Time Existed Before the Big Bang to Our Universe Isn’t Pure Mathematics

Today’s news stories include Ancient Proteins Offer New Clues About Origins of Life on Earth to Wrestling with the intellectual challenge of a lonely universe, and more.

Time existed before the Big Bang--Time is fundamental, space is not, reports Lee Cronin, Regius Professor of Chemistry, University of Glasgow, Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and Royal Society of Chemistry for iAi Science. "The passage of time is not an illusion, it’s a fundamental aspect of reality, something that existed before even The Big Bang.

Astronomers discover metal-rich galaxies in the early universe, reports Cornell University. “We found this galaxy to be super-chemically abundant, something none of us expected,” said Bo Peng, a doctoral student in astronomy, who led the data analysis. “JWST changes the way we view this system and opens up new venues to study how stars and galaxies formed in the early universe. Based on images of nearby galaxies with similar colors, the researchers suggest that they may reside “in a massive dark-matter halo with yet-to-be-discovered neighbors.”

Ancient Proteins Offer New Clues About Origins of Life on Earth --In early Earth simulation co-led by researchers at Johns Hopkins, scientists gain insights into how amino acids shaped the genetic code of ancient microorganisms.

UCLA crowdsources the search for extraterrestrial civilizations. "The project, Are We Alone in the Universe?, will give members of the public an opportunity to help scientists find signs of extraterrestrial intelligence by classifying radio signals that may have been emitted up to tens of thousands of light-years away and collected by a radio telescope."

Our Universe isn’t made of pure mathematics, reports Big Think. "Unless you confront your theory with what's actually out there in the Universe, you're playing in the sandbox, not engaging in science."

Where Are the Extraterrestrials? asks Psychology Today. Wrestling with the intellectual challenge of a lonely universe.  if extraterrestrial civilizations do exist in great numbers, then one or some combination of the following eight responses to Fermi’s question are a good bet to explain why First Contact has not happened, including Time, The cosmos is a killer, Distance ( if we had a spaceship capable of achieving 99.999 percent of lightspeed it would take us more than two million years to reach the Andromeda Galaxy, a relatively close neighbor here in the Virgo Supercluster).

Astronomers Discover Rapidly Growing Black Hole in Extreme Galaxy in the Very Early Universe, reports SciTechDaily. "Using observations taken with the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA), a radio observatory sited in Chile, the team have determined that the galaxy, named COS-87259, containing this new supermassive black hole is very extreme, forming stars at a rate 1000 times that of our own Milky Way and containing over a billion solar masses worth of interstellar dust.."

Cosmic Superbubble’s Magnetic Field Charted in 3D for the First Time-- Astronomers at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian (CfA) have unveiled a first-of-its-kind map that could help answer decades-old questions about the origins of stars and the influences of magnetic fields in the cosmos.

Upending a Century of Equilibrium Theory in Physics. “The laws of thermodynamics were developed about 170 years ago,” Cassak told The Debrief, “and the technology of the time dictated the gases or fluids that people would have studied are in equilibrium at the densities and temperatures that they were using back then.”

Astronomers Show There Are Four Classes of Planetary Systems, reports SciTechDaily. "Astronomers have long been aware that planetary systems are not necessarily structured like our solar system. Researchers from the Universities of Bern and Geneva, as well as from the National Centre of Competence in Research PlanetS, have now shown for the first time that there are in fact four types of planetary systems."

“Hyperwar”: How AI could cause wars to spiral out of human control, reports Big Think.In a state of "hyperwar," accidents or unexpected AI decisions could lead to widespread devastation before humans could intervene.

Apollo Moon Landing Flags Still Standing, Photos Reveal, reports Space.com. ""From the LROC images it is now certain that the American flags are still standing and casting shadows at all of the sites, except Apollo 11," LROC principal investigator Mark Robinson wrote in a blog post today (July 27). "Astronaut Buzz Aldrin reported that the flag was blown over by the exhaust from the ascent engine during liftoff of Apollo 11, and it looks like he was correct!"

Strange Solar Gamma Rays Discovered at Even Higher Energies, reports Quanta.com. There appear to be too many gamma rays coming from the sun. New higher-energy measurements reveal that this excess continues for a bit, then disappears — a cutoff that could help clarify what’s going on.

Astronomers are shining light on the dark objects in a narrow part of the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

Could Space Dust Help Protect the Earth from Climate Change? "Dust launched from the Moon’s surface or from a space station positioned between Earth and the Sun could reduce enough solar radiation to mitigate the impacts of climate change," reports the Harvard CfA.

Billions of Celestial Objects Revealed in Gargantuan Survey of the Milky Way--A colossal astronomical tapestry displays the majesty of the Milky Way in unprecedented detail, reports the Harvard CfA. "Astronomers have released a gargantuan survey of the galactic plane of the Milky Way. The new dataset contains a staggering 3.32 billion celestial objects — arguably the largest such catalog so far. The survey is here reproduced in 4000-pixels resolution to be accessible on smaller devices.