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.
NASA’s mantra is that we should be open to search for life not as we know it. Arik Kershenbaum at the University of Cambridge and author of The Zoologists Guide to The Galaxy believes that “the bizarre and the unexpected – aliens made of gas, or with properties and abilities we’ve never dreamed of – are always possible, but they will always be rare.”
Avi Shporer, Research Scientist, MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research. A Google Scholar, Avi was formerly a NASA Sagan Fellow at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). His motto, not surprisingly, is a quote from Carl Sagan: “Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.”
Another week of amazing news from our Pale Blue Dot, with stories ranging from strange things are happening at the outer edges of our solar system to plants feel pain and might even see to a wrinkle in nature could lead to alien life.
Is information at the core of life in the Universe? Are we humans an anomaly? Join narrator, Nicole Butscher on this week’s journey of discovery from the emergence of the human “dataome” –a world of bits built of and for information, which was like a sudden invasion by extraterrestrials, or an asteroid impact that precipitates a mass extinction–to the discovery of what astronomers think is the first planet beyond the Milky Way (or is it something more interesting), and more.
In Reinventing the Sacred, Stuart Kaufman, theoretical biologist and emeritus professor of biochemistry at the University of Pennsylvania, who studies the origin of life on Earth, observes: “There is a world beyond physics. Given continuous spacetime, there are a second-order infinity of possible histories of the biosphere. We are agents who alter the unfolding of the universe.”
Avi Shporer, Research Scientist, MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research. A Google Scholar, Avi was formerly a NASA Sagan Fellow at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). His motto, not surprisingly, is a quote from Carl Sagan: “Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.”
News from our Pale Blue Dot for the Thanksgiving Holiday weekend: from the “telescope that ate astronomy” to what “Impossible” meant to the legendary physicist, Richard Feynman to black-hole bubbles that could swallow to Universe to poaching triggers the evolution of tuskless elephants to tech companies ‘don’t get’ science-fiction.
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)
