Science

Category

Unnatural selection

UNNATURAL SELECTION

I received an article in my inbox overnight from Medium, written by Harvard Astrophysicist Avi Loeb called “What Does Extraterrestrial Intelligence Look Like?  Professor Loeb, who sits on the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), is perhaps best known for his work on the Galileo Project and the search for extraterrestrial life (specifically, evidence of alien technology on Earth.)  The premise of his work is that the Earth may have been visited in the distant past by extraterrestrials or interdimensional beings, and that...

The Fourth Dimension

THE FOURTH DIMENSION

Try “googling” the word “dimension.” You’ll come up with something, nothing or anything to paraphrase the second U.S. President, John Adams speaking on another subject. Dimensions are important constructs in cosmology, mathematics, geography, physics and so on, and each discipline defines a dimension differently. So, rather than quote a confusing definition of a dimension, let’s just say that a dimension is an environment in which we live. Our third dimension freedom allows us to travel in different directions including up...

Rogue planets

ROGUE PLANETS

For the purpose of this post, we’ll focus on PSO J318.5−22, some eighty light years away from Earth. One of the most fascinating phenomena in our galaxy are rogue planets. Picture them as silently traveling through space with no sun, likely no atmosphere, no life, perhaps no moons as well, though there could be exceptions. Imagine standing on the surface of a rogue planet in a space suit, with no bright sun, moon or even an atmosphere to break the...

Are we alone in the universe?

ARE WE ALONE IN THE UNIVERSE?

The Kepler space mission has produced data that suggests that “based upon the number of M-class stars in the galaxy, that alone represents about 10 billion potentially habitable, Earth-like worlds.”  Our sun is a G-class star.  M-class stars are fainter, cooler stars called “Red Dwarfs.”  To understand the conditions on a planet circling a Red Dwarf, refer to my post here.  Meanwhile, today’s question is “Are we alone in the universe?” Ten billion worlds.  That’s a lot.  Of course, that number is the top end.  Let’s dig into the...

Kepler 16

KEPLER 16

A word about galaxies before I get into Kepler 16.  Our galaxy is called the Milky Way.  There is no technical designation for it because no one discovered it.  It was always there. It is classified as a barred spiral galaxy, which suggests that it is a very mature galaxy.  This is because it takes billions of years for the barrel-like “bar” to appear in the center of the core of the galaxy (see the second illustration beneath to see what a bar looks...

ALIEN DNA

How I arrived here (wherever “here” is) The first time I heard the term “alien DNA” was while I was watching a news conference on CNN early into the pandemic. There were four or five or so men and women in a group called “America’s Frontline Doctors.” They were in Washington outside the U.S. Supreme Court building, or perhaps on the steps of the Capitol. They took turns speaking, and one particular doctor started referring to the COVID virus, possibly...

Wolf 359

WOLF 359

One of the many things I find fascinating is speculating on the possibility of life elsewhere in the universe. What life might emerge on a planet circling a white dwarf star, or a red giant, a pulsar? What if the planet was tidally locked? What if it was a waterworld, or an ice planet? The oceans on Ganymede, one of the moons of Jupiter are thought to be sixty miles deep with a thick crust of ice covering them. What...

While you were sleeping

WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING

Eight days ago at 10:11 a.m. GMT, an asteroid the size of a twenty-story building passed very close to our planet. Six days ago astronomers first learned about it. Most people in the U.S. were asleep as it silently zipped by. It happened while you were sleeping. This asteroid, named belatedly 2023 NT1 was roughly 200-foot-wide (60 meters) and it was freakingly close to colliding with Earth at an estimated 53,000 mph or 86,000 km/hr. The closest approach distance to...

WHISTLEBLOWERS & ALIEN TECHNOLOGY

WHISTLEBLOWERS & ALIEN TECHNOLOGY

House Hearings on UAP’s set for July 26th. Watch Congressional News Conference UPDATE (July 24, 2023) Moving to a new post Wednesday I will be closing this post to futher comments today. Again, events are moving more quickly than I can report. It seems to me that the reason UFOs/UAPs are getting so much attention from members of Congress this time is that there are different factions with different interests demanding hearings. One side, of course (the “traditionalists”), wants to...

ARE WE ALONE IN THE UNIVERSE?

On June 25, 2022 the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released the Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena.  It was a nine-page unclassified document, though there are suggestions in the press that some classified portions were not released.  That may not be a sinister cover-up if so, but rather a normal procedure to protect U.S. military capabilities and tactics. While the report did not reject the possibility of extraterrestrial life as the origin of these encounters, neither did it exclude extraterrestrial...