The Universe Looks “Just Right” for Our Existence to Does NASA Have Evidence of Ancient Martian Life?

Today’s stories include We Have a Real UFO Problem and Do We Exist in a Twisted Universe?

How Stephen Hawking flip-flopped on whether the Universe has a beginning--The question of what the Big Bang really represented still bamboozles cosmologists — and Hawking provided more than one answer, reports Nature.com. "A new book On the Origin of Time — by Thomas Hertog, Hawking’s last collaborator — concerns his final theory. Hertog’s book is a fascinating tour of cosmology, the science of the Universe’s origins."

NASA’s Perseverance Rover May Already Have Evidence of Ancient Martian Life--A half-kilogram’s worth of samples gathered by NASA’s Perseverance rover for eventual return to Earth holds weighty implications for life on Mars, reports Jonathan O'Callaghan for Scientific American.

Will a twisted universe save cosmology?--A forgotten idea of Albert Einstein’s might just be the savior of cosmology, plus the great man’s (vain) quest to undermine quantum weirdness and the question of why the universe looks “just right” for our existence, reports Richard Webb for New Scientist.

Science Has New Ideas about 'Oumuamua's Weirdness, reports Lee Billings, Meghan Bartels, Jeffery DelViscio for Scientific American. "Our first known interstellar visitor is now long gone, but new research has some ideas about why it moved the way it did while it was in our cosmic neighborhood."

New findings that map the universe's cosmic growth support Einstein's theory of gravity, reports Princeton University. "The new map uses light from the cosmic microwave background (CMB) essentially as a backlight to silhouette all the matter between us and the Big Bang."

The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will 'rewind' the universe, reports Robert Lea for Space.com.--The powerful space telescope will take a vastly wider look at the universe than Hubble or the James Webb Space Telescope, potentially helping to unravel pressing cosmic mysteries.

Astronomers present a map of dark matter since the Big Bang--The dark matter map confirms theories made by Einstein in the early 20th century about how gravity shapes the universe.

X-ray map of the Crab nebula reveals strange pockets of turbulence--The Crab nebula is one of the most thoroughly studied cosmic objects ever, but new observations have revealed that it’s far more complex than anyone accounted for, reports New Scientist.

Galaxy clusters yield new evidence for standard model of cosmology, reports The SLAC--A new study probing the structure and evolution of galaxy clusters shows good agreement with the predictions of standard cosmological models. 

Exoplanets with a permanent day side may sometimes flip into night--Some planets outside our solar system are thought to be tidally locked, with one side always facing their star, creating a world divided into hot and cold. Now, it seems this set-up may not be permanent after all, allowing the two sides to flip, reports Alex Wilkins for New Scientist.

We Have a Real UFO Problem. And It’s Not Balloons.--America’s fixation on the recent objects floating over the country overlooks a much more serious problem with advanced technology aircraft that we can’t explain, reports Politico.