Today’s stories include Back when SETI began, we expected intelligent extraterrestrials to make things easy for us to Oumuamua still puzzling scientists 5 years after discovery to NASA’s Webb takes stunning star-filled portrait of Pillars of Creation, and much more.
Next stage in cosmic microwave background investigation. “With CMB-S4, scientists hope to connect a sandy desert with a polar desert—and revolutionize our understanding of the early universe. ‘We’re going back to look for physics from the dawn of time and test the model for how our whole universe was created,’” reportsSymmetry.com
The Milky Way’s Black Hole May Be the Key to What Drives Galaxies–Supermassive black holes are engines of galactic evolution, but new observations of our galaxy and its central hole don’t quite match expectations, reports Wired.
When SETI was first established, we had expected intelligent extraterrestrials would make life easier for us. “After more than six decades of searching, it is becoming clear that there are no beacons in our galaxy. If our extraterrestrial neighbors are transmitting, then they’re doing so quietly. Our galaxy is only one of the many billions of galaxies that make up the visible universe. Could there be beacons in these galaxies?” And despite the vast distances, could we detect them?”
UFOs, intelligence and Cassandra’s curse--“Critically, officials have high confidence that secret U.S. aircraft or experimental technologies are not responsible for these perplexing encounters. Analysts have not found any evidence that UFO reports are being generated by a foreign power. Any intelligence analyst who is worth his salt must raise alarm about UFO reports. And if policymakers are, in fact, receiving such warnings, Cassandra’s curse appears to be alive and well, reports The Hill.
One of the main problems if we ever find alien life, it’s our politicians,Chris Young, Interesting Engineering reports. “Scientists suggest the geopolitical fallout of discovering extraterrestrials could be more dangerous than the aliens themselves.”
NASA’s Webb Takes Star-Filled Portrait of Pillars of Creation,NASA reports. “Webb’s new view of the Pillars of Creation, which were first made famous when imaged by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope in 1995, will help researchers revamp their models of star formation by identifying far more precise counts of newly formed stars, along with the quantities of gas and dust in the region. Over time, they will begin to build a clearer understanding of how stars form and burst out of these dusty clouds over millions of years.”
A Quantum Rule that Clashes with Our Universe is Rewritten by Physicists –The past and the future are tightly linked in conventional quantum mechanics. Perhaps too closely. Charlie Wood reports for Quanta.com that a tweak to the theory could allow quantum possibilities to increase as space expands.
Physics Scientists Get a Quantum Computer Working by Exploiting It with the Fibonacci Sequence–An experiment involving a Fibonacci pattern of laser pulses apparently yielded a new state of matter, reports Gizmodo. “What we realized is that by using quasi-periodic sequences based on the Fibonacci pattern, you can have the system behave as if there are two distinct directions of time.”
‘Oumuamua still puzzling scientists 5 years after discovery, reports Keith Cooper for Space.com.”Although its origins are still hazy, interstellar objects like ‘Oumuamua may be the product of wandering planets in young planetary systems.”
NASA Studies Origins of ‘Weird’ Solar System Object: Dwarf Planet Haumea–Nearly the size of Pluto, Haumea is strange in several ways. It spins at a speed that is far faster than any other of its size. It can spin on its axis for four hours. Haumea looks more like an American football than a sphere because of its speed. Its surface is made up a large part of water ice. This makes it unlike any other surface in KuiperBelt.
Inside the Proton, the ‘Most Complicated Thing You Could Possibly Imagine’, reports Charlie Wood and Merrill Sherman for Quanta.com.”The positively charged particle at the heart of the atom is an object of unspeakable complexity, one that changes its appearance depending on how it is probed. We’ve attempted to connect the proton’s many faces to form the most complete picture yet.”
Lucy Spacecraft Will Slingshot around Earth–On October 16, 2022, NASA’s Lucy spacecraft will fly by the Earth for the first of three gravity assists. Lucy will fly to within 219 miles (a lower distance than the International Space Station) while passing through a cloud composed of more 6,200 satellites orbiting Earth. This data visualization depicts Lucy’s trajectory through the satellite swarm.
Algae may be key to human exploration of MarsThe University of Nevada, Las Vegas reports. “”Extremophilic algae” are types of algae known for their ability to thrive in extreme environments such as high-altitude snowy mountains or hypersaline lakes. If we want to accomplish long-term space exploration with people instead of rovers and robots, it will require developing a self-sustaining life support system—food and breathable air.”
Astronomers observed for the first-time that starlight was pushing dust into space.Science News reports that this discovery could aid researchers in understanding how light shapes matter throughout the cosmos. “Astronomers have long known that the dust emerging from the star WR 140 and its companion is formed by gas from these two stars colliding and condensing into soot. But images of the pair taken over the course of 16 years show that the dust is accelerating as it travels away from the stars.”
Medieval parchment reveals the first known map of Cosmos–Fabled star catalogue by ancient Greek astronomer Hipparchus had been feared lost, reports Nature. James Evans, University of Puget Sound historian of Astronomy, said it proved that Hipparchus was indeed the greatest astronomer of Ancient Greece. He did so many centuries before other attempts. It also highlights a critical moment in the history of science: when astronomers went beyond simply describing the patterns seen in the sky and started measuring and predicting these patterns.
Astronomers discovered something strange about ‘potentially hazardous’ asteroid Phaethon, reports Stefanie Waldek for Space.com.–Phaethon is just the 11th known asteroid to demonstrate a changing rotational period.
Record measurement of universe suggests ‘something is fishy’France 24 reports. “The comprehensive new study published in The Astrophysical Journal further confirmed that there is a significant discrepancy between two different ways to estimate the speed at which the universe is expanding.”
Is the question ‘Why is there something instead of nothing?’ even worth asking?--In this video from the interview series Closer to Truth, the US presenter Robert Lawrence Kuhn and the UK philosopher A C Grayling peel back the layers of a question that’s been bandied about in many a Philosophy 101 classroom.
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