Data & Eggs
Volume 112
In this week's edition: mesmerizing moons, new major cities, and a better defensive metric for the NBA.
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Explore the mind-boggling moons of our solar system
There are nearly 200 moons orbiting the eight planets in our solar system, including over 60 for both Jupiter and Saturn. This interactive project from National Geographic explores the most awe-inspiring of the bunch, some of which have large volcanoes, subsurface oceans, and the potential for life. Even if you’re not an astronomy buff, this is definitely worth a read.
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Cities from scratch: watch new cities rise from the desert, jungle and sea
As the human population grows over the coming decades, it’s projected that 6.7 billion people will live in urban centers by 2050. This has led some governments in Asia and Africa to construct new cities intended to house upwards of one million people completely from scratch. The Guardian stitched together satellite imagery from the last twenty years to show how cities like Ordos, China and New Cairo, Egypt have emerged from basically nothing.
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A Better Way To Evaluate NBA Defense
Defensive prowess continues to be difficult to measure in basketball. Most traditional metrics — like blocks, for example — don’t paint a full picture of a player’s impact. FiveThirtyEight is attempting to change the status quo with a new stat that evaluates how good individuals are at limiting open space for their opponents, called DRAYMOND. Draymond Green (naturally), Joel Embiid, and Kristaps Porzingis lead the league, while Rajon Rondo rounds out the bottom.
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The Census Question
Last month, the Supreme Court ruled against adding a citizenship question to the U.S. census. But the Trump administration hasn’t abandoned hope that they could still get it approved before the next estimate in 2020. If passed, some contend that a question about citizenship would cause the census to severely undercount America’s population, and lead to government programs providing less financial aid to certain states.