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Director of Berkeley’s SETI Research Center, Andrew Siemion once said: “as we improve our understanding of ancient Earth and the history of our solar system, perhaps we may someday uncover evidence that suggests the activity of another technological civilization right here in our neighborhood.” Massive efforts have been put into the search for alien life in our universe. For example, in the year of 2015 a research study lead by The Pennsylvania State University astronomer Jason Wright, examined 100,000 neighboring large galaxies and concluded that none of them possessed any obvious symptoms of any highly technologically advanced civilizations. Now, the focus is steered closer to home-- in this past spring of 2017, Wright has proposed that an indigenous technological civilization could have arisen and lived within the solar system before Earth-bound life did. He also went on to suggest that its “technosignatures” may have potentially survived if they were made of a material that could...

A hypothesis dating back almost a century has just been confirmed for the first time-- scientists have finally witnessed lightning trigger nuclear reactions within our atmosphere. Such a hypothesis predicted that high-energy electrons found within lightning are capable of producing gamma rays that would induce nuclear reactions within the thundercloud.  Image: Dmitry Kalinin/Flickr The one downside to such a phenomenon is that it hasn’t ever been definitively observed until now.  Teruaki Enoto of Kyoto University, Japan, who is an astrophysicist, and one of the researchers in this study explained the following to ScienceAlert : “the photonuclear reaction in the atmosphere has been theoretically explained [to be] triggered by such high energy radiation. Several groups have accumulated signatures of this phenomena, such as signals of either neutrons or positrons, which are products of this reaction.” Scientists have been detecting these signals dating all the way back to the 19...

It was once said by Dr. Wei-Chun Jao, lead author of a new study and research scientist in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Georgia State: “Finding old stars could also lead to the discovery of new planets. Maybe we can find some old ancient civilizations around these old stars. Maybe these stars have some planets around them that we don’t know about.”  Our home galaxy, The Milky Way, reaches an age that is approximately 14 billion years. It’s a very massive galaxy. Within this galaxy, the most antediluvian stars were formed in its early stages of formation, making them about six to nine billion years old. Such stars are found in the halo, a roughly spherical component of the galaxy that was one of the first to form and within it, old stars advance in eccentric orbits. However, younger stars in The Milky Way rotate together along the galaxy’s disk in nearly circular motions, resembling horses on a merry-go-round. This study primarily focused on senior stars, known as co...

The University of Texas’ research team has discovered that the formation of the moon’s crust composed by one mineral could not be explained by the initial crust formation and must have been a result of a major secondary event. The Moon experienced quite the rough beginning. There are few theories about its creation. Although it’s still debated, it is believed by most scientists that the moon was formed by a chunk of the Earth that had been hacked off during a planetary collision and spent most of its early years with its surface covered by an ocean of molten magma before cooling and forming the lunar surface we know today. Nick Dygert, assistant professor at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, who was temporarily involved in the research said the following about the discovery: “it’s fascinating to me that there could be a body as big as the Moon that was completely molten.” The University of Texas lead a research team at the Austin Jackson School of Geosciences that created a mag...

Prepare for astounding investigation, for the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) has elaborated the 13 proposals that will compromise the initial set of scientific observations carried out by the highly anticipated James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).  The James Webb Space Telescope is a component of NASA’s Next Generation Telescope program that is to be launched in 2019, developed by NASA, Canadian Space Agency, and the European Space Agency.  JWST will ultimately provide unprecedented resolution and amazing sensitivity from the long-wavelength visible light through the mid-infrared range. John C. Mather, senior project scientist for the Webb telescope and senior astrophysicist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland spoke out about the telescope in a news release: “I’m thrilled to see the list of astronomer’s most fascinating targets for the Webb telescope and extremely eager to see the results. We fully expect to be surprised by what we find.” ...

This weird yet amazing Cosmic Snake galaxy is actually behind a massive galaxy cluster called MACS J1206.2-0847, but thanks to the cluster’s gravity, we can see it directly from Earth. Light from the distant galaxy arrives at Earth, having been distorted by the gigantic gravitational influence of the intervening cluster. The ‘Cosmic Snake’ galaxy. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble. Fascinatingly, instead of making it more difficult to perceive cosmological objects, such strong lensing effects improve the resolution and depth of an image by magnifying the background object. Sometimes gravitational lensing can even produce multiple images of the object as light is bent in different directions around the foreground cluster.  Using Hubble, Dr. Antonio Cava of the Université de Genève and co-authors looked at several such images of the Cosmic Snake, each with a different level of magnification. “The amplified images are more precise, luminous, and allows us to observe details up to 100 ...

It has been asked frequently-- how come only the past is present in our memories and not the future? Why time travel is not an actuality and the process of aging is irreversible? Why is entropy a definitive constant? What came before the Big Bang? Was time existent before the Big Bang?  The answers to these complex questions can be potentially traced to the moment of the Big Bang. Sean Carroll, theoretical physicist of California Institute of Technology whose research focuses on theoretical physics, astrophysics and issues in cosmology, gravitation and field theory addresses this question below. Time definitively infuses our lives for it is constantly measured. It’s tracked, put to use, machines employ time and others are built to keep track of its passage and measure it just as a ruler measures distances. There is a stark difference between the ruler and the clock-- time doesn’t necessarily employ distances but it does take use of direction pointing past from future. Sean Carroll’...

The prospect of an imminent doom hovers over us, scientists warn. A series of 20 deadly earthquakes is emanating next year due to the slowing of earth’s rotation . Scientists from the University of Colorado in Boulder and the University of Montana say that even fluctuations of a millisecond could increase seismic activity, although their research has been spurned by some scientists. “The correlation between Earth's rotation and earthquake activity is strong and suggests there is going to be an increase in numbers of intense earthquakes next year.” Dr. Roger Bilham, from the University of Colorado, asserted at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America. Swarms of devastating earthquakes are set to arrive next year due to the slowing of the Earth's rotation, scientists claim. The tidal pull between Earth and moon is apparently the focal reason behind planet’s slow rotation. Little changes in the speed of earth’s rotation could trigger a drastic seismic activity, mai...

Aliens-- always a prevalent topic of discussion and one sparking controversy. It is known to everyone that scientists have been searching for extraterrestrial planets for signs of life. Now, in the hope of making contact with aliens, a message beamed by scientists towards two planets potentially capable of supporting life. The message was directed towards GJ 273-- known as Luyten’s star, a red dwarf, lying 12.36 light years away from Earth but scientists estimate that it will take a mere 12 years to reach it. If any aliens reside on the planets and the message is received and understood by them, and a reply is sent, then it is expected to be received in the duration of the northern hemisphere’s summer solstice in 2042 (June 21st, 2042). However, the plan set in motion does not please all-- Stephen Hawking, amongst other experts, warns us that if aliens were ever to discover life on Earth, it is very probable that such a discovery could be the end of a civilization. Life on Earth would...

The LIGO discovery, the finding of a merger of 30-solar-mass black holes made astronomers question just how common black holes of such enormous sizes are and the frequency of their mergers. Astronomers of the University of California, Irvine led by UCI chair and James Bullock , professor of physics and astronomy conducted this research .   An artist’s conception shows two black holes in the process of merging. (LIGO / Caltech / MIT Illustration) This research was focused on a cosmic inventory to calculate and categorize stellar-remnant black holes and found that it is highly probable that tens of millions black holes exist in the Milky Way. It is a number far higher than previously expected. James Bullock who is also co-author of the research paper printed in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society said the following about the discovery: “We think we’re shown that there are as many as 100 million black holes in our galaxy.” UCI’s celestial census began a bit over...