Jupiter is meant to protect the Earth from space rocks, not slingshot them towards our direction. Or at least that's what astronomers originally thought, the contrary might shape up to be true.

Astronomers originally thought Jupiter's massive size and gravitational pull were saving Earth from experiencing many dangerous space rocks. While that theory might still be relatively true, it might be as full proof as once thought. Kevin Grazier, a former NASA scientist and now planetary physicist, used computer models to simulate the solar system and how space rocks interact with its planets.

What he found in these simulations was, "Our simulations show that Jupiter is just as likely to send comets at Earth as deflect them away, and we've seen that in the real solar system." In the early days of Earth forming, this principle of asteroids crashing into Earth was a good thing, as essential ingredients for life to occur (ice, minerals etc) were redistributed on Earth's surface. Today though, it could end in millions of lives being lost. Remember what happened to the dinosaurs?

A new breakthrough in being able to measure oxygen levels on distant planets has just happened, meaning NASA now has more assistance in locating alien life.

The breakthrough was published in Nature Astronomy and describes a new technique that can be used by NASA's telescopes to measure oxygen levels on distant planets. Oxygen being one of the vital building blocks of life, is what NASA is searching for on distant planets, so any help towards making that location process easier is most-welcomed. The new technique can be used by the James Webb Space Telescope.

Thomas Fauchez, from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and lead author of the study, said "Before our work, oxygen at similar levels as on Earth was thought to be undetectable with Webb. This oxygen signal is known since the early 1980s from Earth's atmospheric studies but has never been studied for exoplanet research." While spotting oxygen on distant planets isn't a 100% guarantee that there is extraterrestrial life located there, it does give NASA and scientists some conclusive evidence that a particular planet has a building block of life.

Two galaxies that both have supermassive black holes are merging together and astronomers caught it on camera.

It takes billions of years for galaxies to merge, the process is long but it is a gorgeous one to observe. An team of astronomers used the extremely powerful telescope called Atacama Large Millimetre Array (ALMA) to observe the collision between two galaxies that both have supermassive black holes. Above is the images that were taken with ALMA.

The images don't show the black holes as its extremely difficult to take images of them. But what we can see is all of the light and gas that has failed to escape their ridiculous gravitational pull. That gas that's surrounding the black hole is feeding the black holes, causing them to grow larger and larger as gravity moves both the galaxies closer together to form a new galaxy called NGC 6240.

NASA recently completed the Mars 2020 rover separation test and its first test drive, earning the rover its official martian driver's license.

NASA is planning on sending the newly designed rover to Mars this July, and things are looking up when it comes to running on schedule. Why in July? Well, that's quite simple. Due to the Earth and Mars' elliptical orbits once every 26 months, both planets are in the closest proximity of each other, precisely 35.8 million miles. Choosing to launch in July isn't just a placeholder date, its the most practical time to get the rover there and establish it on Mars' surface to begin testing.

The Mars 2020 rovers' main mission is to seek out signs of ancient microbial life and even prepare the surface of Mars for future terraforming missions. To seek out potential signs of ancient life, NASA scientists have equipped many bells and whistles on the rover, in fact, it will be carrying 10 different measuring instruments, have 23 cameras and microphones are placed all over the rover to allow for scientists to listen to any potential faults. The rover will also have an X-ray spectrometer, radar, solar-powered drone, and more nifty gadgets.

The United States has a government initiative targeted at low-income Americans, and the premise of this initiative is to make it easier for low-income Americans to acquire a smartphone.

While that sounds like an amazing idea, and it is, what if those smartphones were found out to have pre-installed Chinese malware? Unfortunately, that seems to be the case as in October 2019, Malwarebytes started to receive complaints in its support system from users who were purchasing the most inexpensive smartphone that Assurance Wireless sells. Assurance Wireless, which is a federal Lifeline Assistance program under Virgin Mobile, is supported by the federal Universal Service Fund.

The most inexpensive smartphone they were selling was the Unimax (UMX) U686CL, and this was the phone that researchers picked up to test consumers' claims. It was discovered that the U686CL harbored malicious apps, such as an app called Wireless Update. The origin of this app can be traced back to Adups malware, which was created by a Chinese company that was caught gathering user data, creating backdoors users' phones, and auto-installing other malware.

Microsoft has announced a brand new online weapon that is designed to protect children from being groomed online by predators.

The new weapon is called "Project Artemis" and according to Mircosoft's blog post, is a new technique that can detect and report people who are suspected of child grooming. So how does it work? Project Artemis is a text-based review system that reviews conversations between people online and determines through a rating system whether or not its likely a party is grooming a child.

If a party is deemed likely to be grooming Artemis will then flag the conversation and notify a human moderator to come and check it for further evaluation. Project Artemis has been in development since November 2018, Microsoft hasn't been alone in the development either as The Meet Group, Roblox, Kik, Thorn and others have also given their assistance. Microsoft says in their post, "Project Artemis" is a significant step forward, but it is by no means a panacea". The fight for child safety online continues.

The discrepancy between calculations of the speed of which the universe is expanding has been increased. Scientists can now not fully agree upon what that constant value is.

First a bit of history. The problem we are talking about here is called the Hubble constant, which was first calculated by American astronomer Edwin Hubble. Hubble discovered that every galaxy in the universe is moving away from Earth at a rate proportional to the distance between Earth and that galaxy.

At first glance, one would assume that Earth is at the center of this universe, but instead, astronomers were smart and said that there is a distinct relationship between how far objects are apart from each other, and how fast they are moving away from each other. The problem behind this way of thinking is that scientists and astronomers alike haven't been able to agree on a constant value of what that speed-distance connection is.

Dead Cells has already made its way over to the App Store for iOS devices, but when is the Android version coming out?

The news of Dead Cells coming over to mobile dates back to last May, where the developer and publisher announced that both iOS devices would be getting the Metroidvania game. iOS devices were blessed with the extremely hard title first over the Summer, and since then, Android users have been patiently waiting for a release date announcement.

Luckily, Android Police has hawk eyes and spotted a Tweet from the game's publisher, Playdigious, who said that the "Android version will be out Q3 2020". The Tweet also mentions that the developers are currently working on a content update, but its unfortunately still too early in the process to announce a release date.

CES 2020 - CES this year has been non stop with announcements, and Panasonic is here with another one.

Introducing, the world's first Ultra HD virtual reality (VR) glasses capable of displaying High Dynamic Range content. Above you can see that Panasonic's new VR glasses aren't the same as conventional ones on the market now, they are slimmer, more goggle-like and resemble a more traditional pair of glasses.

Panasonic gave a detailed overview of the new product in a press release, saying that the glasses are "UHD high-quality images device capable of displaying HDR images" and, "Equipped with a micro OLED panel co-developed by Kopin Corporation and Panasonic". The glasses also "Achieved natural and smooth images without "Screen door effect", which is a visual artifact of displays, where the fine lines separating pixels become visible in the displayed image".

After the massive success of Resident Evil 2 Remake, Capcom has decided to keep the success ball rolling with Resident Evil 3: Nemesis Remake. Will the game be exactly the same as it's 1999 counterpart?

For a short answer, no, it will not. Resident Evil 3: Nemesis will be arriving with a majority of the same features that the original game possesses, but some select features will be dropped. What will be arriving with the game is a full remake of the original story, and a new multiplayer experience called Resident Evil: Resistance.

According to the latest issue of Official PlayStation Magazine UK, Capcom Producer Peter Fabiano was asked whether the remake would have multiple endings like the 1999 original. In short, Fabiano simply said "no", but he didn't clear up whether or not players will be able to have multiple paths towards the single endings or whether or not it would just be a linear path. Mercenaries mode also didn't quite make the cut, as it was replaced with Resistance.