Posted on Sep 7, 2021 in Science
Andromeda’s “Covid-19”? –astrophysicist Paul Davies argues virus may pervade the cosmos. A primordial black hole could possibly hit Earth. Mysterious blobs 100 times height of Mount Everest lurk beneath the surface of our planet. TESS detects a strange object. Could Alien habitats could exist anywhere?
Viruses may exist ‘elsewhere in the universe’, warns scientist –astrophysicist Paul Davies suggests viruses may form vital part of ecosystems on other planets. “Davies backed the idea that a wide range of microbes and other microscopic agents would probably be needed to support life as a whole, whatever form it takes. And it seems viruses – or something that performs a similar role – could be part of the equation.”
Primordial black holes may flood the universe. Could one hit Earth? asks Space.com–“So, what are the chances that one of these ancient monsters will come wandering toward Earth? One astrophysicist has run the numbers.”
The mysterious origins of Universe’s biggest black holes, reports BBC Future –“They are the biggest black holes in the known Universe, billions of times more massive than our Sun, but little is known about how these monsters form and grow so big. New telescopes and techniques are giving us a new way of looking at these giants.”
The Unsolved Mystery of the Earth Blobs –“Some 2,000 kilometers beneath our feet, there are enormous masses of hot mantle material –the length of continents and stretch 100 times higher than Mount Everest–that have baffled scientists for the last 4 decades,” reports Eos.
Scientists Figured Out How And When Our Sun Will Die, And It’s Going to Be Epic –What will our Sun look like after it dies? Scientists have made predictions about what the end will look like for our Solar System, and when that will happen. And humans won’t be around to see the final act, reports ScienceAlert.
Astrophysicists Suggest New Place Where Planet Nine Could Be Hiding –The theorized extra planet in our solar system remains out of sight but not out of mind, reports Gizmodo.
Astronomers discover ideal conditions for stargazing on the Tibetan Plateau–“Astronomers in China have found that the Tibetan Plateau offers conditions that make it ideal for future gigantic optical-based telescopes. The researchers report that a mountain near the town of Lenghu (“cold lake”) in Qinghai Province has observing conditions similar to existing astronomy meccas in the Hawaiian mountains and Chilean deserts.” reports Physics World.
“Unfathomable Abodes of Life?” –Water Worlds of the Milky Way, reports The Daily Galaxy –“Before life appeared on land some 400 million years ago, all life on Earth including the mind evolved in the sea. Astronomers have recently conjectured that blue exoplanets with endless oceans may be orbiting many of the Milky Way’s one trillion stars.”
Why does the Milky Way have spiral arms? New Gaia data are helping solve the puzzle, asks Space.com–“The European Gaia mission keeps uncovering the mysteries of the Milky Way.”
The Universe Has Already Made Almost All the Stars It Will Ever Make–Black holes are cosmic dimmers, writes astrophysicist Caleb Scharf for Nautilus. “Somehow a galaxy that spans tens of thousands of light years is intimately related to what is, in effect, a microscopic dot at its center.”
White dwarf stars are meant to be dead – but astronomers have just found some that are still alive –Because white dwarf stars were believed to cool at a predictable rate, they offered scientists a good way to estimate the age of neighboring celestial bodies, reports Sky.com
Extraterrestrial Life –“Is Earth the ‘Standard Model’ for the Universe?” asks The Daily Galaxy –“Following the laws of physics, Charles Cockell suggests that life on Earth might be a template for life in the universe, adhering to a standard model of constants or equations of life.”
Astronomers captured the most detailed images of large, rare metal asteroid, reports Physics World. –“Astronomers have used the Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array (ALMA) to gain a more detailed picture of the composition of the asteroid Psyche.”
TESS Detects Mystery Objects –“Neither a Brown Dwarf or a Star” –“It is estimated that up to 60 billion brown dwarfs make their home in the Milky Way. Because these elusive celestial objects do not fuse hydrogen in their core, they spend their lives cooling as they lose that gravitational energy from their formation, morphing as they age from looking like a low-mass star to looking like Jupiter. Every brown dwarf that was ever created still exists because they can’t fuse hydrogen, giving them a calm, sustained existence on the vast timeframe of the cosmos.”
Our Universe may have a fifth dimension that would change everything we know about physics, reports BBC Science Focus –“Such a dimension was proposed independently by physicists Oskar Klein and Theodor Kaluza in the 1920s. They were inspired by Einstein’s theory of gravity, which showed that mass warped four-dimensional space-time.”
Hubble Focuses on Globular Cluster NGC 6717, reports SciNews. “The sparsely populated edges of NGC 6717 are in stark contrast to the sparkling collection of stars at its center.”
Alien Habitats –“They Could Be Just About Anywhere”, reports The Daily Galaxy –““Judging by the history of life on Earth and the possible futures we think we can see coming, it is indeed quite possible that most, or effectively all, civilizations in the universe are comprised of machine intelligences,” wrote astrobiologist David Grinspoon in an email to The Daily Galaxy.”
The Daily Galaxy Editorial Staff
Recent Galaxy Reports
The Galaxy Report — “Primordial Black Holes May Flood the Universe to Planets of Milky Way’s Ancient Bulge”
The Galaxy Report –“China Building a Miles-Long Spacecraft to How Big is the Quantum World”
The Galaxy Report –“Death by Primordial Black Hole to U.F.O.s and the Search for Alien Life”
The Galaxy Report –“Journey to an Alien Ocean to the Galaxy that ‘Defies Understanding’ “
The Galaxy Report –“Aliens May be Boring or Unreachable to Unknown Milky Way Signal”
The Galaxy Report –“Shape-Shifting Cosmos to Galaxy-Size Gravitational-Wave Detector Hints at Exotic Physics”
The Galaxy Report –“Extremely Boring Aliens to The Doctor Carl Sagan Warned Us About”
Read about The Daily Galaxy editorial team here