Life Beyond Earth and Manipulation of Spacetime

 In an interview last night, I was asked two scientific questions. First, there was the news report about the discovery of the `strongest evidence yet’ of life on a distant planet, K2–18b.

I was asked: “If life is confirmed there, what would be the next step? Should we try to establish some sort of contact? Generally, do you think it is a good idea to reach out to extraterrestrials once we know where they are?”

I explained that the new paper is based on the JWST detection of the spectral fingerprint of a single molecule, dimethyl sulfide, in the atmosphere of the exoplanet. This molecule is not a reliable biomarker according to another paper, which shows that it is found in the interstellar medium without the presence of life. On Earth, this molecule is produced by microorganisms in the oceans.

Inferences based on the detection of molecular biomarkers in the atmospheres of exoplanets are indirect. However, as I suggested in a paper with my former student, Henry Lin, and Gonzalo Gonzalez, the detection of molecules associated with industrial pollution, such as CFCs, will be far more indicative, not only of life but also of the technologies it developed. I find microbes to be much more boring than intelligent life. Microbes are probably very abundant, but we can learn much more from a smarter kid on our cosmic block....<<<Read More>>>...

It Wasn’t Aliens: The “Wow!” Signal Deciphered

In 1977, astronomers received a powerful, peculiar radio signal from the direction of the constellation Sagittarius. Its frequency was the same as neutral hydrogen, and astronomers had speculated that any ETIs attempting to communicate would naturally use this frequency. Now the signal, named the Wow! Signal has become lore in the SETI world.

But what was it?

Beginning in the 1970s, the Ohio State University Big Ear radio telescope was used in the university’s Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) program, which ran from 1973 to 1995. This program is the longest-running SETI program in history....<<<Read More>>>...

Strange object discovered flying through space at incredible speed

 Scientists analyzed archival data from the WISE space telescope and made an important discovery. They have discovered a strange object that is flying through our galaxy at a staggering speed of 600 km/s (15% the speed of light). For comparison, the Sun rotates around the center of the Milky Way at a speed.

The discovered object was named CWISE J1249 and observations using ground-based telescopes allowed astronomers to get a little closer to solving the mystery of this ultra-fast object.

It is not yet clear exactly what CWISE J1249 is. It can be either a small star or a brown dwarf, that is, an object that has the characteristics of stars and planets. Whatever it is, it is moving extremely fast and on a unique trajectory, and it looks like the object will soon leave the Milky Way and fly off into intergalactic space....<<<Read More>>>...

Mysterious signal from space repeats every hour

 The ASKAP radio telescope in Australia recorded a strange repeating signal that changes its characteristics every 53.8 minutes, moving into three different states.

The signal, dubbed ASKAP J1935+2148, is unlike anything we’ve ever seen. It emits bright flashes lasting from 10 to 50 seconds with linear polarization.

In other cases, it emits weaker, circularly polarized pulses lasting only 370 milliseconds. Sometimes the signal disappears completely. The study was published in the journal Nature Astronomy.

“What’s intriguing is that this object exhibits three different states of radiation, each with properties completely different from the others,” said lead author Dr Manisha Caleb....<<<Read More>>>....

 

Astronomers discovered an object that defies explanation

 The team of astronomers from around the world details their fascinating discovery and delves into its potential nature:

Sometimes astronomers come across objects in the sky that we can’t easily explain. In our new research, published in Science, we report such a discovery, which is likely to spark discussion and speculation.

Neutron stars are some of the densest objects in the universe. As compact as an atomic nucleus, yet as large as a city, they push the limits of our understanding of extreme matter. The heavier a neutron star is, the more likely it is to eventually collapse to become something even denser: a black hole.

These astrophysical objects are so dense, and their gravitational pulls so strong, that their cores – whatever they may be – are permanently shrouded from the universe by event horizons: surfaces of perfect darkness from which light cannot escape....<<<Read More>>>...

Physicists discover that gravity can create light

Researchers have discovered that in the exotic conditions of the early universe, waves of gravity may have shaken space-time so hard that they spontaneously created radiation.

The physical concept of resonance surrounds us in everyday life. When you're sitting on a swing and want to go higher, you naturally start pumping your legs back and forth. You very quickly find the exact right rhythm to make the swing go higher. If you go off rhythm then the swing stops going higher. This particular kind of phenomenon is known in physics as a parametric resonance.

Your legs act as an external pumping mechanism. When they match the resonant frequency of the system, in this case your body sitting on a swing, they are able to transfer energy to the system making the swing go higher.

These kinds of resonances happen all over the place, and a team of researchers have discovered that an exotic form of parametric resonance may have even occurred in the extremely early universe.

Perhaps the most dramatic event to occur in the entire history of the universe was inflation. This is a hypothetical event that took place when our universe was less than a second old. During inflation our cosmos swelled to dramatic proportions, becoming many orders of magnitude larger than it was before. The end of inflation was a very messy business, as gravitational waves sloshed back and forth throughout the cosmos....<<<Read More>>>....

Brazilian anomaly: Why spaceships fail over South America

 Every time the International Space Station flies over this continent, the astronauts get “flashes” in their eyes.

When in 2012 the very first Dragon ship built by SpaceX first arrived and docked to the ISS, then in the report on this mission, among other things, there was a curious fact.

During the passage of the station over the Atlantic and South America on the “Dragon” there was some temporary failure in the remote control system, that is, the onboard equipment is out of order. Later it was restarted, and everything was fine again.

And this did not surprise the world astronautics at all. On huge screens in the Mission Control Centers in both Korolev and Houston, this region above the Earth is always highlighted....<<<Read More>>>...

Life Originated Long Before the Earth

 Before you get excited about the title, we want to remind you that there are many arguments that this statement is wrong. But for the sake of scientific speculation, let’s put aside any disbelief and take the 2018 book Habitability of the Universe Before Earth by Alexei Sharov and Richard Gordon at face value.

The bottom line is that if Moore’s Law is applied to the demonstrated exponential growth in genetic complexity over time, then life as we know it formed about ten billion years ago. Why is it important? Because the modern age of the Earth is estimated at only 4.5 billion years.

This suggests all sorts of intriguing possibilities. First, in this scenario, the variant of panspermia is an inevitable conclusion. Life did not originate on Earth.

Panspermia is the hypothesis that life on Earth originated from life forms present in outer space, which were delivered to Earth by meteoroids, asteroids, or comets.

Of course, this is not a new idea, but now science fiction as a genre has some numbers to work with. In addition, we have the possibility that in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, we, as a civilization, are not retarded children in a galaxy teeming with much more advanced races....<<<Read More>>>...

What Happens In The Universe In One Second?

 Although one second may seem insignificant to you, a lot happens in the universe in that small amount of time.

The universe is full of secrets, and it is so big that we cannot imagine what its boundaries are. The more we explore the universe, the more we realize how little we know about it.

However, despite its many mysteries, mankind has made great progress in understanding the cosmos. Over the past few decades, scientists have discovered that there are about 40 billion black holes in the universe. To date, astronomers have discovered more than 5,000 exoplanets in our galaxy that are capable of biological life.

Although we have made a lot of progress, we still cannot answer many mysteries. What is dark matter and what does it represent? Are black holes tunnels through time or space? And much more.

But here are some more impressive facts about the universe....<<<Read More>>>...

Black holes could be wormholes in outer space, study shows

 If wormholes exist in space, they are very similar to black holes, physicists say. This raises the possibility that we could see them without knowing it.

The universe is full of exciting things, like black holes or merging neutron stars. However, all this looks trite compared to what scientists call wormholes, which hypothetically connect parts of space in different parts of the universe.

Many physicists are skeptical that wormholes exist, or at least that three-dimensional objects can pass through them unharmed....<<<Read More>>>...

 

Once every thousand years, the Earth is shaken by a mysterious cosmic storm

Scientists have found that about once every thousand years, carbon-14 production in the atmosphere spikes, creating potentially devastating radiation storms, reports sciencealert.com

Astronomers have several hypotheses about what could have caused this phenomenon. However, a full study of these events makes their cause even more mysterious.

High-energy particles collide with nitrogen atoms in the upper atmosphere to produce radioactive carbon-14, the longest-lived radioactive carbon isotope that enters the planetary carbon cycle and is taken up by plants.

This means that rings of ancient trees will help scientists discover what caused the abundance of carbon-14 in the distant past.

Ten years ago, scientists found explanations for the small changes in carbon-14 over the past thousand years, but a huge spike in 774 AD immediately puzzled them....<<<Read More>>>......

Lost star catalog of ancient times comes to light

 Around 130 BC, the great Greek astronomer Hipparchus drew up the very first star catalog ever, containing descriptions and coordinates of some 850 naked-eye stars in the northern sky.

At least, that's what later sources say - copies of Hipparchus's list have never been found. Until now, that is. Writing in the Journal of the History of Astronomy, three European scientists claim to have uncovered a small part of the long-lost catalog. "I felt nothing short of awe when I first heard about it," says astronomy historian and writer William Sheehan.

In the 2nd century AD, Claudius Ptolemy compiled a catalog of 1,025 stars in 48 constellations to include in his magnum opus, Almagest. Ptolemy also hinted at the existence of an earlier listing, some scholars have suggested that Ptolemy's work was based not on his own observations but on Hipparchus's catalog.

Hipparchus was born around 190 BC in Nicaea, in what is now northwestern Turkey, but he carried out most of his astronomical work on the island of Rhodes. He made the first estimates of the distances and sizes of the Moon and the Sun, and was the first to discover precession: the slow wobble in the orientation of the Earth's spin axis. According to astronomy historian Bradley Schaefer (Louisiana State University), Hipparchus was "arguably the best and greatest astronomer in the world before Copernicus."

"Only one of his many books, The Commentaries, has survived," says Schaefer, "with the most important loss being his influential star catalog." That's why scientists are elated about the new find. "It [...] illuminates a crucial moment in the birth of science, when astronomers shifted from simply describing the patterns they saw in the sky to measuring and predicting them," astronomy historian James Evans (University of Puget Sound, Washington) told Nature.

Peter Williams (Cambridge University, UK) and Victor Gysembergh and Emmanuel Zingg (Sorbonne University, Paris) studied the Codex Climaci Rescriptus, a 9th- or 10th-century manuscript from the Saint Catherine's Monastery on the Sinai peninsula in Egypt. The codex, which is now kept at the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C., contains Christian texts in Syriac...<<<Read More>>>...

Scientists intend to find astroarchaeological artifacts of space brothers in mind

Scientists, contrary to their fantastic plans, still think realistically and believe in the possibility of discovering the so-called astroarchaeological artifacts – some traces left by advanced extraterrestrial civilizations on our planet or somewhere nearby.

For this purpose, the research project “Galileo” (Galileo Project) was founded, initiated by professors from Harvard University Avi Loeb and Frank Laukien.

Both believe in the existence of aliens, and Loeb especially. It was he who gained worldwide fame by first declaring Oumuamua – an interstellar asteroid that flew into the solar system – as an alien ship or an automatic probe, and then offered to catch up with him before he flew too far....<<<Read More>>>...

 

Scientists have found out how many planets have water

 Hilarious. Everything is water. Water is the universe. It is the medium in which all of this sound vibration exists. That is our opinion anyway.

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 Scientists now believe that water planets are much more common, but the water there could be mixed with rocks or underground, rather than as surface oceans.

Water is one of the most important components of all life on Earth, and it is what scientists most often look for in habitable exoplanets. But it turns out that water-rich worlds are far more common in the Milky Way Galaxy than we first thought, a new study has found.

The findings of this study, published in the peer-reviewed academic journal Science, shed light on the prevalence of water in the universe, which could potentially be a game-changer in the search for strange new habitable worlds.

Contrary to popular belief, it is not surprising that water can be found outside the Earth. In fact, water is already surprisingly widespread in the universe.

Even in our own solar system, while very faint traces of water can be found in the atmospheres of other planets, many asteroids likely have significant amounts of water—in fact, some scientists suggest that most of Earth’s water came from asteroid impacts.

Water can also be found on moons, with several moons in the solar system, such as Jupiter’s moons Ganymede and Europa, supposedly containing large amounts of water.

Contrary to popular belief, other planets are also known to have water, though not necessarily the planets in our solar system.

 

Mysterious rings in new James Webb Space Telescope image puzzle astronomers

 We are always sceptical of anything that is 'space imagery' due to our own personal views on what space actually is.

This image suggests some kind of sound frequency or water wave captured in the image, as stars are more than likely light sources seen within the endless ocean that is space.

It might also be some kind of actual structure captured in the image.

Then again, it might be a CGI ...

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The James Webb Space Telescope captured mysterious concentric rings around a distant star that astronomers are still working to explain.

The image, taken in July, was released on Twitter by citizen scientist Judy Schmidt, prompting a torrent of comments and head-scratching. It shows a star known as WR140 surrounded by regular ripple-like circles that gradually fade away. The circles, however, are not perfectly round, but have a somewhat square-like feel to them, prompting speculations about possible alien origins.

"I think it's just nature doing something that is simple, but when we look at it from only one viewpoint it seems impossible, at first, to understand that it is a natural phenomenon," Schmidt told Space.com in an email. "Why is it shaped the way it is? Why is it so regular?"

Mark McCaughrean, an interdisciplinary scientist in the James Webb Space Telescope Science Working Group and a science advisor to the European Space Agency, called the feature "bonkers" in a Twitter thread.

"The six-pointed blue structure is an artifact due to optical diffraction from the bright star WR140 in this #JWST MIRI image," he wrote. "But red curvy-yet-boxy stuff is real, a series of shells around WR140. Actually in space. Around a star."

He noted that WR140 is what astronomers call a Wolf-Rayet star, which have spat much of their hydrogen into space. These objects are also surrounded by dust, he added, which a companion star is sculpting into the strange shells.

Astronomers will know more soon thanks to a scientific paper currently under review about this mysterious phenomenon.

"Yes, those nested 'squircular' rings are real," Ryan Lau, an astronomer at NOIRLab and principal investigator of the project that acquired the observations, replied to the Twitter thread. "Our paper on this has been submitted so please stay tuned for the full story."

WR140, located some 5,600 light-years away from Earth in the constellation Cygnus, is a so-called variable star that periodically dims and brightens. Whether the star's variability has anything to do with the mysterious ripples remains to be seen.

The image, however, demonstrates the power of the $10 billion James Webb Space Telescope, the most powerful observatory ever sent to space, which has been hailed for its revolutionary infrared vision and superkeen eye...<<<Read More>>>...

Astronomers have discovered a nearby alternative home for humanity similar to Earth

 Scientists believe that they have discovered an exoplanet relatively close to ours, which could possibly become an alternative home for humanity. This is reported by the Daily Star.

This planet is reported to be in the habitable zone around its star and is only four light years away. However, an exoplanet can only be reached if humans figure out how to travel at the speed of light.

Proxima is the closest star to the Sun. It is a dim red dwarf, smaller than our Sun and many thousands of times fainter. The planet, which astronomers have named “Proxima d”, was discovered orbiting Proxima Centauri, the closest star to our Sun.

The planet is more than four light-years away, meaning it would take humans at least 800 years to get there with the most advanced technology available today.

However, if in the future humans can travel at the speed of light through outer space, Proxima d will be within reach.

The European Southern Observatory (ESO) announced the discovery in early 2022, when Proxima d became the third planet discovered in the solar system of Proxima Centauri.

Juan Faria, a researcher at Spain’s Institute of Astrophysics and Science in Portugal, said: “The discovery shows that our nearest stellar neighbor appears to be filled with exciting new worlds and is within reach for further exploration and future research.”

The exoplanet, which is about a quarter the size of Earth and completes an orbit around its star in just five days, is thought to be in its solar system’s habitable zone.

Even though the planet is only 2.48 million miles from the star Proxima Centauri, or in other words more than 10 times the distance between the Sun and Mercury, the conditions are hospitable enough to have liquid water on its surface and even life itself...<<<Read More>>>...

 

Moon Watch - 13.5.22

CHORLEY LANCASHIRE UK

 

Mysterious Triangular Object Floats Past SpaceX Dragon Capsule

[Humans Are Free]: During a livestreamed rendezvous between SpaceX’s Dragon cargo capsule and the ISS, viewers spotted a glowing, triangular object appearing to float by, before the camera feed switched to display another angle.

Many were quick to point out similarities in its appearance to the alleged TR-3B “black triangle” UFO – a type of reverse-engineered alien technology believed to be secretly possessed by the government.

Skeptics say the alleged UFO is actually just the lights from a city on Earth as the camera footage comes from the ISS looking down toward the Dragon coming to meet it....<<<Read The Full Article Here>>>>...

‘Oumuamua asteroid may be alien technology, hints study

[Natural News]: A mysterious space object that came from outside the solar system may be alien technology. This is because the other candidate theory is faulty, said astrophysicists from Harvard University and the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute.

Proponents of the other theory suggest that the interstellar object, ‘Oumuamua, is a comet that is partly or entirely made up of hydrogen molecules. This could explain why astronomers were not able to detect a basic feature of a comet: a coma or a comet’s tail.

But the researchers said that this explanation ignores the fact that if ‘Oumuamua is indeed a hydrogen comet, it would have evaporated midway or early into its journey....<<<Read The Full Article Here>>>...

Stargazing Meditation

[Daily OM]: Since the beginning of time, humans have gazed at the stars in the night sky with awe, seeking in their luminosity everything from answers to inspiration to guidance.

We have emerged from our contemplations with stories of gods and goddesses, maps of the universe, astrology, astronomy, math, and art. We have worshipped, wondered, and even projected ourselves out into space in an attempt to understand their magical essence.

We know more now than we ever have about what those celestial lights are, how far away they reside, and what will happen to them over time, but facts and information are still no substitute for experiencing them yourself.

Gazing at the stars is no doubt one of the earliest forms of meditation practiced by human beings, and it is readily available to this day. If you live in a city, you may have a hard time seeing the stars, but a short drive can take you far enough beyond the city lights to reveal their glory....<<<Read The Full Article Here>>>...