unknown agents and killed during a gun battle between Afghan police and the perpetrators.
1989 – A fatwa was issued for the execution of Salman Rushdie (pictured) for authoring The Satanic Verses, a novel Islamic fundamentalists considered blasphemous.

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Today's featured picture

Saudade, an oil on canvas painting completed in 1899 by José Ferraz de Almeida Júnior. The Portuguese word saudade refers to a deep emotional state of nostalgic or profound melancholic longing for a beloved, and often connotes a repressed knowledge that the object of longing might never return. Once described as "the love that remains" after someone is gone, saudade now refers to a sense that someone or something that should be present is missing.

Painting: José Ferraz de Almeida Júnior

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