Today’s stories range from Renowned Astronomers’ Insights on NASA’s New UAP/UFO Study to A Passing Star Shifting Neptune’s Orbit could Wreck the Solar System to Gravitational Waves Open New Windows on the Universe’s Deepest Secrets, and much more.
The Simulation Hypothesis Is a Dangerous Illusion, reports Marcelo Gleiser for Big Think –“The simulation hypothesis states that we are living in a simulation created by a technologically advanced species. If we are living in a simulation, so are our simulators. Only the First Simulator — namely, “God” — has any agency. The real problem we face is the reality we live in, which is reaching disastrous levels of self-destruction. It is our duty to address that reality — not escape from it.”
A passing star shifting Neptune’s orbit could wreck the solar system–If a star flying past our solar system moved Neptune’s orbit by just 0.1 per cent, it could eventually cause the other planets to smash into one another or get thrown out of the solar system entirely, reports Leah Crane for New Scientist.
World’s Astronomers Comment on NASA’s New UAP/UFO Study (Exclusive), reports The Daily Galaxy. “Albert Einstein was fond of saying: “The scientific imagination is a preview of coming attractions.” On June 9, 2022 NASA announced that it is commissioning a study team to start early in the fall to examine unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs) Scientists from Adam Frank to Paul Davies and Harvard’s Avi Loeb share their expectations and insights.
World’s oldest trees reveal the largest solar storm in history — reports Big Think. “One of the greatest threats to all of humanity’s electronic and electrified infrastructure is a solar storm, which has the potential to cause a multi-trillion dollar disaster. Currently, we have no sufficient protections in place to defend against an event such as the great storm of 1859: known as the Carrington event. But in the years 774-775, an even larger cosmic event occurred, striking Earth with a fury never seen before.”
Gravitational Waves Continue to Astound –Seven years after their discovery, the ripples in spacetime have opened new windows on the universe’s deepest secrets, reports Nautilus.com
The cosmos can kill us in many ways. But the James Webb Space Telescope can help save us–We don’t want to end up like the dinosaurs, reports Free Think. “Even while it was still in its commissioning period, the telescope tracked an asteroid (Tenzing 6841) — the first time a space observatory has been able to do so.”
Time loops may not be forbidden by physics after all –Physicists find that causal loops, where two events separated in time influence each other in paradoxical ways, are allowed in many theoretical universes, some of which share features with our own, reports New Scientist.
A Surprising Side of Carl Sagan –In Contact, the great science advocate posed a religious question about the cosmos, reports Nautilus.com.
Life Helps Make Almost Half of All Minerals on Earth –A new origins-based system for classifying minerals reveals the huge geochemical imprint that life has left on Earth. It could help us identify other worlds with life too. The full impact of life on geology can be easy to miss.
Fast-Moving Star Orbits Milky Way’s Central Black Hole in Just Four Years –The newly-found star, named S4716, reaches a speed of 8,000 km/sec and comes as close as 98 astronomical units (AU) to Sagittarius A*, a supermassive black hole in the center of our Milky Way Galaxy, reports SciNews.
Either new particles are keeping the Higgs boson light, or the universe is oddly fine-tuned for our existence. Nathaniel Craig goes down the rabbit hole of the electroweak hierarchy problem, reports the CERN Courier.
She cataloged the stars—and changed the face of astronomy –From #maidlife to #astronomerlife, Williamina Fleming devoted her life to studying and discovering stars and other space phenomena, reports National Geographic.
Backstory: Preparing the JWST for Science. The last six months for the James Webb Space Telescope have been packed full of tasks, reports The Verge.
10 Years after the Higgs, Physicists Are Optimistic for More Discoveries –The Large Hadron Collider recently reopened after upgrades and is ready to explore new territory, reports Scientific American.
Why Do Astronomers Seek the Most Distant Galaxies? By finding and studying the universe’s oldest objects, we can reveal hidden fundamental chapters of cosmic history, reports Fabio Pacucci for Scientific American.
Don’t Listen to the Myths. We Need Another Big Particle Collider, reports Ethan Siegel for Big Think. “Don’t let these 5 myths fool you. The way to understand the earliest moments of creation is to recreate those conditions and study them. Why would we stop now?”
Toxic Slime Contributed to Earth’s Worst Mass Extinction—And It’s Making a Comeback. Global warming fueled rampant overgrowth of microbes at the end of the Permian period. Such lethal blooms may be on the rise again, reports Scientific American.
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