The Universe’s Fast Expansion May Defy Explanation to When Did Humans First Start Thinking About Aliens?
Weekend Feature
The universe’s puzzlingly fast expansion may defy explanation, cosmologists fret--The controversial “Hubble tension” promises deep insight but, like dark matter and dark energy, could remain just another mystery, reports Science. “There’s no guarantee that there’s one effect that is causing all of this,” says Adam Riess, a cosmologist at Johns Hopkins University.
It’s possible that frozen worlds with subterranean oceans are incubators of organic life. But then how did life get here? explores Balazs Bradakis a researcher in planetary science at Kobe University in Japan for Aeon.com--"Was there a ‘ground zero’ planet (or planets) where life evolved and later swarmed out to the Universe – and had it arrived by natural means, or had it been sent by a civilization more advanced and ancient than our own?"
These Moons Are Dark and Frozen. So How Can They Have Oceans? "The moons orbiting Jupiter and Saturn appear to have subsurface oceans — tantalizing targets in the search for life beyond Earth. But it’s not clear why these seas exist at all," explores George Robin Andrews for Quanta. "In 1996, NASA’s Galileo spacecraft passed by Europa and detected a strange magnetic field coming from within. 'We didn’t understand what it was,' said Margaret Kivelson, a space physicist at the University of California, Los Angeles who was in charge of the spacecraft’s magnetometer."
When Did Humans First Start Thinking About Aliens? explores IFLScience. In early accounts, likely describing meteorites, birds, or other natural phenomena, none talk about the events in terms of aliens. So did they have the concept of life possibly existing on other planets, and when did it first appear? 1
A Russian Physicist Claims He's Figured Out Why We Haven't Met Aliens Yet, And It's Pretty Worrying, reports IFLScience--Russian physicist Alexander Berezin, from the National Research University of Electronic Technology (MIET), argues for a “First in, last out” solution of the Fermi Paradox, suggesting that once a civilization reaches the capability of spreading across the stars, it will inevitably wipe out all other civilizations.
James Webb telescope's observations of 'impossible' galaxies at the dawn of time may finally have an explanation, reports Ben Turner for Live Science--A new set of simulations suggests that the unusual brightness of early galaxies discovered by the James Webb telescope could be because of a strange, rapid-burst mode of star formation.
NASA’s Lucy Mission Set Its Sights on 1 Asteroid. It Found 2, reports New York Times Science--On its way to the Trojan swarms, the spacecraft made a pit stop at a rock named Dinkinesh — and the images it sent back revealed that this asteroid has its own moon.
After leading NASA’s mission to Pluto, Alan Stern flies to space himself--Virgin Galactic is finally settling into a routine after years of delays, reports Ars Technica.
Curated by The Galaxy Report editorial staff.