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Cool Worlds
Why We May Be Surrounded By Older Alien Civilizations
Published 1st November 2020
Are alien civilizations likely to be younger or older than us in age? A basic question that seems insurmountable until we start detecting them. But even before that, we can use some logical deduction using lifetime distribution statistics to determine the most plausible answer to this question. Join us today for an explanation of our new research paper on this topic
NationalGeographic.com
How Many Alien Civilizations Are Out There? A New Galactic Survey Holds A Clue
Published 12nd November 2020
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Here’s a good sign for alien hunters: More than 300 million worlds with similar conditions to Earth are scattered throughout the Milky Way galaxy. A new analysis concludes that roughly half of the galaxy’s sunlike stars host rocky worlds in habitable zones where liquid water could pool or flow over the planets’ surfaces.
“This is the science result we’ve all been waiting for,” says Natalie Batalha, an astronomer with the University of California, Santa Cruz, who worked on the new study.
The finding, which has been accepted for publication in the Astronomical Journal, pins down a crucial number in the Drake Equation. Devised by my father Frank Drake in 1961, the equation sets up a framework for calculating the number of detectable civilizations in the Milky Way. Now the first few variables in the formula—including the rate of sunlike star formation, the fraction of those stars with planets, and the number of habitable worlds per stellar system—are known.
Read all about it here: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/s...ey-holds-clue/
Sapiens.org
What If There Is Life On Venus?
Published 22nd October 2020
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In the throes of a pandemic that has underscored the fragility of human life on Earth, news has come of possible life on another planet, with the detection of phosphine (PH3) gas in the atmosphere of Earth’s cosmological next-door neighbor, Venus.
On Earth, phosphine is produced by microbes, so its presence in Venusian clouds points to the existence of similar forms of microbial life. The biophysicist Harold Morowitz and planetary scientist and author Carl Sagan first postulated the possibility of biological life in the clouds of Venus back in 1967, and some speculation lingered across the decades. However, most scientists had given up on finding life on the inhospitably hot planet.
Read all about it here: https://www.sapiens.org/column/entan...restrial-life/
NASA Astrobiology
Ask An Astrobiologist : AbGradCon Panel
Published 30th October 2020
Once a month, SAGANet (www.saganet.org) and the NASA Astrobiology Program host a program called "Ask an Astrobiologist", where the public is invited to interact with a high-profile astrobiologist, who replies to twitter, facebook, and chat questions live on video.
Each session lasts about an hour. This months featured guests:
Dr. Sandra Siljeström (Research Scientist, RISE Research Institutes of Sweden)
Dr. Marc Neveu (Research Scientist, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center)
Dr. Lena Noack (Professor & Researcher, Freie Universität Berlin)
Dr. Vlada Stamenković (Research Scientist, Blue Origin)
Suspicious Observers | Space News | 3rd November 2020 | Mass Stranding, Climate Fail, ElectroQuakes
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Published 2nd November 2020Quote:
Posted by Star Tsar
This episode we talk a lot about magnetism, remnant magnetism in lunar rocks, and calendar changes made by multiple ancient civilizations all around the same time. We talk about immense climate changes that accompanied the sudden change from a 360 day calendar year to a 365 day calendar year.
We also read about problems with various types of radioactive decay dating techniques, and how without knowing the exact amount of certain materials that existed in rock at the time of its formation, these techniques cannot give accurate dates, even assuming that the radioactive decay rate is a constant.
Astrum
Our Solar System's Planets: Saturn
Published 2nd November 2020
Almost everything you could want to know about the sixth planet to the Sun, Saturn. Real HD photos and videos taken by the Cassini probe. We discuss the orbit, atmosphere, rings, and general physical characteristics of Saturn, and a lot more.
Lunar Princess
November 2020 Astrological Events
Published 2nd November 2020
From Full Moons to New Moons in Scorpio. From a Leonids Meteor Shower to a Lunar Eclipse. Holidays and Observances in November bring us important Days to celebrate!
Related musical interlude
Suspicious Observers | Space News | 4th November 2020 | The Next End Of The World
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Insane Curiosity
The Tunguska Event: When The Sky Exploded
Published 4th November 2020
Throughout recorded history, hundreds of Earth impacts (and exploding bolides) have been reported, with some occurrences causing deat-s, injuries, property damage, or other significant localised consequences. One of the best-known recorded events in modern times was the Tunguska event, which occurred in Siberia, Russia, in 1908. It is the largest impact on the Earth recorded in the recent history, though many other impacts have occurred in the prehistoric times.
Phys.org
Magma 'Conveyor Belt' Fuelled World's Longest Erupting SuperVolcanoes
Published 4th November 2020
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International research led by geologists from Curtin University has found that a volcanic province in the Indian Ocean was the world's most continuously active—erupting for 30 million years—fuelled by a constantly moving conveyor belt of magma.
It's believed this magma conveyor belt, created by shifts in the seabed, continuously made space available for the molten rock to flow for millions of years, beginning around 120 million years ago.
Read all about it here: https://phys.org/news/2020-11-magma-...led-world.html
Paper: https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa...dFrom=fulltext
Space.com
Barnard Star Radiation Blasts May Be Too Much For Life
Published 4th November 2020
High-energy radiation emitted from an old red dwarf star, named Barnard, makes life in the habitable zone of the system challenging. The Chandra X-ray observatory and Hubble Space Telescope were used to study the star.
Learn The Sky
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100,000 Stars - An Interactive Visualization of Our Local Stellar Neighborhood
Published 3rd November 2020
100,000 Stars is an interactive visualization of the stellar neighborhood created for the Google Chrome web browser. It shows the real location of over 100,000 nearby stars. Zooming in reveals 87 major named stars and our solar system.
https://stars.chromeexperiments.com/
This is a teaching tool I use all the time in my astronomy classes. It helps students to realize that there are a variety of star systems that exist in the universe. This tool also shows the color and temperature of stars. The color of stars can be a challenge to see in the night sky, so this visualization helps provide a different perspective.
NASA Goddard
Hubble's Extraordinary ULLYSES Program
Published 5th November 2020
The universe would be a pretty boring place without stars. Without them, the universe would remain a diffuse plasma of mostly hydrogen and helium from the big bang.
To better understand stellar evolution, a new Hubble initiative has been launched called ULLYSES (UV Legacy Library of Young Stars as Essential Standards).
This is the largest observing program ever undertaken by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, which will be used to look at over 300 stars. Ultraviolet (UV) light from the target stars will be used to produce a library of the spectral fingerprints of young, low-mass stars from eight star-forming regions in the Milky Way, as well as fully mature high-mass stars in several nearby dwarf galaxies including the Magellanic Clouds.
Read all about it here: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard...f-nearby-stars
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Milky Way Galaxy Fast Radio Burst Detected For First Time
Published 4th November 2020
On April 28, a supermagnetized stellar remnant known as a magnetar blasted out a simultaneous mix of X-ray and radio signals never observed before. The flare-up included the first fast radio burst (FRB) ever seen from within our Milky Way galaxy and shows that magnetars can produce these mysterious and powerful radio blasts previously only seen in other galaxies.
A magnetar is a type of isolated neutron star, the crushed, city-size remains of a star many times more massive than our Sun. What makes a magnetar so special is its intense magnetic field. The field can be 10 trillion times stronger than a refrigerator magnet's and up to a thousand times stronger than a typical neutron star's. This represents an enormous storehouse of energy that astronomers suspect powers magnetar outbursts.
The X-ray portion of the synchronous bursts was detected by several satellites, including NASA's Wind mission.
The radio component was discovered by the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME), a radio telescope located at Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory in British Columbia and led by several Canadian universities. It was also detected by the NASA-funded Survey for Transient Astronomical Radio Emission 2 (STARE2), a trio of detectors in California and Utah operated by Caltech and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. The STARE2 data showed that the burst's energy was comparable to FRBs.
By the time these bursts occurred, astronomers had already been monitoring their source, a magnetar named SGR 1935+2154, for more than half a day using NASA's Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, and the NICER X-ray telescope mounted atop the International Space Station.
About 13 hours later, when the magnetar was out of view for Swift, Fermi and NICER, a special X-ray burst erupted. The blast was seen by the European Space Agency’s INTEGRAL mission, the China National Space Administration’s Huiyan X-ray satellite, and the Russian Konus instrument on Wind. As the half-second-long X-ray burst flared, CHIME and STARE2 detected the radio burst, which lasted only a thousandth of a second.
Taken together, the observations strongly suggest that the magnetar produced the Milky Way galaxy's equivalent of an FRB, which means magnetars in other galaxies likely produce at least some of these signals.
Suspicious Observers | Space News | 5th November 2020 | Sun Is Waking Up, Superflare Cycle, Galaxies Connected
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Basingstoke Astronomical Society
Dr Brian Skidmore | Titan
Published 4th November 2020
Dr Skidmore discusses everything one could wish to know about Saturn's moon Titan...
Thunderbolts Project
Space News | Wal Thornhill: Venus & Forgotten History
Published 7th November 2020
Since the dawn of the Space Age, perhaps no celestial body in the solar system has proved more surprising to astronomers than the planet Venus. Before the arrival of the earliest space probes, some noted scientists believed that Venus would be earthlike, with water clouds, oceans and abundant vegetation. However, well known to those who have followed this series, it was Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky who made the outrageous prediction that Venus would be superhot, based on his hypothesis of the planet’s recent, cometary origins.
Today, countless Venusian phenomena continue to puzzle planetary scientists, including the planet’s super fast winds; its odd, slow backward spin; its vast magnetotail; and even the recent discovery by the ESA’s Venus Express spacecraft of a surprisingly powerful electric field.
In recent decades, Wal Thornhill, Chief Science Advisor of The Thunderbolts Project, has outlined his own reconstruction of Venus’ role in the recent, extraordinary history of the solar system.
In Part One of this two-part presentation, Wal begins by recounting this history, which he offered in his 2004 article, Cassini’s Homecoming, which he wrote prior to the arrival of the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft at Saturn. And as Thornhill explains, while astronomers to this day refer to Venus as Earth’s twin, the most likely Venusian sibling may be found in the Saturnian system – that is, the moon Titan.
HOLOSCIENCE ARTICLE
Wal Thornhill – Cassini's Homecoming: https://www.holoscience.com/wp/cassinis-homecoming/
Nemesis Maturity
2020's Jupiter/Pluto Triple Conjunction
Published 7th November 2020
This year’s Jupiter-Pluto alignment may be the best for centuries to come.
2020 is exceptional for Jupiter and Pluto. These two worlds are having a triple conjunction. They’ll come together, move apart, and come together again three times in 2020.
The first conjunction took place on April 5. The second one came on June 30, and the final one on November 12, 2020. A similarly good Jupiter-Pluto rendezvous might not happen again for a number of centuries to come.
Jupiter-Pluto and Mythology: Heaven Meets Hell?
In Roman mythology, Jupiter (Zeus to the ancient Greeks), is the god of all gods—the ruler of the sky and thunder. In mythology, Pluto (or Hades, to the Greeks) was the god of the underworld. During a Jupiter-Pluto conjunction (meetup), heaven and hell essentially come together.
Plagues, Pandemics & Jupiter-Pluto Conjunctions in History
While not every meetup is quite this eventful, some of history’s most devastating plagues indeed correlated with Jupiter-Pluto conjunctions.
During Jupiter/Pluto conjunctions, political power can swing dramaticaly. These are the years we see regime changes, stunning political landslides, and the birth of social movements.
The Jupiter/Pluto conjunctions of 2020 are just beginning. A Great Conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn is coming in late December 2020. This meet up of Jupiter and Saturn will be their closest conjunction since 1623.
What Da Math? With Anton Petrov
Jupiter's Moon Io Has A Lot Of Very Unusual Things Going On
Published 5th November 2020
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In this video Anton will talk about some of the recent discoveries coming from Jupiter's moon Io
Paper: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2009.07729.pdf
John Michael Godier's Event Horizon
Dr. Robert Romanofsky | How To Communicate With Europa
Published 5th November 2020
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Magneto-Inductive Communications for Ocean Worlds, is a new concept from Dr. Robert Romanofsky of NASA.
A mission to the under-ice ocean of Europa is one of the highest priority missions for NASA. Dr. Romanofsky's concept is for a probe to melt through the 5 to 10 km thickness of briny ice to reach the buried ocean below. The challenge of communicating back to the surface of Europa is also directly addressed.
Magneto-Inductive Communications for Ocean Worlds: https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/sp..._Ocean_Worlds/