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The Race to Contact E.T.

FAST Telescope

Researchers using China’s new Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST), the largest single-dish scope in the world, are piecing together a technological strategy to carry out a major and sweeping search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI). What if China someday announces that this hunt has been successful? How would such a claim be verified, and what might the consequences be? And could an unofficial international SETI race already be underway? Space.com asked several SETI authorities to flesh out the implications of China being the first nation to get a ping from ET. Full Story From Live Science 

Could Aliens Breathe Hydrogen or Helium? This Bacteria Says Yes

yeast bacteria - deposit photos

Could aliens that breathe helium and hydrogen live on exoplanets throughout the cosmos? A new study of life on Earth suggests it’s possible. And if so, that would mean the hunt for life in the universe may need to look beyond oxygen-bathed planets to ones with seemingly inhospitable atmospheres. There is no question that an oxygen atmosphere is conducive to life — after all, it’s what we breathe on Earth. But oxygen isn’t common in the cosmos. It makes up about 0.1% of the mass of the universe. Far more common is hydrogen (92%) and helium (7%). The planet that … Read more

A new Way to Hunt for Planet 9?

planet 9 - pixabay

There’s something heavy in the outer reaches of our solar system. At least, it seems that way. Hints of it are scattered across the farthest reaches of our sun’s neighborhood — that something 5 to 10 times the mass of Earth tugging on nearby objects with its gravity. No one’s ever seen it, as this phantom has eluded years of searches by telescopes. In fact, not everyone believes it’s real. For now, most astronomers refer to it as “Planet 9.” Now, the famous theoretical physicist Edward Witten has published a paper on how to track down this specter haunting our … Read more

Tom Cruise to Shoot Movie on Space Station

Tom Cruise

Tom Cruise and Elon Musk’s Space X are working on a project with NASA that would be the first narrative feature film – an action adventure – to be shot in outer space. It’s not a Mission: Impossible film and no studio is in the mix at this stage. There has never been a leading man (Jackie Chan might dispute this) who puts himself at risk as often as does Cruise, in the name of the most realistic action sequences possible. If he is successful shooting a project in Musk’s space ship, he will be alone in the Hollywood record … Read more

SpaceX’s 12,000 Starlink Satellites to Get Glare-Reducing ‘Sunshades’

SpaceX's Starlink internet satellites

SpaceX’s Starlink internet satellites will soon sport an accessory to tamp down their surprising brightness. That brightness worries many astronomers, who say that the huge Starlink constellation could seriously disrupt a variety of scientific observations. And Starlink will indeed be huge, if all goes according to SpaceX’s plan: The company has approval to launch 12,000 craft to low Earth orbit (LEO) and has applied for permission to loft 30,000 more. (For perspective, humanity has launched just 9,400 objects to orbit since the dawn of the space age in 1957). SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk has said that the company … Read more

SPACE: Check Out This Newly-Discovered “Cosmic Reef”

Nebula - NASA

Young stars blaze to life in a nearby galaxy, repainting their cosmic neighborhood with fiery blooms of gas and radiation. This new Hubble Space Telescope image captures just another day in the life of two young nebulas (one red, one blue) in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way located about 163,000 light-years away. But for scientists and space enthusiasts on Earth, the image also marks a special anniversary. Thirty years ago today (April 24), the Hubble launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida to begin its long mission of peering into the deepest reaches … Read more

SPACE: The Planet That Wasn’t

NASA Fomalhaut-b

In 2014, a planet disappeared from the night sky. The distant world — known as Fomalhaut b and located a neighborly 25 light-years from Earth — was infamous for being one of the first exoplanets ever discovered in visible light by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope; when astronomers first caught sight of it in 2004 and 2006, the planet appeared as a bright, cool dot moving briskly across the sky. Ten years later, that dot had vanished. What happened to Fomalhaut b? Did the world have a falling out with its guardian sun (named simply Fomalhaut) and drift away? Did the … Read more

You’ve Heard of the Big Bang? What About the “Big Bounce”?

bounce - pixabay

In the beginning, there was an infinitely dense, tiny ball of matter. Then, it all went bang, giving rise to the atoms, molecules, stars and galaxies we see today. Or at least, that’s what we’ve been told by physicists for the past several decades. But new theoretical physics research has recently revealed a possible window into the very early universe, showing that it may not be “very early” after all. Instead it may be just the latest iteration of a bang-bounce cycle that has been going on for … well, at least once, and possibly forever. Of course, before physicists … Read more

Hubble Image Reveals New Stars That May Destroy the “Pillars of Creation”

Pillars Of Creation - NASA

Spearing the sky like monolithic elephant trunks, the “Pillars of Creation” are a vast region of star-forming material located in the Eagle Nebula, about 6,000 light-years from Earth. These tendrils of gas and dust, made colorful by the radiation of bright young stars smoldering within, became a Milky Way landmark thanks to an iconic visible-light image taken by the Hubble Space Telescope in 1995. Now, NASA scientists have shared a new view of the pillars, focusing instead on the infrared radiation normally invisible to human eyes. In the new infrared image (also taken by the Hubble Space Telescope), the colorful … Read more

SPACE: heavy-Metal Planet May Be Football-Shaped

Heavy Metal Football Planet - NASA

An exoplanet may be shaped like an American football due to the mighty gravitational forces it experiences close to its star, a new study finds. Scientists investigated KOI 1843.03, an exoplanet candidate that scientists need further observations to say for sure is real. This world putatively orbits a red dwarf star with slightly less than half the mass of our sun and is located about 395 light-years from Earth. Previous research found KOI 1843.03 was about 44% Earth’s mass and 60% Earth’s diameter. Prior work suggested KOI 1843.03 orbited its star more closely than any other planet known yet. “Whizzing … Read more