Could Origin of the Universe Be Forever Unknowable to Do JWST’s Results Contradict the Big Bang?

Weekend Edition

This weekend’s stories include Chinese scientists find new clue to origin of life on Earth to AI experts to help study exoplanets, and more.

Do JWST’s results contradict the Big Bang?--JWST has brought us more distant views of the early Universe than ever before. Is the Big Bang, and all of modern cosmology, in trouble? explores Ethan Siegel for Big Think. "According to our standard model of cosmology — with dark matter, dark energy, normal matter and radiation — these types of galaxies would require substantial amounts of time to form, grow, and evolve.

Why the origin of life and the Universe itself might be forever unknowable--There might be a hard limit to our knowledge of the Universe, reports Adam Frank for Big Think. "We can only see back in time to 300,000 years after the Big Bang. We don't exactly know what happened before that. In much the same way, biologists can trace all of life back to a single kind of organism. But we do not know what came before it."

Martian base on Earth set to host first ‘astronauts’--Four people will soon move into the Space Analog for the Moon and Mars (SAM) base in Arizona, where they will have to permanently wear pressurized spacesuits, reports David L Chandler for New Scientist.

LHC, the world’s most powerful particle accelerator, emerges from hibernation--An upgraded version, called the “High Luminosity LHC,” will be available in 2028. "Humanity is once again able to recreate conditions not common in the Universe since a tenth of a trillionth of a second after the Big Bang and to study the deepest and most fundamental laws of nature."

Chinese scientists find new clue to origin of life on Earth in a ‘string of pearls’ fossil from 800 million years ago–Biological origin of unique fossils called Horodyskia has been long debated. ‘Horodyskia was a living organism’, says Chinese co-lead of study that is a key step forward in understanding the early evolution of life on Earth. “This evidence directly proves that Horodyskia was a living organism made up of multiple large cells,” said Professor Pang Ke from the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology.

There is more to light than meets the eye, and it teaches us a lot about the universe, reports Space.com--"By tracing the structure of radio wave-emitting clouds, astronomers were able to map out the entire structure of our galaxy, the Milky Way, as well as other nearby galaxies."

Scientists invite AI experts to help study exoplanets--A report about the Ariel Data Challenge 2023, a competition open to AI and machine learning experts to help scientists interpret exoplanetary data, reports Interesting Engineering." The field of exoplanets has fully arrived in the era of big data and cutting-edge AI is needed to break some of our biggest bottlenecks holding us back,” said Dr. Ingo Waldmann, Associate Professor in Astrophysics, University College London'.

New invention of "counterportation" brings closer first-ever wormholes--Counterportation brings us closer to the possibility of creating wormholes that can bridge space in a lab, reports Paul Ratner for Interesting Engineering.

Are conscious machines possible?--explores Big Think. "In his book A Brief History of AI, Michael Wooldridge, a professor of computer science at the University of Oxford and an AI researcher, explains that AI is not about creating life, but rather about creating machines that can perform tasks requiring intelligence."