Aliens Before Us to the Ancient Black Hole at the Edge of Our Solar System
Another fascinating week on Planet Earth with reports suggesting that we’re not the first technological civilization to the fragile existence of life in our galaxy.
Long-Missing Midsize Black Hole Flashes Into View --Black holes seemed to come only in sizes small and XXL. A new search strategy has uncovered a black hole of “intermediate” mass, raising hopes of more to come,reports Quanta.--“There is simply not enough time to build such a massive black hole so early in the universe,” said Łukasz Wyrzykowski, an astronomer at Warsaw University. Without, that is, something to seed their growth, he said.
The Aliens Before Us –“We are Not the First Technological Civilization” (Or, are We?)--"We live in a universe where matter is distributed in a hundred billion galaxies, each containing a hundred billion stars, made up of quantum fields where space and time are not existent, that manifest themselves in the form of particles, such as electrons and photons, or as waves. Tucked into the 14-billion-year history of this vast observable universe with 100 trillion planets is a pale blue dot teeming with life and a technological civilization created by a strange species known as homo sapiens."
Confirmed! We Live in a Simulation --We must never doubt Elon Musk again reports Scientific American. “Ever since the philosopher Nick Bostrom proposed in the Philosophical Quarterly that the universe and everything in it might be a simulation, there has been intense public speculation and debate about the nature of reality. Such public intellectuals as Tesla leader and prolific Twitter gadfly Elon Musk have opined about the statistical inevitability of our world being little more than cascading green code. Recent papers have built on the original hypothesis to further refine the statistical bounds of the hypothesis, arguing that the chance that we live in a simulation may be 50–50."
Is there an ancient black hole at the edge of the solar system? –Hints of a hefty source of gravity beyond Pluto sparked the search for a possible “Planet Nine”. Now, some astronomers think it could instead be a black hole from the big bang, offering a rare glimpse into the early universe, reports New Scientist.
“Truly Incredible” –Our 95% Dark Universe May Be Powered by Unknown Magnetic Forces, reports The Daily Galaxy--“Honestly, our discovery may just be a coincidence. But if it isn’t, it is truly incredible. It would change our understanding of the universe’s composition and why it is expanding at an ever-increasing rate,” says Steen Harle Hansen, an associate professor at the Niels Bohr Institute’s DARK Cosmology Centre, who created a new computer model that replaces dark energy.”
Astronomers find the 'safest place' to live in the Milky Way, reports Space.com --"Powerful cosmic explosions are not negligible for the existence of life in our galaxy throughout its cosmic history," said lead author on the new study, Riccardo Spinelli, astronomer at the University of Insubria in Italy. "These events have played a role in jeopardizing life across most of the Milky Way."
Are Aliens Ignoring Us? Maybe We're Already Their Captives in a 'Galactic Zoo', reports Space.com --"There, they debated "The Great Silence" — why aliens haven't contacted us — exploring one possibility known as the "zoo hypothesis." First proposed in the 1970s, it describes Earth as a planet that is already under observation by "galactic zookeepers" who are deliberately concealing themselves from human detection, Forbes reported."
"Is There Life There, HAL?" --In a Visionary Step, NASA Plans to Install Artificial Intelligence Systems on Probes of Distant Planets, reports The Daily Galaxy. In Space Odyssey 2001, HAL 9000, the Heuristically Programmed Algorithmic Computer, consigned the crew commander to his death by refusing to open the pod bay doors. Leaping forward to June, 2020, NASA announced a visionary step: that intelligent computer systems will be installed on space probes to direct the search for life on distant planets and moons. The AI program will start with the 2022/23 ESA ExoMars mission before moving beyond to moons such as Jupiter's Europa and of Saturn's Enceladus and Titan.
“Life Beyond Our Universe?” –The Eerie Implications of Infinite Space, reports The Daily Galaxy --“If space is truly infinite,” observes Dan Hooper, head of the Theoretical Astrophysics Group at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, in At the Edge of Time, “the implications are staggering. Within an infinite expanse of space, it would be hard to see any reason why there would not be an infinite number of galaxies, stars, and planets, and even an infinite number of intelligent or conscious beings, scattered throughout this limitless volume. That is the thing about infinity: it takes things that are otherwise very unlikely and makes them all inevitable.”