Today, January 24, 2022 at around 2:05 p.m. Eastern time, NASA engineers confirmed that the James Webb Space Telescope successfully reached its final destination called the second Lagrange Point or L2, where Webb telescope will be orbiting around the sun alongside Earth in a small pocket of stability where the gravitational forces of the sun and Earth blend.
Our very strange Universe delivered its usual fascinating news stories over the past few days, ranging from Evolution Tells Us We Might Be the Only Intelligent Life in the Universe to How James Webb will reveal what Hubble missed.
Another week of amazing news from our Pale Blue Dot, with stories ranging from Earth Is Tiny Because The Sun Had Saturn-Like Rings Before It Had Planets to How Can Something So Small Live So Long.
The heaviest natural elements on the periodic table such as gold, platinum, and uranium were forged during the mergers of binary neutron stars. Astronomers have previously estimated that tens of thousands of such binary neutron star mergers must have occurred throughout our Milky Way Galaxy during the past 10 billion years, sprinkling neutron-rich elements throughout the gas that eventually formed the next generation of stars and planets. By studying the composition of meteorites, astronomers now conclude that a single collision of neutron stars occurred shortly before and near to the formation of our solar system, producing a measurable fraction of the heavy elements here on Earth.
Could one of Earth’s most intelligent species be an alien, ‘seeded’ on the planet by an interstellar genetic code? Scientists speculate that the clue might be found in the ancient precursor to life: RNA.
“Understanding how Earth regulates climate both in the modern era but also in the distant past is critical for our understanding of planetary habitability,” said Noah Planavsky, a biogeochemist at Yale University. “This will help guide our search for life beyond our solar system and is an example of how the evolution of complex life fundamentally changed our planet.”
Welcome to today’s news from the Universe that has the capacity to provide clues to the mystery of our existence and adds a much needed cosmic perspective in our current Anthropocene Epoch.
NASA LIVE: James Webb Space Telescope Arrives at Final Destination. What’s Next?James Webb Space Telescope Glides Into Its L2 Resting Point -An Epic Achievement for Humanity
Saturn’s “Death Star” Moon to What’s Buried Beneath Mars’ South Pole? (The Galaxy Report)
We Have Existed for Ten One-Billionths of Cosmic History to The Missing Continent (Planet Earth Report)
Violent Neutron Star Collision Discovered Near Earth’s Birthplace (Weekend Feature)
Alien Octopus Hypothesis (YouTube Video)
“The Exoplanet Paradox” -Worlds With Low Oxygen May Be Teeming with Life Based on Early Earth History
Astronomers Share Their Hopes for the JWST to Will Tardigrades Be the First Interstellar Travelers? (Today’s Galaxy Report)
Monster Black Hole in Tiny Galaxy Holds Clues to Their Existence in Early UniverseCarbon Isotopes on Mars Could Be From Ancient Life to Is Pluto a Planet Debate Continues (Today’s Galaxy Report)
