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You Had Me At “Black Hole Power Sucking Aliens”

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Black Hole Wormhole - Deposit Photo

Aliens could be sucking power from black holes — and that could be how we’d spot the extraterrestrials, scientists say. This energy-harvesting technology could leave traces just outside a spinning black hole’s event horizon — the boundary beyond which a black hole’s gravity becomes too strong for matter and energy to escape. And the process could explain at least some flares of plasma, a white-hot form of charged gas, that scientists have already detected near these massive disruptions in time and space. a new study published Jan. 13 in the journal Physical Review D proposes. And while it’s only a … Read more

SPACE: Mars is Wobbly. Astronomers Don’t Know Why

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Mars - Pixabay

The Red Planet is wiggling and wobbling as it spins, research in the journal Geophysical Research Letters confirms, and astronomers have no idea why. Like a toy top that teeters as it loses speed, the poles of Mars are wandering ever-so-slightly away from the planet’s axis of rotation, moving about 4 inches (10 centimeters) off-center every 200 days or so, researchers reported in a study published Oct. 13, 2020. That makes Mars only the second known planet in the universe to exhibit this phenomenon — known as the Chandler wobble — with Earth being the first, according to the American … Read more

SPACE: Astronomers Discover “Arches of Chaos” in the Solar System

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black hole - pixabay

A vast network of invisible energy structures have been discovered in the solar system — a celestial superhighway that future space probes might use to explore far-away corners of solar space. These hidden energy structures, called manifolds, emerge in space-time due to the gravitational interaction of massive objects like the planets, said Nataša Todorović, a mathematician at the Serbian Belgrade Astronomical Observatory and lead author of a paper on the discovery. While astronomers have long known about such pathways, and even used them to navigate our celestial neighborhood, the new study has revealed a new shape in these manifolds: “arches … Read more

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

FOR READERS: Space Survivalists

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space survival - deposit photos

FOR READERS Today’s reader topic comes from QSFer Scott: Popular stories like Lost in Space and The Martian deal with survival in outer space. What are some of your fave queer sci-fi books that tackle space survivalists? Writers: This is a reader chat – you are welcome to join it, but please do not reference your own works directly. Thanks! Join the chat: FB: http://bit.ly/1MvPABVMeWe: http://bit.ly/2mjg8lf

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

FOR READERS & WRITERS: The First Alien Message

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alien on the phone - deposit photos

FOR READERS & WRITERS Today’s writer topic comes from QSFer Scott: If we ever receive a message from the stars, what will the aliens say to us? One sentence, please. Writers: This is a reader/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: 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