Science News Roundup: Trio wins economics Nobel for science-based poverty fight' Russia buries cosmonaut Alexei Leonov

Following is a summary of current science news briefs.

Trio wins economics Nobel for science-based poverty fight

U.S.-based economists Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer won the 2019 Nobel Economics Prize on Monday for work fighting poverty that has helped millions of children by favoring practical steps over theory. French-American Duflo becomes only the second woman to win the economics prize in its 50-year history, as well as the youngest at 46. She shared the award equally with Indian-born American Banerjee and Kremer, also of the United States.

Russia buries cosmonaut Alexei Leonov, first human to walk in space

Hundreds of Russians bade farewell to cosmonaut Alexei Leonov, the first human to walk in space, at a solemn funeral ceremony on Tuesday which culminated in a gun salute. The ceremony for Leonov, who died on Friday at the age of 85 after a long illness, was attended by Russia's defence minister and prominent space exploration figures including 89-year-old former U.S. astronaut Thomas Stafford.

Interstellar interloper is a comet resembling those in our solar system

The second interstellar object ever spotted passing through the solar system is a comet that appears quite like those formed in our neighborhood of the cosmos, providing fresh evidence that other planetary systems may be very similar to our own. Astronomers on Monday provided some of the first details about the comet now hurtling toward the sun, saying it has a solid nucleus with a radius of about six-tenths of a mile (1 km), a cloud-like structure of dust and gas emitted by the nucleus, the telltale tail of a comet and a reddish color.

Also Read: First man to conduct spacewalk, Alexei Leonov, dies