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Space

What We Learned About Black Holes in 2020

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black holes - deposit photos

Physicists are currently in a golden age of new knowledge about black holes. Since 2015, researchers have been able to get signals directly from merging black holes using the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO), while observatories like the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) have produced the first image of a black hole’s shadow. This year was no exception, with a fresh crop of exciting and unique results expanding our black hole horizons. Here, we take a look at some of the most spectacular black hole findings of 2020.  Nobel Prize in physics goes to black holes As if to certify that this … Read more

SPACE: There’s a Giant Asteroid Out There Somewhere

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Asteroid - pixabay

There’s a giant asteroid somewhere out in the solar system, and it hurled a big rock at Earth. The evidence for this mystery space rock comes from a diamond-studded meteor that exploded over Sudan in 2008. NASA had spotted the 9-ton (8,200 kilograms), 13-foot (4 meters) meteor heading toward the planet well before impact, and researchers showed up in the Sudanese desert to collect an unusually rich haul of remains. Now, a new study of one of those meteorites suggests that the meteor may have broken off of a giant asteroid — one more or less the size of the … Read more

SPACE: What We Learned About Aliens in 2020

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human alien - deposit photos

Here on the little space rock we call Earth, humans often wonder whether or not we are alone in this universe. Though that question was not answered in 2020, many discoveries seemed to increase the prospect of extraterrestrial entities existing. Findings on the closest planet to us, in the outer solar system and the far beyond seemed to point to the possibility that other worlds could host organisms ranging from bacteria to technological beings. Perhaps, new results in the coming year will finally reveal who else might be out there. Is E.T. phoning us from Proxima Centauri? The answer to … Read more

The Moon is (Extra) Full of Craters

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moon

The moon has many more craters than we thought, a new study finds. More than 109,000 new craters were discovered in the low- and mid-latitude regions of the moon using artificial intelligence (AI) that was fed data collected by Chinese lunar orbiters. The number of craters recorded on the moon’s surface is now more than a dozen times larger than it was before. The findings were published Dec. 22 in the journal Nature Communications. “It is the largest lunar crater database with automatic extraction for the mid- and low-latitude regions of the moon,” study lead author Chen Yang, an associate … Read more

The Science Behind the Star of Bethlehem

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star of Bethlehem - pixabay

As the well-known story in the Gospel of Matthew goes, three Magi, or wise men, followed the Star of Bethlehem to Jerusalem some 2,000 years ago. And after consulting with King Herod of Judea, the men found newborn baby Jesus in the little town of Bethlehem. Whether such an event really happened in history is difficult to prove, but if it did, what was the Star of Bethlehem? This is a question scholars have long pondered, not just from a religious or historical perspective, but from a scientific one, too. Plenty of theories have been proposed, from an astronomical event … Read more

Scientists May have Detected Radio Emissions from An Alien World

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Radio Telescope - Deposit Photos

Scientists may have detected radio emissions from a planet orbiting a star beyond our sun for the first time. The astronomers behind the new research used a radio telescope in the Netherlands to study three different stars known to host exoplanets. The researchers compared what they saw to observations of Jupiter, diluted as if being seen from a star system dozens of light-years away. And one star system stood out: Tau Boötes, which contains at least one exoplanet. If the detection holds up, it could open the door to better understanding the magnetic fields of exoplanets and therefore the exoplanets … Read more

FOR WRITERS: Space is Vast, and We Are Few

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galaxy - pixabay

FOR WRITERS Today’s writer topic comes from QSFer Scott: Space is an unimaginably vast place, and exists on a scale of time almost impossible to imagine. Have you dealt with these issues in your sci-fi work? How? Writers: This is a writer chat – you are welcome to share your own book/link, as long as it fits the chat, but please do so as part of a discussion about the topic. Join the chat: FB: http://bit.ly/1MvPABVMeWe: http://bit.ly/2mjg8lf

SPACE: Is the Milky Way Full of Dead Civilizations?

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Milky Way - Pixabay

Most of the alien civilizations that ever dotted our galaxy have probably killed themselves off already. That’s the takeaway of a new study, published Dec. 14 to the arXiv database, which used modern astronomy and statistical modeling to map the emergence and death of intelligent life in time and space across the Milky Way. Their results amount to a more precise 2020 update of a famous equation that Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence founder Frank Drake wrote in 1961. The Drake equation, popularized by physicist Carl Sagan in his “Cosmos” miniseries, relied on a number of mystery variables — like the … Read more

space: Juno Orbiter Captures Mesmerizing Images of Jupiter Cyclones

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Jupiter Cyclones

Jupiter’s north pole is a swirling mass of cyclones, and their mesmerizing dance was recently captured in astonishing detail in images from JunoCam, the visible light camera/telescope on NASA’s Juno orbiter. The Juno mission, launched on Aug. 5, 2011, has been collecting data on Jupiter since 2016. Juno recently completed its 29th orbit of the gas giant, and its scientific instruments are revealing clues about Jupiter’s cyclone clusters.  They are also providing a glimpse into atmospheric zones that are warmer and drier than surrounding areas. These atmospheric hot spots fuel discharges of electricity and shape the formation of “mushballs” — … Read more

Long Secret Diary Could Offer Insight Into Roswell Incident

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UFO - Deposit Photos

A long-hidden diary belonging to a U.S. intelligence officer has rekindled research into the Roswell Incident, the infamous UFO crash in Roswell, New Mexico, that took place more than 70 years ago. When a mysterious object slammed into the desert near the Roswell Army Air Field (RAAF) in July 1947, Maj. Jesse Marcel, an RAAF intelligence officer, was sent to supervise collection of the debris. A press officer at the RAAF issued a statement on July 8 describing “the crash and recovery of ‘a flying disc,’” which many interpreted as evidence of alien contact. But the next day, another army … Read more