Will Aliens Be a Form of Unfathomable AI?
We've long assumed that aliens will be like us, but there's every reason to think they are instead a form of unfathomable AI, says the UK astronomer royal Lord Martin Rees. "Technological evolution of artificially intelligent minds is only just beginning. It may be only one or two more centuries before humans are overtaken or transcended by inorganic intelligence. If this happens, our species would have been just a brief interlude in Earth's history before the machines take over."
Alien Life: Uncertain contact— It’ll be partial and inconclusive: a perfect task for the scientific method, argues Jaime Green, the author of The Possibility of Life (2023) for Aeon. "Discoveries almost never arrive as we think they will, as lightning bolt eurekas. They are slow, gradual, and communal. Alien life may not be something we ever ‘find’, but instead inch towards, ever closer, like a curve approaching its asymptote. For all our desire to know who’s out there, that may have to be enough."
Astronomers have discovered a large but very dim ghost-like galaxy. Its origins are unknown, and its very existence challenges our notions of dark matter, reports Sky & Telescope. The galaxy's extremely regular, symmetrical shape suggests it never experienced interactions that might explain its weird properties. “I don’t have a good explanation for the origin,” says Mireia Montes with the Institute of Astrophysics of the Canaries, Spain.
There are 40 quintillion black holes in our Universe--For the first time, astronomers have created a data-driven estimate for how many black holes are in our Universe: more than anyone expected.
JWST’s Crab Nebula: Can it solve the mass mystery?--In 1054, a core-collapse supernova occurred 6500 light-years away. In 2023, JWST imaged the remnant, and might solve a massive mystery, reports Big Think.
Milky Way's Black Hole Is Spinning at Near Maximum, Scientists Say, reports Universe Today.