Rethink your plans to pursue a career in book keeping, marketing or programming and consider instead a job in nursing, construction or hospitality.
In a major new report, Jobs and Skills Australia modelled the potential impact of artificial intelligence on the workforce, and found reasons to be optimistic about the future for workers in a world transformed by AI.
The JSA’s commissioner, Barney Glover, said the doomsday predictions about the end of work as we know it are overblown. Still, the impact will be huge.
“The overarching message is that almost all occupations will be augmented by AI. It doesn’t make a difference which sector you are in, or at what skill level: you will be influenced by AI,” Glover said.
Sign up: AU Breaking News email
In the most comprehensive research of its kind in Australia, the JSA assessed occupations according to what degree the tasks could be automated or augmented by artificial intelligence.
graph
“Many clerical tasks – that were not affected by previous waves of automation – could now be undertaken in large part by Gen AI,” the report found.
It then modelled future employment growth across occupations out to the middle of the century, and compared those forecasts to a world with no AI.
The report found office clerks, receptionists, bookkeepers, sales, marketing and public relations professionals, business and systems analysts and programmers would lose the most employment by 2050.
In contrast, the occupations where employment would gain the most were cleaners and laundry workers, public administration and safety, business administration managers, construction and mining labourers, and hospitality workers.
But a key finding of the report was that AI was much more likely to change, rather than replace, work.
“Nearly half of all workers are currently in occupations with low automation and medium augmentation scores, suggesting the occupation would more likely experience change rather than disruption,” the report said.
More jobs, just different ones
JSA modelled employment growth in three scenarios where AI is adopted and embedded at different rates between now and 2050.
It found that AI would lead to slower employment growth through the 2030s, but faster growth through the next decade. In all three scenarios, there were more Australian jobs by 2050 in a world with AI, than without.
The analysis “suggests we may not see the most significant employment effects for a decade, which could accord with the time taken for deeper adoption and related structural changes,” the report said.
While the adoption of AI remains in its very early stages, some jobs have already been devastated by the introduction of the economy.
skip past newsletter promotion
after newsletter promotion
The JSA said it had heard about the “significant” drop in work for voice actors thanks to GenAI, with one talent agency telling the commission that demand for narration for content videos had collapsed by 80%.
There are reports that employers are rolling out AI to complete the low level tasks that once would have been the domain of university graduates, although there is not yet widespread evidence of the phenomenon.
Big businesses are embracing AI, with an impact on workers.
CBA recently axed dozens of call centre jobs, replacing them with chatbots.
In May, Telstra’s chief executive officer, Vicki Brady, said “AI efficiencies” would allow it to shrink its workforce by 2030, although the telco giant denied that last month’s announcement of 550 job cuts was the result of the technology.
No time to waste
Given the rapid evolution of AI, Glover said there was a “sense of urgency” when it came to taking steps now to give Australians of all ages the tools and skills they needed to thrive in an AI-augmented workplace.
He said it would require a “national leadership framework”, led by the commonwealth and including all levels of government.
“Let’s make sure the education and training sector is geared up for this and ready. AI is a foundational skill now – everyone is going to be some form of ‘prompt engineer’.
“We want to future proof our young people, so let’s give them the skills they need.
“We need the cognitive and critical thinking skills. That’s why it’s critical to support the humanities and social sciences, which have developed these critical thinking skills over centuries.”
Glover agreed with the ACTU that there was a “strong argument” that employers should work with their staff in “co-designing” the implementation of AI in the workplace.
“The very best way to get the very best outcome for workers and employers is to bring workers in. This has got to be a positive way of moving forward.
“We don’t touch on it in our report, but these are things the economic roundtable [next week] can debate and I hope they do.”
An international team of astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have discovered a stellar rarity: an ultra-massive white dwarf that formed when a white dwarf merged with another star, rather than through the evolution of a single star. This discovery, which was made possible by Hubble’s sensitive ultraviolet observations, suggests that these rare white dwarfs may be more common than previously suspected.
A white dwarf is the end state for a star that is not massive enough to explode as a core-collapse supernova. The transition to a white dwarf begins when a star exhausts the supply of hydrogen in its core. The changes in and around the star’s core cause the star to expel its outer layers in a massive stellar sigh, revealing the star’s dense, Earth-sized core, which evolves into a white dwarf. The cores of white dwarfs are mostly composed of either carbon and oxygen or oxygen and neon, depending on the mass of the progenitor star. The Sun will become a white dwarf in about 5 billion years.
White dwarfs can theoretically have masses up to about 1.4 times the mass of the Sun, but white dwarfs that are more massive than the Sun are rare. These objects, which astronomers call ultra-massive white dwarfs, can form either through the evolution of a single massive star or through the merger of a white dwarf with another star.
Recently, astronomers used Hubble’s Cosmic Origins Spectrograph to investigate one such ultra-massive white dwarf, WD 0525+526. WD 0525+526 is just 128 light-years away and is 20% more massive than the Sun.
In visible light, the spectrum of WD 0525+526’s atmosphere resembled that of a typical white dwarf. However, Hubble’s ultraviolet spectrum revealed something unusual: evidence of carbon in the white dwarf’s atmosphere.
White dwarfs that form through the evolution of a single star have atmospheres composed of hydrogen and helium. These thick atmospheres blanket the carbon–oxygen or oxygen–neon surface of the white dwarf, usually preventing these elements from appearing in its spectrum.
When carbon appears in the spectrum of a white dwarf, it can signal a more violent origin than the typical single-star scenario: the collision of two white dwarfs, or of a white dwarf and a subgiant star. Such a collision can burn away the hydrogen and helium atmospheres of the colliding stars, leaving behind a scant layer of hydrogen and helium around the merger remnant that allows carbon from the white dwarf’s core to float upward, where it can be detected.
“It’s a discovery that underlines that things may be different from what they appear to us at first glance,” said the principal investigator of the Hubble programme, Boris Gaensicke, of the University of Warwick in the United Kingdom. “Until now, this appeared as a normal white dwarf, but Hubble’s ultraviolet eyes revealed that it had a very different history from what we would have guessed. It’s like asking a person you think you know well a different kind of question.”
This discovery marks the first time that a white dwarf born from colliding stars has been identified by its ultraviolet spectrum. Prior to this study, six white dwarf merger products were discovered via carbon lines in their visible-light spectra. All seven of these are part of a larger group that were found to be bluer than expected for their masses and ages from a study with ESA’s Gaia mission in 2019, with the evidence of mergers providing new insights into their formation history.
WD 0525+526 is remarkable even within the small group of white dwarfs known to be the product of merging stars. With a temperature of almost 21 000 kelvins and a mass of 1.2 solar masses, WD 0525+526 is hotter and more massive than the other white dwarfs in this group.
WD 0525+526’s extreme temperature posed something of a mystery for the team. For cooler white dwarfs, such as the six previously discovered merger products, a process called convection can mix carbon into the thin hydrogen–helium atmosphere. WD 0525+526 is too hot for convection to take place, however. Instead, the team determined that a more subtle process called semi-convection brings a small amount of carbon up into WD 0525+526’s atmosphere. WD 0525+526 has the smallest amount of atmospheric carbon of any white dwarf known to result from a merger, about 100 000 times less than other merger remnants.
The high temperature and low carbon abundance mean that identifying this white dwarf as the product of a merger would have been impossible without Hubble’s sensitivity to ultraviolet light; spectral lines from elements heavier than helium, like carbon, become fainter at visible wavelengths for hotter white dwarfs, but these spectral signals remain bright in the ultraviolet, where Hubble is uniquely positioned to spot them.
“Hubble’s Cosmic Origins Spectrograph is the only instrument that can obtain the superb quality ultraviolet spectroscopy that was required to detect the carbon in the atmosphere of this white dwarf,” said study lead Snehalata Sahu from the University of Warwick.
Because WD 0525+526’s unusual origin was revealed only once astronomers glimpsed its ultraviolet spectrum, it’s likely that other seemingly ‘normal’ white dwarfs are actually the result of cosmic collisions — a possibility that the team is excited to explore in the future.
“We would like to extend our research on this topic by exploring how common carbon white dwarfs are, and how many stellar mergers are hiding among the normal white dwarf family,” said study co-lead Antoine Bedrad from the University of Warwick. “That will be an important contribution to our understanding of white dwarf binaries, and the pathways to supernova explosions.”
The team’s paper has been published in Nature Astronomy.
More information
The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between ESA and NASA.
D avid Byrne strolls into his downtown Manhattan office around noon and promptly removes all of his footwear. He’s been in this prewar building only for a few months, but it’s already unmistakably his own, looking as much like a work space as it does like a museum of the unusual items he’s collected throughout his decades as one of pop’s most curious minds. Meticulously organized metal shelving lines one long wall full of music books, art books, history books, and enough DVDs to put the Criterion Closet to shame. An Oscar, a Grammy, and an MTV Video Music Award are positioned unobtrusively among kitschy treasures like an ancient can of macadamia nuts with Spam and a cassette of a speech by Bob Dole. “It took a while before everything was up and on the bookshelves,” he says. “But once that happened, it was like, ‘OK, we’re home again.’”
Not long after we finish talking, Byrne will head into rehearsals for a 50-date North American tour in support of his excellent new album, Who Is the Sky? (out Sept. 5 on Matador Records). At 73 years old, he’s as full of restless energy as ever, eager to talk about the creative process behind this album, which he made with Top 40 producer Kid Harpoon, or about his recent onstage collaborations with stars like Olivia Rodrigo.
He’s also well aware that much of the world would rather see him perform with Talking Heads, the peerlessly inventive rock group he led with bass player Tina Weymouth, drummer Chris Frantz, and multi-instrumentalist Jerry Harrison before splitting under less-than-friendly circumstances in 1991. Byrne has built an impressively flexible solo career since then, making catchy and fascinating records with a widely varied cast of collaborators and selling out hundreds of nights on Broadway with his 2019 American Utopia show. But none of those triumphs got the public more excited than the promotional appearances he made last year with Weymouth, Frantz, and Harrison for an A24 rerelease of Stop Making Sense, the 1984 concert film that is in many ways Talking Heads’ magnum opus.
Editor’s picks
Anyone who’s hoping to see Byrne reunite with Talking Heads is out of luck. At least they can look forward to seeing brilliantly reworked versions of some of their favorite songs in Byrne’s current stage show. “I can mix and match and have it adapt to the sound that I’m doing at the moment without completely destroying the integrity of the older songs,” he says. “But I’m also aware that there’s a real trap. If you do too much of the older material, you become a legacy act that comes out and plays the old hits. You cash in really quick, but then you’ve dug yourself a hole.”
The title of your new album originated in a misheard phrase, right? Yes. Somebody was sending me a text using voice-to-text, and the algorithm got it a little bit wrong. And what came up on my phone was “Who is the sky?” And I thought, “That’s a beautiful phrase.” I know what they were really saying — it’s pretty easy to tell, in English anyway. But I thought, “I’m going to put that on the list of album titles.” And I realized that it fit in other ways. There’s a lot of songs where I’m asking, “Who am I? Who is this? What is that about? Why do we do this?” I also had this thought that the image on the record cover would be me partly hidden. So: “Who is this guy?”
That’s an interesting question to ask about yourself this far into your career. It’s not a debut album. You’d think at my age I would know who I am. But no, we’re always still figuring it out. Figuring out who we are and where we belong and how we feel about things. We’ll never really know all the answers.
You have a great song on this album called “My Apartment Is My Friend.” Were you thinking of a particular apartment? I was thinking of my apartment, where I live now. During Covid, I tried to write songs and wasn’t really able to write much. I wrote words for a song called “Six Feet Apart” or “Six Feet Away,” about seeing someone, but you can’t get any closer than six feet because of social distancing, and you couldn’t see this person’s face because of the mask, that kind of thing. I sent the words to John Mulaney and said, “What do you think?” There was a line about “She had Purell in her purse” — he liked that. But I never used it. I thought, “What’s happening, it’s serious. This is not a joke. There’s ambulances parked outside my building, the sirens are going day and night.” But after it all passed, I came up with these words for “My Apartment Is My Friend.”
Related Content
The pandemic was a harrowing time here in New York, but you got a song that feels positive and uplifting out of that. Yeah. This is how I felt. My apartment is cradling me. I know I’m the only one there. No one else is visiting. I’m going to watch an old movie on streaming at night and I’m going to cook something that I haven’t tried to cook before. And I don’t know how messy it looked. There’d be a big temptation to just be like, “Well, it’s my mess.”
How long have you lived in that apartment? Not that long, relatively speaking. Maybe 15 years now. It might seem fairly long, but I’ve lived in New York for a long time.
Do you remember what your first apartment in New York was like, when you moved here in 1974? Well, when I first moved here, I slept on the floor of an artist’s loft. He had just gotten it, and the deal was room and board for helping him fix it up — sand the floors and paint and build a loft bed for him and all that kind of stuff. That was an entry. And then eventually I moved into a loft nearby with two of the Talking Heads. Cold-water loft, no hot water, and no toilet. It was all right. Didn’t have all the conveniences that one might like, and I wrote a song about that called “Don’t Worry About the Government.”
Sacha Lecca for Rolling Stone
New York in the 1970s is often romanticized. Do you think people get that time period right? Yeah, people romanticize the grit and the dirt. On some level it was good, because the city was on its knees, so it was ignoring a lot of stuff. There were jazz clubs and discos in lofts in SoHo and other places. And the city just turned a blind eye to all this stuff. These places were far from legal, and musicians would live in these lofts and pay very low rent. It’s shocking how low the rent was, but that’s how funky the neighborhood was. And that allowed all of us to get a foothold. I had a part-time day job, but that was enough for me to contribute rent with the band roommates. So you could make your way. God forbid my parents would’ve visited.
What was your dream when you were living in that cold-water loft? When I moved here, my ambition was to be what we called a fine artist, an artist who would show in galleries and things like that. But the kind of art I was doing, phew, I wasn’t getting anywhere with it. I did these questionnaires and surveys. Some of the things were very conceptual. I think there was a single line on a big piece of paper, but it was in the exact shape of the New Jersey Turnpike. You can imagine, a little bit of an uphill climb to get that to go, but I was really enjoying doing that. The music stuff, I thought, “This is fun, but don’t get your hopes up. There are really great musicians out there, great singers. There’s people who are a lot better than you are.”
You’re at a point now where you can make a record and you know it will be rapturously received. Has it always felt like people understood what you were doing? Oh, no. There was a period, it might’ve been in the early Nineties. I worked with Latin musicians, did a couple of records with those musicians and toured. Had a great time. It was pretty well-received in Latin America, which was a relief. But in the United States … As one of the executives at Warner Records said, “David, you are your own Yoko Ono.” Which is unfair to Yoko, but I knew what he meant.
If you wanted to be a conceptual artist, maybe being your own Yoko Ono wasn’t so bad. Exactly [laughs]. But he meant more like, “You have purposely alienated your audience.”
When did that start changing? Probably about 10 years ago, something like that. Suddenly a younger generation started to be interested in the new things I was doing. It wasn’t just the people who grew up listening to Talking Heads. There was a whole other group that was listening. That changed things.
“You’d think at my age I’d know who I am. But we’ll never know.”
Lots of younger artists cite you as an influence today, from Lorde to Hayley Williams. They really look up to you. Are you comfortable being an object of hero worship? I don’t like to think of myself that way, but if people like what I do, I’m not going to argue with that. I’m not going to have some psychological issue with it. But for the most part, I’m excited about what I’m doing at the moment, whether it’s a record or a tour or something else. And maybe that’s a big reason why some of these people like what I do. They see that I’ve gotten myself into a place where I have a certain amount of freedom to try things out and do different things, which is rare in the music world.
Your performance of “Burning Down the House” with Olivia Rodrigo was one of the coolest moments at Governors Ball this year. How did that come together? I saw her show at Madison Square Garden months before. She’s a great performer, and she was having a really good time, you could tell. I got introduced to her afterwards, and she seemed like a real person — someone who, growing up in the world that she did, survived it really well. So then, out of nowhere, comes this invitation: “Hey, would you like to join me at Governors Ball?” My reaction was, “Yeah. And shall we figure out some choreography together?”
Which you did. You and she really had the moves down. Yeah, yeah. We worked it out in a couple of days.
Did you ever get to work with an older artist you looked up to when you were younger? Oh, yeah. When we were starting out, we were big fans of the Velvet Underground. John Cale and Lou Reed came to see us at CBGB. We met with Lou Reed a couple of times. He wanted to sign us to a management-production deal. But it was a little bit too much like, “Oh, I don’t know if we’re ready for this.” We pulled back. John introduced us to Brian Eno on our first trip to London, and that proved to be a big deal for us. All these people that we were in awe of.
What was Lou like? We were playing through some of our songs, just strumming a guitar. And I remember he was showing us how if you slowed some of them down a little bit, that might not be the worst thing in the world, rather than trying to blurt out all the words really quickly. So, yeah, he had some good ideas. I remember when we met, he was eating an incredible amount of ice cream. I think he went through two of those quart containers of Häagen-Dazs ice cream in one sitting. We were like, “Whoa.”
You have a song on this album called “I Met the Buddha at a Downtown Party,” which is another great title. There were a few songs where it maybe had the first couple of lines, or maybe just the title. “I met the Buddha at a downtown party.” And I go, “OK, that’s like a short story. What happens next? What did he look like? What’d he say?” And so it starts to write itself. You just let it go and try and keep it interesting.
I have other ones that I never managed to turn into songs. There was one called “The 50-Foot Baby,” and the baby was wreaking havoc everywhere, just smashing things and picking up cars and tossing them around. Like Godzilla, but a baby. But I didn’t know exactly where to take it.
“If you do too much of the older material, you become a legacy act.”
Maybe for the next album. Yeah. I’d never done that before, I don’t think. So that was new, writing these little stories.
You talk about writing these songs as a process of asking questions. Did you reach any conclusions? I can’t think of any. The more I do this, the more questions there are. You go, “I thought I was going to get an answer.” And the door opens, or the curtain parts, and you go, “Oh, my God, it’s just a whole bunch more questions.” A whole bunch of more things that you don’t understand. And you wonder, am I ever going to get any of this figured out? Maybe not.
You’ve talked in the past about feeling different from other people, being neurodivergent or on a spectrum. Where’s your thinking on that now? I think very, very little of that remains in me. But yes, at a certain age, I felt very socially awkward, uncomfortable. I was and still am able to focus on a song or drawing and just shut out everything else. I enjoy being with my friends, but there’s times when I’m alone and I’m OK with that, too. So, yeah, there’s elements that persist, and I’m OK with it, but it’s a lot less than it used to be. And some of that I think is just age. You change over years. Some of it I think is due to what music can do to you, whether it’s somebody else’s music or your own. Some of it’s working with other musicians and band members. That becomes this very healing social situation. And part of it is the joy of making music. That’s this big thing that pulls me out of it.
Sacha Lecca for Rolling Stone
You made this new album with the producer Kid Harpoon, who’s known for making pop records with people like Harry Styles and Miley Cyrus. What made you want to work with someone like that? I liked the sound of those records that he made. I know that the subjects I choose, the kind of songs I write, are not the same as a lot of those records. But at the same time, I feel that they’re still pop records. They adhere to a pop-music structure and sound, and they have choruses that you can sing along with. So why not?
When you perform live, you’ve always got lots of musicians around you. That’s very different to how some pop stars perform now, with just a DJ or a small backing band. Yeah, yeah. I saw Charli XCX, and it was just her onstage, no band, no dancers, nothing else. I thought, “Whoa, this is really brave.” Part of me was also going, “Wow, this is really economical, too.” But I don’t know if I’m ready to do that.
When Stop Making Sense was rereleased in September 2023, how did it feel for you to see your younger self onscreen? When A24 was preparing to rerelease Stop Making Sense, I remember going to a screening to see the new print. I hadn’t seen it in years. I’m watching, thinking, “Who is that guy?” Sounds like the new record. But I’m looking and going, “He’s really serious. I feel like telling him to loosen up a little bit: ‘Take it easy, take it easy. It’s going to be OK.’” And by the end of the movie, he kind of does.
“At a certain age, I felt very awkward. The joy of music pulls me out of it.”
When you were promoting that rerelease, you spent more time with your old bandmates in Talking Heads than you had in a very long time. That’s true, yeah.
What was that like for you, to be back with that group of people all those years later? It was OK. We were all very proud of that show and the film that Jonathan Demme did. We’re thrilled that audiences still wanted to see it. So we put aside whatever differences we have. I said, “OK, we’re not going to go there, but we’re going to help promote this thing.”
Your bandmates said some unflattering things about you in the press before that. Tina did an interview in 2022 where she called you a bully and compared you to Trump. How did you get over that? Mercifully, I didn’t read a lot of that stuff. I’d hear about it a little bit, like you just told me. I also know that there were periods when we made Stop Making Sense where I had this vision of what this show could be. And I probably wasn’t the easiest person in the world to work with, because I was very single-minded about “No, the lighting should be like this. And the crew has to rehearse wheeling those risers out so that they’re as much a part of the show as the band is.” It all worked, but I was not the easiest person to work with in those days. Now I know how to collaborate a little bit better. There’s a way to do it where it doesn’t hurt feelings.
In all that time you spent promoting the rerelease, were the four of you able to get back to some of the friendship that you had in the earliest days? Did we feel more comfortable with one another? Yeah. We felt more comfortable with one another, but I’m just going to anticipate your next questions. I didn’t feel like, “Oh, yeah, let’s go out on tour again.” Or, “Let’s make another record.” Musically, I’ve gone to a very different place. And I also felt like there’s been a fair number of reunion records and tours. And some of them were probably pretty good. Not very many. It’s pretty much impossible to recapture where you were at that time in your life. For an audience … that was formative music for them at a particular time. They might persuade themselves that they can relive that, but you can’t.
Do you understand why people want a Talking Heads reunion? I totally understand it. I’m a music fan like other people. And there’s artists that stopped working, or bands that broke up, that I heard at a period in my life where music was very important. Maybe I never heard it when it was happening, I missed it. I would love to see it live now. But you realize you can’t turn the clock back. When you hear music at a certain point in your life, it means a lot. But it doesn’t mean you can go back there and make it happen again.
You’re at a point in your career where some people might start thinking about a farewell tour or retirement. Is that something you think about? No, I haven’t thought about it. I’ve thought about other things. Fred Armisen convinced me to try doing some stand-up, which I did unacknowledged, and it kind of worked. That is one of the scariest ever, because you’re just alone with words for the most part. I don’t know if I’m ready to go there, but you never know.
You actually went to a comedy club and did a stand-up set? Yes, I did. It’s a thing that he organizes where he has guests but they’re not announced. And as with comedy clubs, nobody’s allowed to use their phones or anything like that.
So you can’t find it on YouTube? Nope.
Production Credits
Grooming by JENNIFER BRENT with FORWARD ARTISTS using ORIBE
The exoplanet TRAPPIST-1 d intrigues astronomers looking for possibly habitable worlds beyond our solar system because it is similar in size to Earth, rocky, and resides in an area around its star where liquid water on its surface is theoretically possible. But according to a new study using data from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, it does not have an Earth-like atmosphere.
“Ultimately, we want to know if something like the environment we enjoy on Earth can exist elsewhere, and under what conditions. While NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope is giving us the ability to explore this question in Earth-sized planets for the first time, at this point we can rule out TRAPPIST-1 d from a list of potential Earth twins or cousins,” said Caroline Piaulet-Ghorayeb of the University of Chicago and Trottier Institute for Research on Exoplanets (IREx) at Université de Montréal, lead author of the study published in The Astrophysical Journal.
The TRAPPIST-1 system is located 40 light-years away and was revealed as the record-holder for most Earth-sized rocky planets around a single star in 2017, thanks to data from NASA’s retired Spitzer Space Telescope and other observatories. Due to that star being a dim, relatively cold red dwarf, the “habitable zone” or “Goldilocks zone” – where the planet’s temperature may be just right, such that liquid surface water is possible – lies much closer to the star than in our solar system. TRAPPIST-1 d, the third planet from the red dwarf star, lies on the cusp of that temperate zone, yet its distance to its star is only 2 percent of Earth’s distance from the Sun. TRAPPIST-1 d completes an entire orbit around its star, its year, in only four Earth days.
Webb’s NIRSpec (Near-Infrared Spectrograph) instrument did not detect molecules from TRAPPIST-1 d that are common in Earth’s atmosphere, like water, methane, or carbon dioxide. However, Piaulet-Ghorayeb outlined several possibilities for the exoplanet that remain open for follow-up study.
“There are a few potential reasons why we don’t detect an atmosphere around TRAPPIST-1 d. It could have an extremely thin atmosphere that is difficult to detect, somewhat like Mars. Alternatively, it could have very thick, high-altitude clouds that are blocking our detection of specific atmospheric signatures — something more like Venus. Or, it could be a barren rock, with no atmosphere at all,” Piaulet-Ghorayeb said.
No matter what the case may be for TRAPPIST-1 d, it’s tough being a planet in orbit around a red dwarf star. TRAPPIST-1, the host star of the system, is known to be volatile, often releasing flares of high-energy radiation with the potential to strip off the atmospheres of its small planets, especially those orbiting most closely. Nevertheless, scientists are motivated to seek signs of atmospheres on the TRAPPIST-1 planets because red dwarf stars are the most common stars in our galaxy. If planets can hold on to an atmosphere here, under waves of harsh stellar radiation, they could, as the saying goes, make it anywhere.
“Webb’s sensitive infrared instruments are allowing us to delve into the atmospheres of these smaller, colder planets for the first time,” said Björn Benneke of IREx at Université de Montréal, a co-author of the study. “We’re really just getting started using Webb to look for atmospheres on Earth-sized planets, and to define the line between planets that can hold onto an atmosphere, and those that cannot.”
Webb observations of the outer TRAPPIST-1 planets are ongoing, which hold both potential and peril. On the one hand, Benneke said, planets e, f, g, and h may have better chances of having atmospheres because they are further away from the energetic eruptions of their host star. However, their distance and colder environment will make atmospheric signatures more difficult to detect, even with Webb’s infrared instruments.
“All hope is not lost for atmospheres around the TRAPPIST-1 planets,” Piaulet-Ghorayeb said. “While we didn’t find a big, bold atmospheric signature at planet d, there is still potential for the outer planets to be holding onto a lot of water and other atmospheric components.”
“As NASA leads the way in searching for life outside our solar system, one of the most important avenues we can pursue is understanding which planets retain their atmospheres, and why,” said Shawn Domagal-Goldman, acting director of the Astrophysics Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has pushed our capabilities for studying exoplanet atmospheres further than ever before, beyond extreme worlds to some rocky planets – allowing us to begin confirming theories about the kind of planets that may be potentially habitable. This important groundwork will position our next missions, like NASA’s Habitable Worlds Observatory, to answer a universal question: Are we alone?”
The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s premier space science observatory. Webb is solving mysteries in our solar system, looking beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probing the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency).
To learn more about Webb, visit:
https://science.nasa.gov/webb
Downloads
Click any image to open a larger version.
View/Download all image products at all resolutions for this article from the Space Telescope Science Institute.
Laura Betz – laura.e.betz@nasa.gov NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
Hannah Braun – hbraun@stsci.edu Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md.
Read more about the TRAPPIST-1 system
Read more about changing views on the “habitable zone”
Webb Blog: Reconnaissance of Potentially Habitable Worlds with NASA’s Webb
Video: How to Study Exoplanets
Video: How do we learn about a planet’s Atmosphere?
A red supergiant star has expelled the largest cloud of gas and dust ever seen in the process of being blown off one of these stellar behemoths. The vast size and intricacy of the cloud suggests that there could be a hidden group of stars that are contributing to the growth of the cloud.
In a false-color image taken by the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile, the parts colored blue are expanding towards us, and the parts colored red are traveling in the opposite direction. The cloud stretches up to 1.4 light-years across, centered on the star, known as DFK 52. To give an idea how large it is, if DFK 52 were as far from us as another well-known supergiant is, the star Betelgeuse in the constellation of Orion the Hunter, somewhere between 550 and 700 light-years away, then the cloud around it would appear as large in the night sky as roughly one third of the full moon in the sky.
The star in question, DFK 52, is quite similar to another well-known red supergiant, Betelgeuse. It is located in an extreme cluster of stars called Stephenson 2 that is home to at least 25 other red supergiants and found 18,900 light-years away in our Milky Way galaxy.
Once these stars ran out of hydrogen in their core for nuclear fusion reactions, the loss of energy meant that their cores began to contract under gravity, raising the temperatures there to the point that the stars could turn to fusing helium to produce energy instead. This leads to the star’s outer layers heating up too, enough to start fusing hydrogen in them instead, producing extra energy that causes the star’s outer layers to expand.
As these stars expanded and grew diffuse at their edges, their surface temperatures cool and they shine red. In many ways, this is similar to how our sun will expand into a red giant towards the end of its life in five billion years’ time. The difference is that these stars have masses between 10 and 40 times the mass of our sun, so their expansion is more extreme. They became red supergiants, the most enormous stars in existence. Betelgeuse, for instance, is a red supergiant that is somewhere between 640 and 764 times the radius of our sun! (Its exact size is tricky to ascertain, partly because its outer limits are so diffuse, and partly because the distance to Betelgeuse is not precisely known.)
Eventually, the red supergiants of Stephenson 2 will all go boom in a supernova, but before then they undergo periods of mass loss, belching out clouds of gas that cool and condense into dust that hangs around just on the edge of a red supergiant’s system.
Betelgeuse seen by the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array in Chile. (Image credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)/E. O’Gorman/P. Kervella)
On the face of things, DFK 2 looks unremarkable as far as red supergiants go. Its luminosity is about 20,000 times brighter than our sun, but that’s typical, albeit a bit on the low-end, for red supergiants. Its mass is between 10 and 15 times the mass of our sun; again, typical for a red supergiant.
Breaking space news, the latest updates on rocket launches, skywatching events and more!
But where DFK 2 is extraordinary is in how it is losing mass. When astronomers led by Mark Siebert of the Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden, observed Stephenson 2 with ALMA, they found that DFK 52 was surrounded by a cloud of material three to four times larger than any ever seen to have been ejected by a red supergiant.
The velocity with which the material is racing away from the star is also interesting, in that it seems to have changed. Siebert’s team estimates that about 4,000 years ago, DFK 52 underwent a titanic outburst in which it unleashed most of this mass, blowing it away at a velocity of 27 kilometers per second (60,370 miles per hour). Astronomers call this a ‘superwind’, which isn’t a wind in the conventional size like on Earth, but a sleet of radiation and charged particles. There is evidence that other red supergiants switch on their superwind in the run-up to going supernova. However, DFK 52 seems to have taken a different option, switching off its superwind instead for a slow breeze of 10 kilometers per second (22,300 miles per hour), which is slower than the winds emanating from other well-known red supergiants such as Betelgeuse and Antares in the constellation of Scorpius, the Scorpion.
Even so, Siebert’s team conservatively estimates that in the past 4,000 years DFK 52 has lost as much material as makes up our sun. Mass loss from red supergiants is not well understood, but DFK 52 seems to be an anomaly even among what is currently known. Why is its mass loss so extreme, and the structure of its circumstellar cloud so complex?
Generally, there is a dichotomy among red supergiants. The more luminous ones have more extreme and asymmetric mass loss, while the less luminous ones have slower and more spherical mass loss. DKF 52 is less luminous than the most energetic red supergiants by a factor of 10, but has experienced mass loss in excess of the more luminous red supergiants. What’s going on?
Siebert and his colleague’s best guess is that there is more than one star at the heart of DFK 52, so tightly bound that we cannot see them from our perspective on earth. Other red supergiants in binary or multiple star systems display equatorial rings in their circumstellar material driven by the orbital interactions of a companion star.
Partial equatorial rings are visible in DFK 52’s circumstellar material, but other evidence of a binary, such as bipolar symmetry in the ejected material, is lacking. Furthermore, the complexity of the structure of the circumstellar material will also take some disentangling. Nonetheless, a second or even a third star would provide the extra gravitational energy required to first drive such mass loss, and then to contribute to a superwind that blows the ejecta to such great size.
That said, a companion star was recently discovered around Betelgeuse, but why that newly found star does not have the same effect on Betelgeuse as on DFK 52 is unclear.
DFK 52 is more than just an astronomical curiosity. It will one day explode as a supernova, and understanding the behavior of “its dramatic mass loss warrants extensive follow-up” to better understand how and why red supergiants lose mass and then explode.
Siebert’s team published a study of DFK 52 in Astronomy & Astrophysics.
For some, there is something soothing about watching the weather change, the cloud formations taking shape and the shadows shifting and changing. Maybe you capture these moments with one of the best cameras or currently use one of the best binoculars. But, with one of the best home weather stations, you can go further and capture the details of these weather changes by measuring rainfall, wind speed and direction and humidity levels, among other things. Our expert, television meteorologist, Joe Rao, explains that these modern weather stations “can be monitored remotely from indoors and records data on temperature, humidity, wind and rainfall.”
While these modern weather stations allow you to check weather updates from the comfort of your own home, more traditional means are also still used. Joe Rao explains, “There are the old-fashioned weather shelters, where weather instruments are housed in a small enclosure. A person would visit the station once or several times a day to check out the latest observations. Many cooperative weather observers still record their observations using this methodology.” With these best home weather stations, you don’t have to brave the weather to get your updates. Here are our top picks of home weather stations available right now. We have yet to get our hands on them for reviewing and testing but these have been picked after extensive research and talking to our expert, who himself uses the Davis Vantage Vue.
The quick list
Best overall
The best overall
A home weather station that has it all — you can monitor wind speed, direction, rainfall, UV and solar radiation, barometric pressure and more with this smart home ready weather station.
Read more below
Best budget
The best budget
Simple to set up and use, the Newentor weather station monitors temperature and humidity, indoors and out, while providing you with a weather forecast. Great for less than $40.
Read more below
Best for beginners
The best for beginners
The AcuRite 75077A3M couldn’t be easier to use — pop the outdoor thermometer outside and put batteries in your indoor display and you’re good to go! This weather station captures indoor and outdoor temperatures and provides a 12-hour forecast. Simple.
Read more below
Best for experienced users
The best for experienced users
A pricier option for serious weather enthusiasts, the Davis Vantage Vue is a corrosion-proof sensor suite designed to handle all weathers, providing fast weather updates that would even suit a meteorologist.
Read more below
Best for storms
The best for storms
Storm chasers will want this weather station in their garden. The AcuRite Iris can detect lightning to warn you of approaching storms, providing distance-to-storm estimates. That’s not all, you can capture rainfall and track lightning strikes within a 25-mile radius. Pretty cool!
Read more below
Best for wet climates
La Crosse Professional V42
The best for wet climates
Offering a self-emptying rain gauge with a 400ft wireless range, this is the weather station for wet climates. The display unit gives you a dynamic rain reading meter and historical records of rainfall. Great for those who are keen to track rain patterns.
Read more below
The best home weather stations we recommend in 2025: Our top-pick of the best brands available
Why you can trust Live Science
Our expert reviewers spend hours testing and comparing products and services so you can choose the best ones for you. Find out more about how we test.
The best home weather station overall
Image 1 of 1
(Image credit: Ambient)
Ambient Weather WS-2902
With the ability to measure a wealth of weather conditions, the Ambient Weather WS-2902 is a great all-rounder.
Specifications
Rainfall: Yes
Wind: Yes
Temperature: Yes, indoor and outdoor
Extra features: Humidity, UV intensity, solar radiation
Connection technology: 915 MHz
Range: 330 ft
Power source: 3 AAA batteries, solar powered
Smart-enabled: Yes, Wi-Fi
Reasons to buy
+
Smart-enabled
+
Extensive weather monitoring abilities
+
Community connections available
Reasons to avoid
–
Varying display quality
–
Some Wi-Fi connectivity issues
The Ambient Weather WS-2902 is a brilliant all-rounder home weather station, allowing you to measure a multitude of weather conditions. You can measure rainfall, wind speed, wind direction, UV, solar radiation, indoor and outdoor temperatures and humidity and barometric pressure. Not only this but this weather station can also calculate dew point, wind chill and heat index. This is pretty impressive for a home weather station.
The wireless sensor array connects to your LCD display, which you can place within your home. The wireless sensor array can be placed up to 330ft away from the console, as long as it’s not obstructed by solid metal. The sensor array is powered by a supercapacitor whose primary power source is a solar panel, meaning you don’t have to worry about the power going out. However, there is the option of battery backup, with the device requiring 3 AAA batteries.
While your weather station will begin work capturing weather conditions as soon as you’ve installed it, feeding these back to your LCD display, you also have the option to enable Wi-Fi connectivity. This is where it gets exciting. The Ambient Weather WS-2902 connects to your router, allowing data to be transmitted wirelessly to what are known as ‘personal weather station networks’. You can join a weather enthusiast community via ambientweather.net which allows you to connect with fellow weather enthusiasts and share your local real-time weather, via these ‘personal weather station networks’. The great thing about this community aspect is that, not only are you capturing local data, you can also get real-time weather data from elsewhere, be that nearby or further afield. And with this Wi-Fi connectivity and the app, you can monitor your local weather from anywhere.
With this weather station receiving 4.3 out of 5 stars on Amazon, we think it’s the best overall weather station for the variety of weather conditions it can monitor as well as the added bonus to connect with like-minded people. However, while reviews have mainly been positive, some people have experienced issues with Wi-Fi connection, with others mentioning the LCD display quality to be variable. Despite these minor negatives, we still think it’s a great investment for weather enthusiasts.
The best budget home weather station
Image 1 of 1
(Image credit: Newentor)
Newentor Weather Station
Monitor indoor and outdoor temperature and humidity with this bargain home weather station.
Specifications
Rainfall: No
Wind: No
Temperature: Yes, indoor and outdoor
Extra features: Humidity, indoor and outdoor, USB charging port
Connection technology: 433 MHz or 868 MHz
Range: 200 ft
Power source: Power adapter for LCD display, 2 AA batteries for sensor
Smart-enabled: No
Reasons to buy
+
Simple to set up and use
+
Great for beginners
+
Inexpensive introduction to home weather stations
Reasons to avoid
–
Limited weather conditions can be measured
–
Accuracy varies
Instead of relying on your phone for weather updates, you can now monitor your hyperlocal weather with ease. For less than $40, the Newenter Weather Station can provide updates on the weather happening outside your door. While phone apps are useful, most of the time you have to select a larger area to get a rough idea of the weather. The Newentor gives you a more accurate idea of the weather local to you.
This budget home weather station is a great addition for anyone interested in tracking basic weather conditions daily. The sensor can be placed outside to capture outdoor temperature and humidity while the LCD display gives you up-to-date hyperlocal weather. It also provides you with 12-24 hour forecasts — handy if you want to plan ahead.
There are few extra features that make this the best budget home weather station. You can set temperature alerts which means you can keep an eye on a baby’s room, for example. You can also adjust the screen brightness of the display unit depending on the light in the room and if you place this display near your bed, it can also charge your phone via the USB charging port. A rather handy addition.
As this is a budget home weather station, it does mean that there is a limit as to how many weather conditions it can monitor. For those looking to be able to monitor rainfall, wind and more, the Newentor will be too basic.
The best home weather station for beginners
Image 1 of 1
(Image credit: AcuRite)
AcuRite 75077A3M
Simple yet clever, this AcuRite home weather station would suit anyone interested in learning more about weather monitoring.
Specifications
Rainfall: No
Wind: No
Temperature: Yes, indoor and outdoor
Extra features: Self-calibrating weather forecasts, battery monitoring
Connection technology: 433 MHz
Range: 330 ft
Power source: 3 AA batteries for display, 2 AA for sensor
Smart-enabled: No
Reasons to buy
+
Simple to set up
+
Learning mode for accurate forecasts
+
Easy-to read-display
Reasons to avoid
–
Can’t measure rainfall, wind etc
–
No color display
The AcuRite 75077A3M is the best home weather station for beginners as it’s simple to set up and doesn’t overcomplicate matters. The sensor, which takes 2 AA batteries, can be placed somewhere appropriate outdoors. Readings from this sensor will be sent to the indoor display unit, giving you local weather updates. The sensor can capture outdoor temperature and humidity, while the indoor unit takes care of the temperature and humidity indoors. While this may seem basic, this weather station self-calibrates to your precise location to provide a hyperlocal forecast for the next 12 hours. This is pretty smart. Not only this, but this unit is self-learning. In learning mode, the AcuRite 75077A3M uses an algorithm to track changes in pressure over time which determines your altitude. You need to use the weather station for 14 days before the learning mode icon disappears from the display. Once you see this disappear, it means the unit has self-calibrated with the pressure being logged. This helps to give accurate weather predictions.
These accurate weather predictions can help you plan ahead, especially if bad weather is likely to interrupt your plans. So, while this weather station can only monitor temperature and humidity, it does do a lot more than the basics in terms of weather forecasting. We think this is an impressive feature.
While many home weather stations have a bright colored screen, the AcuRite 75077A3M boasts a simple, monochrome screen. We think this makes it easy to read and digest the information, however, others may prefer a colored-screen. If that’s the case, this beginner’s weather station won’t suit you. Some users have mentioned the screen can be tricky to see in darker rooms so this is something to bear in mind.
The best home weather station for experienced users
Image 1 of 1
(Image credit: Davis)
Davis Vantage Vue
A home weather station for serious enthusiasts — our expert meteorologist rates this weather station.
Specifications
Rainfall: Yes
Wind: Yes
Temperature: Yes, indoor and outdoor
Extra features: Humidity, indoor and outdoor, dew point, wind chill, heat index, barometric pressure, forecasting
Connection technology: Wireless
Range: 1000 ft
Power source: Solar panel with lithium battery backup
Smart-enabled: Yes
Reasons to buy
+
Extensive monitoring of weather conditions
+
Long-term use
+
Durable in all weather conditions
Reasons to avoid
–
Set up can be tricky
–
Complex console
The Davis Vantage Vue gets high praise from users with some reporting they’ve had their unit for 20-30 years! This is astounding and proves this product is durable. This may be partly due to its corrosion and UV-resistant sensor array. It can withstand being out in any weather, including freezing temperatures and extremely hot days.
The sensor array is wireless and powered by solar panels but it does have a lithium battery backup, if required. While solar powers the sensor during the day, a supercapacitator gives it power at night, so you’ll never be without weather updates. While other weather stations can be placed around 330ft away from the display console, the Davis Vantage Vue can be placed up to 1000ft away which is remarkable.
This weather station has been designed with meteorologists in mind. The tipping spoon is self-emptying and measures rain in 0.01″ (0,2mm) increment while the unit can record wind speeds from 2 mph to 200 mph, with the console receiving an updated wind speed every 2.5 seconds. You can’t argue that that is a fast update.
This home weather station can be placed in most weather conditions with it being able to measure temperatures from -40° to +150°F (-40° to +65°C), with updates provided every 10 seconds.
While many display units offer simple weather updates, the WeatherLink Console provided with the Vantage Vue, offers you the chance to put up to 21 weather parameters on your dashboard. This can make it look a little chaotic but to keen weather enthusiasts, this is a bonus.
The best home weather station for storms
Image 1 of 1
(Image credit: AcuRite)
AcuRite Iris 5-in-1
Able to detect lightning, the AcuRite Iris can warn you of approaching storms — every storm chasers dream.
Specifications
Rainfall: Yes
Wind: Yes
Temperature: Yes, indoor and outdoor
Extra features: Lightning detection, barometer, humidity,
Connection technology: 433 MHz
Range : 330 ft
Power source: Power adaptor, sensor is solar-powered
Smart-enabled: No
Reasons to buy
+
Detects lightning
+
Great for storm chasers
+
Good accuracy
Reasons to avoid
–
No battery backup
–
Some users complain of a lack of longevity
The AcuRite Iris 5-in-1 is one of the best home weather stations you can get. Not only does it capture rainfall, wind direction and speed and temperature, like most home weather stations, but this one can also detect storms. For those living in more volatile environments, the AcuRite Iris is the ideal weather station.
Being able to detect lightning in a 25-mile radius, as well as produce distance-to-storm estimates, this weather station is a must-have for those interested in storms or even storm chasers. Plus, if you do live in a volatile environment, this feature can act as a safety precaution. For example, by knowing where lightning is currently striking within that 25-mile radius, it means you can plan ahead and travel to family, if needed. On a more positive note, this weather station would suit those looking to follow the storm, and with the sensor being solar-powered, this device is portable. However, the display unit is not as it needs a power adaptor and has no battery backup. This isn’t too much of an issue for storm chasers as the sensor itself will sound an audible alarm upon lightning detection. Data is transmitted every 24 seconds but this increases to every 8 seconds, for a total of 30 minutes, if lightning is detected, making this a handy device for storm-prone areas. The lack of battery backup has been an issue for some users. Nevertheless, users do state that even without the battery backup, if your power goes out, your data is stored.
The AcuRite Iris 5-in-1 records indoor and outdoor temperature and humidity. Capturing your indoor temperature and humidity allows you to monitor the health of your home, as high humidity can cause mold. Having this data available means you can be in charge and make changes to your home to make it more comfortable.
As with other home weather stations, the AcuRite Iris can produce a hyperlocal forecast. However, it uses AcuRite’s self-calibrating technology, where the unit self-calibrates to your location. This calibration gives you accurate hyperlocal forecasts for the next 12 hours. This helps you to plan ahead and to know exactly what the weather is doing in your location so you’re not caught off guard.
The AcuRite Iris comes with a colorful HD screen display with the added bonus of a auto-dimming ‘sleep’ function. This allows you to set times when you’d prefer the screen to be dim. The display holds up to 1 year of weekly and monthly highs and lows for those interested in looking at trends. We think this is a great investment and one that shouldn’t be missed for those either interested in storms or find themselves living in a storm-prone place.
The best home weather station for wet climates
Image 1 of 1
(Image credit: La Crosse)
La Crosse Professional V42
If you’re interested in tracking rainfall and rain patterns, the La Crosse Professional V42 is the weather station for you.
Specifications
Rainfall: Yes
Wind: Yes
Temperature: Yes
Extra features: Forecasts, comfort levels, humidity
Connection technology: Wi-Fi
Range: 400 ft
Power source: Power adapter for display, sensors require AA batteries
Smart-enabled: Yes
Reasons to buy
+
Self-emptying rainfall gauge
+
400ft wireless range
+
Dynamic rain reading meter and rain histories on display
Reasons to avoid
–
Wi-Fi connectivity can be patchy
–
Users report some damage to windcups in high winds
–
Temperature can sometimes be inaccurate
There’s a reason why the word ‘professional’ is used in this product’s name and that’s because it offers an extensive weather monitoring system. From rainfall and humidity to temperature and weather forecasts, the La Crosse Professional V42 is a great home weather station that can help you plan your day around the weather.
The best thing about the La Crosse Professional V42 is the fact that it has such an interactive rain measuring capacity. It doesn’t just capture rainfall in its self-emptying rainfall gauge but this information feeds through to the main display unit that has a dynamic rain reading meter and access to historical rainfalls. For those who live in damper climates, this weather station provides adequate rainfall data to track patterns and trends, or to help you plan in advance.
You get two sensors with the La Crosse Professional V42 but this isn’t all you can have — this unit comes with the ability to expand your sensor collection to give you even more weather data. For example, you can buy more rainfall and wind sensors.
With the ability to create weather forecasts as well as offer indoor comfort readings, the La Crosse Professional V42 would not only suit weather enthusiasts but anyone interested in receiving a hyperlocal weather forecast compared to a generic area weather forecast. The HD dispay unit is colorful and allows you to see the outdoor conditions, indoor comfort levels, wind speed and direction and, of course, the in-depth rainfall data. It’s a great all-round weather station that’s better suited to wetter climates thanks to its extensive rain measuring capacities.
Best home weather stations: comparison
Swipe to scroll horizontally
Rainfall
Wind
Temperature
Extra features
Power source
Smart-enabled?
Range
Ambient Weather WS-2902
Yes
Yes
Yes, indoor and outdoor
Humidity, UV intensity, solar radiation
3 AAA batteries, solar powered
Yes, connection via Wi-Fi and 915 MHz
330 ft
Newentor Weather Station
No
No
Yes, indoor and outdoor
Humidity, indoor and outdoor, USB charging port
Power adapter for LCD display, 2 AA batteries for sensor
Humidity, indoor and outdoor, dew point, wind chill, heat index, barometric pressure, forecasting
Solar panel with lithium battery backup
Yes, wireless
1000 ft
AcuRite Iris 5-in-1
Yes
Yes
Yes, indoor and outdoor
Lightning detection, barometer, humidity,
Power adaptor, sensor is solar-powered
No, 433 MHz
330 ft
La Crosse Professional V42
Yes
Yes
Yes
Forecasts, comfort levels, humidity
Power adapter for display, sensors require AA batteries
Yes, connection via Wi-FI
400 ft
Our expert consultants
Joe Rao is a television meteorologist in the Hudson Valley, appearing weeknights on News 12 Westchester. He has also been an assiduous amateur astronomer for over 45 years, with a particular interest in comets, meteor showers and eclipses. He has co-led two eclipse expeditions and has served as on-board meteorologist for three eclipse cruises. He is also a contributing editor for Sky & Telescope and writes a monthly astronomy column for Natural History magazine as well as supplying astronomical data to the Farmers’ Almanac. Since 1986 he has served as an Associate and Guest Lecturer at New York’s Hayden Planetarium. In 2009, the Northeast Region of the Astronomical League bestowed upon him the prestigious Walter Scott Houston Award for more than four decades of promoting astronomy to the general public.
Best home weather stations: Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between weather stations and meteorological stations?
While home weather stations can make you feel a little bit more like a meteorologist, there is a distinction between weather stations and meteorological stations. Our expert, television meteorologist, Joe Rao, explains, “While the terms ‘weather station’ and ‘meteorological station’ are often used interchangeably, there’s a subtle distinction. A weather station is a general term for a facility that collects weather data, while a meteorological station is a more specific term for a facility that focuses on collecting and analyzing meteorological data for scientific purposes, often within a broader meteorological network. Both types of stations use various instruments to measure atmospheric conditions.”
How accurate are home weather stations?
When purchasing a home weather station, you want some reassurance that the data you collect will be accurate. While they are not as robust as meteorological stations, home weather stations can give accurate readings. Our expert, Joe Rao, explains, “While most home weather stations provide reliable data for everyday use, they may not match the precision of professional-grade equipment. Factors like sensor quality, calibration and environmental conditions can affect accuracy. Home weather stations generally offer accurate temperature and humidity readings but their accuracy can vary, particularly for rainfall and wind measurements.” For everyday use in the home, the accuracy offered by home weather stations will suffice but as Joe Rao points out, rainfall and wind measurements can sometimes vary. This is important to keep in mind if you are looking for spot-on accuracy for these measurements. If that’s the case, it may be worth investing in a top-of-the-range model like the Davis Vantage Vue to ensure better quality and hopefully more reliable results. As Joe Rao said, “Cheap and longlasting/accurate do not go together as far as weather stations have to go”.
Are home weather stations worth it?
Having a home weather station can be a great addition. However, you may be wondering whether they’re worth the investment. Joe Rao, our expert, gives his opinion, “Home weather stations can be worth it, particularly for individuals who want more accurate and localized weather information than what’s typically available from public forecasts. They offer benefits like personalized forecasts, monitoring of indoor conditions and the ability to track specific weather trends relevant to your location.” If these sound like things you want to know, a home weather station will be a worthwhile investment for you.
The partnership will see Coca-Cola headline across matchdays and fan experiences, offering fans the perfect refreshment at Old Trafford and beyond.
The agreement includes pouring rights for Coca-Cola, Coca-Cola Zero, Diet Coke, Fanta, Fanta Zero, Sprite, Sprite Zero, Dr Pepper and Dr Pepper Zero — providing a wide range of carbonated options at the stadium.
There will be chance to enjoy a Coca-Cola in our new Pop-Up Pub, which is opening in the W1 car park at Old Trafford on Sunday, when Ruben Amorim’s side kick off the season with a home game against Arsenal.
The headline result, and the reason why people like Bulletproof founder and self-proclaimed biohacker Dave Asprey are talking about the 12-3-30 workout again, is that the study found incline walking to use a higher percentage of fat for fuel than running. Specifically, while incline walking, subjects burned an average of 40.6 percent of their calories from fat, compared with an average of 33 percent for running. That result, on its own, would make it appear that incline walking is more effective at burning fat than running. However, that’s actually not the case at all.
The (real) takeaway you need to know
“Here’s where people get tripped up,” says Joe Ghafari, certified personal trainer, nutritionist, and nutritional educator at the weight-loss company Eden. “The body uses different fuel sources—carbs or fat—depending on exercise intensity. Low-to-moderate intensity, like walking uphill, keeps you in that fat-oxidation sweet spot. That’s what we often refer to as ‘zone two’ heart rate, and it is awesome for building metabolic endurance and improving how your body burns fat over time. But just because you’re using a higher percentage of fat doesn’t automatically mean you’re burning more total fat or hitting a bigger calorie deficit.”
Incline walking may burn a higher percentage of fat for fuel than running, but it also takes much longer to do so. In the data, we can see that running burned significantly more calories per minute than incline walking. Subjects torched an average of 13 calories per minute while running, versus 10 while incline walking. That’s a huge difference. It also means that participants had to run just 23 minutes to burn the same amount of calories as they did with 30 minutes of incline walking.
“The data shows that when matched for total calorie burn, incline walking led to a higher percentage of calories burned from fat compared to running,” Ghafari says. “But it doesn’t mean incline walking burns more total fat. While incline walking uses more fat as fuel percentage-wise, the total fat burned might still be less.”
The fat of the matter
If you’re looking to burn some fat, you really can’t go wrong with either incline walking or running—although running will probably still get you there faster, due to the overall higher calorie burn. Ultimately, the success of your weight-loss efforts will hinge on your ability to maintain a caloric deficit.
“If you’re trying to lose weight and lose fat, the answer is a run, because of the caloric expenditure,” says Cristina Del Toro Badessa, MD, wellness physician and director at tktk Artisan Beaut.
In the study, incline walking burned about 22 percent more calories from fat than running did. But the subjects only ran for 23 minutes, which is 25 percent less time than they spent incline walking. So, with a little back-of-the-napkin math, we can see that running would actually utilize about the same amount of fat as incline walking over the same period of time (while also burning roughly 25 percent more total calories).
At WWDC 2025, Apple announced it was replacing the sequential numbering for OS versions and with year numbers. So instead of watchOS 12, I’ve spent the past two weeks with the public beta of watchOS 26. The naming scheme shift is subtle, but helpful — which is how I’d describe the upgrades the new software brings to the Apple Watch. The AI-powered Workout Buddy better contextualizes your Fitness data and an added gesture gives the watch a fun trick that’s actually helpful. Other upgrades — including better smart replies and the Liquid Glass treatment — all combine to make the watch work and look a bit better than it did before. It’s not a game-changing shift, like other OS 26 releases, but it manages to make a great watch a touch better.
Luminous Liquid Glass
Every Apple operating system got the Liquid Glass treatment this year, including watchOS 26. The change is less noticeable on the Apple Watch than on the iPhone or iPad, though. You’ll notice the semi-transparent buttons and flowy movement when entering your password and opening the control center — the icons look like they’re surrounded in little drops of water, which is quite pretty. You’ll see it on the Photos watch face, too, especially if you select the “glass” color for the time readout.
The Liquid Glass treatment for the Photos watch face.
(Amy Skorheim for Engadget)
The Smart Stack now has a liminal glow and the app icons are likewise a touch more luminous than before. The effect is subtle and nicely unifies the look of the watch and its companion iPhone. Like all design upgrades, Liquid Glass made me feel like I was using a new watch — though, like everything, the novelty wore off after a week or two.
Revamped Workout app combines AI stats with a DJ
In addition to the Buddy, the Workout app has a new look with icons in each of the four corners of the screen that give you easier access to adjust your data view, play music, set goals and tweak Buddy settings. My favorite new feature is in the music menu and it’s limited to Apple Music for now. If you tap the music icon, you have the option to auto-play music. From there, you can also select “Picked for you” or “Choose media.” The former will select music that matches the type of workout you’re doing and what you like to listen to. As someone who gets derailed from pretty much all my tasks when I have to interact with my phone, I appreciate anything that can make decisions for me and prevent me from reaching for it.
I was presented with peppy beats that matched the cadence of my run, from bands and artists that were familiar as well as new-to-me selections that fit my tastes. Unfortunately, it didn’t always work correctly. Sometimes I’d get no music, other times the music would play but the Workout Buddy would fall silent. I realize I’m testing a public beta of watchOS 26, so I’m holding out hope the feature will work at launch. Because when it worked, it was glorious.
The new Workout app layout.
(Amy Skorheim for Engadget)
The new Workout Buddy is probably the biggest AI play in watchOS 26. It uses historical and real-time data collected by your watch to give you a window into how you’re performing at the beginning, end and throughout a workout. It works for walking, running, cycling and other workouts but requires headphones and a nearby Apple Intelligence-compatible iPhone. That gave me pause. I hate carrying stuff and/or sticking things in my ears when I run. But after acquiring some open earbuds and digging out my old Spibelt, I made it work.
There are three voices to choose from as of this writing, a bright feminine option, a British male-sounding one and another female-presenting version with a lower register. These were built on vocal data from Fitness+ trainers and have an authentic sound to them. At the start of a workout, you’ll get a brief pep talk along with some recent milestones. My pre-game walking and running talks included references to the day of the week, my location and accumulated fitness data. For example, “Way to get out there on a Wednesday morning walk in Albuquerque. So far this week, you’ve done three walking workouts. Let’s get in some steps!”
Depending on the type of exercise, you can set target ranges for cadence, heart rate, speed, distance, power (cycling), time and others. During a workout, the AI will let you know if you’re at, below or above those levels. The first time I tried Workout Buddy, my run was quite lonely. I didn’t realize I had to turn on the Buddy, as well as the various goal metrics within the Workout app. I did that and, on my next run, the AI delivered cadence and heart rate updates, and let me know when I hit milestones like distance and duration.
At the end of a workout, you’ll see a thinking animation as the AI assembles a summary. It’ll recap data like your pace, distance, average and peak heart rate, as well as progress on your Activity rings. It’ll also point out comparisons or cumulative milestones you may have hit. For example, after a longer walk, it told me that I’d just burned the most calories on a walk so far. Another day, it told me I’d walked ten miles so far this week. It closes the update by encouraging you to take the energy into the rest of your day or something similarly positive but measured.
That’s a big improvement over the first few times I used the feature. My first few pep talks were cloying, telling me something along the lines of “It’s not easy to get out there early in the morning!” and “Your effort is inspiring!” After I stopped a run early to fuss with settings, it told me I did a “Great job!” on a three-minute run. Thankfully, Apple appears to be tweaking the Buddy behind the scenes, calibrating the AI’s “personality.” Recent pep talks have become noticeably less sycophantic and therefore more enjoyable. I imagine the Buddy will only continue to evolve even more from here.
The Workout Buddy is not a coach
The Workout Buddy is a motivational experience that provides personalized insights you can use to gauge your performance. But I just finished trying out Samsung’s AI running coach on the Galaxy Watch and couldn’t help comparing the two. That coach pushed me to run five kilometers for the first time in my life. The Buddy made me feel like I’d accomplished something special just by taking my dog on a stroll. Both have their place, but I’d say Apple’s version is probably best for those who already know what their goals are and what they need to do to hit them. Samsung’s version may be better for beginners who want some help shaping their fitness journey.
In addition to the Buddy, the Workout app has a new look with icons in each of the four corners of the screen that give you easier access to adjust your data view, play music, set goals and tweak Buddy settings. My favorite new feature is in the music menu and it’s limited to Apple Music for now. If you tap the music icon, you have the option to auto-play music. From there, you can also select “Picked for you” or “Choose media.” The former will select music that matches the type of workout you’re doing and what you like to listen to. As someone who gets derailed from pretty much all my tasks when I have to interact with my phone, I appreciate anything that can make decisions for me and prevent me from reaching for it.
I was presented with peppy beats that matched the cadence of my run, from bands and artists that were familiar as well as new-to-me selections that fit my tastes. Unfortunately, it didn’t always work correctly. Sometimes I’d get no music, other times the music would play but the Workout Buddy would fall silent. I realize I’m testing a public beta of watchOS 26, so I’m holding out hope the feature will work at launch. Because when it worked, it was glorious.
More hands-free fun with wrist flick
I love the double tap gesture Apple introduced with the Apple Watch Series 9 — it’s a pleasure to stop timers, start auto-detected workouts and answer calls without getting my other hand involved. But it took some practice before I could reliably get the watch to recognize the gesture. (The trick is raising your wrist in an exaggerated checking-the-time motion then quickly, but not too quickly, tapping your thumb and finger together twice.)
Luckily, the new Wrist Flick motion introduced in watchOS 26 takes practically no effort to get right. It involves quickly turning the back of your wrist away from you and back up again. Doing that can silence a call, stop a ringing timer, dismiss notifications and return you to the watch face from any app you open. It also makes those irritating helpful “Time to stand!” reminders go away. The wrist flick doesn’t clear alerts, just dismisses them — so the red indicator dot disappears, but the notification remains and you can see it if you swipe down. Just note that it’s only available to Apple Watch Series 9, 10 and the Ultra 2.
A demonstration of clearing notifications with the wrist flick gesture
(Amy Skorheim for Engadget)
Wrist flick is a great feature — though it’s important to note that Android wearables since WearOS 2 had a similar feature for a while now. And I’d like to see Apple adopt more hands-free interactions like this. Apple already has many gesture-based controls as part of its existing AssistiveTouch feature. Actions like fist clenches, wrist tilts and single or double taps can control most of the navigation on the watch. Unfortunately, turning on AssistiveTouch turns off the universal double tap feature. I’d be interested in seeing something that splits the difference. Perhaps four or five gestures for basic functions that can be used in conjunction with screen input.
Smarter replies could make Messages a usable watch app
The Apple Watch is great for reading texts, but replying is awkward. That tiny keyboard is an interface for ants — even talk-to-text input is inefficient as it’s tough to correct mistakes. Smart Replies are little canned responses that appear as suggestions below the reply field. Those aren’t new, but now Series 9 watches and later will use an improved on-device language model to come up with relevant bits of text you can send with a tap.
In addition to the choices that are always offered — Okay, Yes, No, Thank you and Can I call you later? — I saw things like “Ok, let me know” and “That’s so sweet!” both of which applied to their respective conversations. I wasn’t always given Smart Reply suggestions, and some of them weren’t very relevant, but again, it’s a great feature that will save time when it works.
Another Messages update is a carryover from iOS 26 (and borrowed from countless other messaging apps). You can now set custom backgrounds for each of your (Apple-only) contacts. Just note that whatever you set will be seen by all participants in the conversation, once they update to iOS 26. On your watch, the photo, gradient or pattern you pick carries over to your conversations. Not only does it look nice, I find backgrounds help me to not accidentally text my mom something I meant to send to my sister.
Backgrounds are now available in Messages.
(Amy Skorheim for Engadget)
Notes have arrived
The Notes app is now on Apple Watch. I honestly hadn’t noticed the lack before this — I know there are plenty of Notes enthusiasts out there, but in my world, Alexa handles all reminder and shopping list duties. Still, I can see how the new integration could come in handy. After creating a simple shopping checklist in the iOS Notes app, I opened the list on my watch while I was shopping and found it far easier to check things off on my wrist than dragging out my phone every time I stuck something in my cart.
I’m curious to see whether Apple’s improved prediction algorithms for the new OS will eventually add Notes to my Smart Stack suggestions after I open the Notes app a few times at the grocery store. As it stands now, the Notes widget will pop up first in the Smart Stack if that’s the last app you used.
The rest of the new stuff
Face Gallery
The iPhone Watch app has a new look and now organizes watch faces by category instead of by name. Groupings include New, Clean, Data-rich, Photos and Health and Fitness, among others. It’s certainly an improvement, but one that makes you wonder why it wasn’t always like this.
The Watch Face gallery is categorized now.
(Amy Skorheim for Engadget)
Adaptive sound
Another nice-but-obvious update adjusts the volume of pings and beeps to fit the environment — quieter in a noiseless office and louder at a raucous BBQ. I set a timer to go off when I was quietly working at my desk and then again with loud music playing and I couldn’t really tell the difference. But that’s a hard metric for the humble human ear to judge. Again, this is a feature reserved for Series 9 models and later.
Smart Stack
The Smart Stack will now add a small prompt to your watch face when it detects certain situations. For example, if you open the camera app on your phone, a small camera icon appears at the bottom of your watch screen, as a suggestion to open the remote shutter. Apple gives other examples, such as showing the workout icon when you arrive at your usual pilates studio or the Backtrack navigation feature when you journey away from cellular connectivity.
I didn’t see the prompt very often, but I did notice that the Smart Stack rearranged itself according to my habits — such as putting the medication widget at the top of the stack right around the time it was time to take my prescription, or shuffling Shazam to the top when it hears music playing.
Siri is still Siri
Coming fresh off of reviewing the Samsung Galaxy Watch 8, I can’t help but notice a stark difference between that wearable’s fully integrated, AI-powered Gemini and Apple’s same-old Siri. Gemini on the Samsung watch helped me find new stuff in my city, performed convoluted tasks and answered some pretty esoteric questions. I use Siri on my watch to reliably set timers, text people and add events to my calendar. But it’s not quite on the level of Gemini’s contextually-aware, generative capabilities that can interact with multiple apps. Asking something like “Where should I have lunch?” gave me a list of businesses with lunch in the name followed by Siri asking me: “Which one?” Not sure what that meant. Gemini, on the other hand, gave me local and relevant ideas for places I’d actually want to eat.
Even before AI swallowed everyone’s mind, I had a soft spot for digital assistants. When Alexa sings the “You’re very, very, oh so very welcome” song, I get a dopey smile on my face. I’ve tried to love Siri, but I get frustrated by being misunderstood, misdirected, misheard and flat-out ignored. I know Apple doesn’t like to release new tech until it’s fully up to snuff, and I’m looking forward to seeing what finally happens with new Siri. But for now, the disparity shows.
Wrap-up
The changes watchOS 26 brings to the Apple Watch are perhaps not as grand as those for other Apple devices. Liquid Glass here isn’t as all-encompassing as it is on the iPhone. The new watch features don’t make the wearable finally realize its full potential like iPad OS 26 does for the tablet. And there isn’t one major feature upgrade that transforms the watch experience, like macOS 26 does with Spotlight on Macs.
But the updates do push the experience of using the watch forward. Liquid Glass is pretty and nicely ties the wearable with its companion devices. The Workout app, which was already good at tracking fitness metrics, is even better with the Workout Buddy, providing stat summaries and automated playlists. Improved smart replies for Messages and the addition of the Notes app fix two of the watch’s previous shortcomings. And the wrist flick adds another option for hands-free interaction and — I hope — is a precursor to more such utility. I’m still holding out hope for an improved, personable and helpful Siri once Apple is ready, but for now, these are all welcome upgrades for what’s already the industry’s best overall smartwatch.
