We live in a universe where matter is distributed in a hundred billion galaxies, each containing a hundred billion stars, made up of quantum fields where space and time are not existent, that manifest themselves in the form of particles, such as electrons and photons, or as waves. Tucked into the 14-billion-year history of this vast observable universe with 100 trillion planets is a pale blue dot teeming with life and a technological civilization created by a strange species known as homo sapiens.
In the art world, “pentimento,” an alteration, an overlay on a painting, hides evidence of traces of a previous work. In a similar vein, British physicist Sir Roger Penrose argues that extinct universes exist that were filled with ghost black holes that are hidden, embedded in the Cosmic Microwave Background map, and may have harbored alien civilizations from an eon that preceded the Big Bang.
NASA’s Kepler Mission K2 team announced the discovery of another new world today, two months after the Kepler spacecraft ran out of fuel on Oct. 30th, and ended its mission after nine years, during which it discovered 2,600 confirmed planets around other stars – the bulk of those now known – along with thousands of additional candidates astronomers are working to confirm.
The “Planet Earth Report” connects you to the days’ headlines on the science, discoveries, and events changing our planet and the future of the human species.
China’s FAST radio telescope, with a dish the size of 30 football fields, measuring 500 meters in diameter, dwarfing Puerto Rico’s 300-meter Arecibo Observatory, will launch its astronomers into the nation’s role as the new space superpower cinched with its epic landing of the Chang’e-4 Rover this week on the Moon’s far side. FAST could double the known pulsar tally of 2,000, says Peng Bo, FAST’s deputy manager and acting observatory director. It’s also ideal for mapping gas clouds between stars and for listening for signals from alien civilizations.
The “Planet Earth Report” connects you to the days’ headlines on the discoveries, people, and events changing our planet and the future of the human species.
