Massive "Dark Halo" Discovered Beyond Edge of the Milky Way

The biggest things in the universe just got bigger - or rather, they’ve always been bigger and we somehow missed it up to now.  Supercomputer simulations of galactic core black holes indicate that instead of being a mere two billion times the mass of the sun, so insignificant you’d surely lose them if you sneezed, some could be as large as six billion suns -not including the “dark halo” that surrounds the Milky Way, which is more than ten times as much mass as all of the visible stars, gas, and dust in the rest of the galaxy.

The study by scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Studies (which couldn’t sound smarter if it was Lex Luthor’s university degree) focused on Messier 87, a particularly bright active galaxy in the Virgo cluster whose size, strong signals and proximity to Earth make it a common astronomical experimentation subject.  Dr Karl Gebhart and colleagues ran a supercomputer simulation to calculate the mass of the monster at M87’s core.

You need to simulate a black hole’s size because there’s no way to observe its mass directly - you can only infer its immensity by studying the effects on the mass around it (little things like entire galaxies).  Where the new model differs from past efforts is its inclusion of the “dark halo”, an unobservable ring of dark matter which astrophysicists now believe surround galaxies.  Including something you can’t see might sound like a great way to get any answer you like, but the simulation worked it out by observing the effects of this halo on the visible stars, then accounting for those calculated effects when simulating the black hole - which is why the program took several days to run on a computer that could probably calculate you to ten decimal places in one minute.

The dark matter halo is the single largest part of the Milky Way, covering the space between 100,000 light-years to 300,000 light-years from the galactic center. It is now believed that about 95% of the Galaxy is composed of dark matter, which does not seem to interact with the rest of the Galaxy’s matter and energy in any way except through gravity. The dark matter halo is more than ten times as much mass as all of the visible stars, gas, and dust in the rest of the galaxy. While the luminous matter we see in the night skymakes up approximately 90,000,000,000 solar masses, he dark matter halo is believed to include around 600,000,000,000 to 3,000,000,000,000 solar masses of dark matter.

Don’t worry, the results aren’t entirely dependent on the dark matter magic-factor which affects so much of current cosmology - the results seem to explain observations which previously puzzled many scientists (always a good sign for a new result).  Recordings of distant quasars show evidence of black holes far larger than anything we’ve ever seen closer to home.  Now it seems that they were here all along, we just weren’t looking at them right.

Posted by Luke McKinney.

Giant Black Holes Get Even Bigger

The Billion-Year Technology Gap: Could One Exist? (The Weekend Feature)

Are we the lone sentient life in the universe? So far, we have no evidence to the contrary, and yet the odds that not one single other planet has evolved intelligent life would appear, from a statistical standpoint, to be quite small. There are an estimated 250 billion (2.5 x 10¹¹ ) stars in the Milky Way alone, and over 70 sextillion (7 x 10²² ) in the visible universe, and many of them are surrounded by multiple planets. 

Meanwhile, our 4.5 billion-year old Solar System exits in a universe that is estimated to be between 13.5 and 14 billion years old. Experts believe that there could be advanced civilizations out there that have existed for 1.8 gigayears (one gigayear = one billion years). 

The odds of there being only one single planet that evolved life among all that unfathomable vastness seems so incredible that it is all but completely irrational to believe. But then “where are they?” asked physicist Enrico Fermi while having lunch with his colleagues in 1950.

Fermi reasoned, if there are other advanced extraterrestrial civilizations, then why is there no evidence of such, like spacecraft or probes floating around the Milky Way. His question became famously known as the Fermi Paradox. The paradox is the contradiction between the high estimates of the probability of the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations and yet the lack of evidence for, or contact with, any such civilizations.

Given the extreme age of the universe, and its vast number of stars, if planets like Earth are at all typical, then there should be many advanced extraterrestrial civilizations out there, and at least a few in our own Milky Way. Another closely related question is the Great Silence, which poses the question: Even if space travel is too difficult, if life is out there, why don’t we at least detect some sign of civilization like radio transmissions?

Milan Cirkovic of the Astronomical Observatory in Belgrade, points out that the median age of terrestrial planets in the Milky Way is about 1.8 gigayears greater than the age of the Earth and the Solar System, which means that the median age of technological civilizations should be greater than the age of human civilization by the same amount. The vastness of this interval indicates that one or more processes must suppress observability of extraterrestrial communities.

Since at this point, there is no direct and/or widely apparent evidence that extraterrestrial life exists, it likely means one of the following:

We are (A) the first intelligent beings ever to become capable of making our presence known, and leaving our planet. At this point, there are no other life forms out there as advanced as us. Or perhaps extraterrestrial life does exists, but for some reason extraterrestrial life is so very rare and so very far away we'll never make contact anyway—making extraterrestrial life nonexistent in a practical sense at least.

Or is it (B) that many advanced civilizations have existed before us, but without exception, they have for some unknown reason, existed and/or expanded in such a way that they are completely undetectable by our instruments.

Or is it (C) There have been others, but they have all run into some sort of "cosmic roadblock" that eventually destroys them, or at least prevents their expansion beyond a small area.

Then ancients once believed that Earth was the center of the universe. We now know that Earth isn't even at the center of the Solar System. The Solar System is not at the center of our galaxy, and our galaxy is not in any special position in contrast to the rest of the known universe. From a scientific viewpoint, there is no apparent reason to believe that Earth enjoys some privileged status.

Since Earth's placement in space and time appears to be unremarkably random, proposition "A" seems fairly unlikely. Assuming humans evolved like other forms of life into our present state due to natural selection, then there’s really nothing all that mystical, special or remarkable about our development as a species either. Due to the shear numbers, there are almost certainly other planets capable of supporting at least some form of life. If that is so, then for Earthlings to be the very first species ever to make a noticeable mark on the universe, from a statistical perspective, is incredibly unlikely.

For proposition "B" to be correct would defy all logic. If potentially thousands, or even millions of advanced extraterrestrial civilizations exist in the known universe, then why would all of them, without exception, choose to expand or exist in such a way that they are completely undetectable? It's conceivable that some might, or perhaps even the majority, but for all of them to be completely undetectable civilizations does not seem likely either.

Proposition C in some ways, appears to be more likely than A or B. If "survival of the fittest" follows similar pathways on other worlds, then our own "civilized" nature could be somewhat typical of extraterrestrial civilizations that have, or do, exist. Somehow, we all get to the point where we end up killing ourselves in a natural course of technological development and thereby self-inflict our own "cosmic roadblock".

"Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the Fermi Paradox is what it suggests for the future of our human civilization. Namely, that we have no future beyond earthly confinement and, quite possibly, extinction. Could advanced nanotechnology play a role in preventing that extinction? Or, more darkly, is it destined to be instrumental in carrying out humanity’s unavoidable death sentence?" wonders Mike Treder, executive director of the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology (CRN).

Treder believes that some of the little understood new technologies now being developed such as nanotech, and others, could well be either our salvation or just as likely end up causing our ultimate destruction.

"Whatever civilizations have come before us have been unable to surpass the cosmic roadblock. They are either destroyed or limited in such a way that absolutely precludes their expansion into the visible universe. If that is indeed the case—and it would seem to be the most logical explanation for Fermi’s Paradox—then there is some immutable law that we too must expect to encounter at some point. We are, effectively, sentenced to death or, at best, life in the prison of a near-space bubble," suggests Treder. "Atomically-precise exponential manufacturing could enable such concentrations of unprecedented power as to result in either terminal warfare or permanent enslavement of the human race. Of course, that sounds terribly apocalyptic, but it is worth considering that the warnings we heard at the start of the nuclear arms race, and the very real risks we faced in the height of the Cold War, were but precursors to a much greater threat posed by an arms race involving nano-built weaponry and its accompanying tools of surveillance and control."

When we consider the chronological history of life on Earth, humans have only existed for a small fragment of time and our existence has always been precarious. The entire time we've existed, we been banding into various groups and attempting to kill each other—or at least are constantly in the process of developing more effective ways of killing each other—just in case. The US government, for example, spends on "Defense" (including "preemptive" warfare) and Homeland Security, 8 times what it spends on educating the next generation. There is enough nuclear weaponry in storage around the world to kill every living creature on the planet several times over. Clearly, we're a species with poor odds of surviving indefinitely.

Our self-destructive natures aside, curiosity may end up killing more than the cats. The faster technology is advancing, the more our "leap now, look later" nature appears to grow as well. If evolution on Earth serves as a somewhat typical template for evolution of other life forms, then becoming a truly advanced civilization must be a very daunting task indeed and a very rare, if not impossible, achievement.

In fact, Sir Martin Rees, Great Britain’s Astronomer Royal and respected professor of astrophysics at Cambridge University has estimated that humans have only a 50-50 shot of making it through the 21st century. If Rees is right, and our standing on the planet is as precarious as he and others believe it is, then we may be alone due to a built-in evolutionary self-destruct button. Others have come before and others will exist after, but the cosmic roadblock may be an innate, finite nature, which only allows sentient life forms to exist for a very small window of time—windows of life which may be too small for our civilization to match up with the small windows of other civilizations that have been before or will come after.

In a contrary point of view, Milan Cirkovic believes that highly efficient city-state type of advanced technological civilizations could easily pass unnoticed even by much more advanced SETI equipment, especially if located near the Milky Way rim or other remote locations.

Posted by Rebecca Sato with Casey Kazan.

NASA Hubble Image is the Helix Nebula, also known as The Helix or NGC 7293, a large planetary nebula located in the constellation of Aquarius

Recommended Galaxy post:

Stephen Hawking: Why Isn’t the Milky Way “Crawling With Self-Designing Mechanical or Biological Life?”

Links:
http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2007/07/sir-martin-rees.html
http://www.nanotech-now.com/columns/?article=149
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox

Stephen Hawking on "The Great Silence" (A Galaxy Classic)

In his famous lecture on Life in the Universe, Stephen Hawking asks: “What are the chances that we will encounter some alien form of life, as we explore the galaxy?”

If the argument about the time scale for the appearance of life on Earth is correct, Hawking says “there ought to be many other stars, whose planets have life on them. Some of these stellar systems could have formed 5 billion years before the Earth. So why is the galaxy not crawling with self-designing mechanical or biological life forms?”

Why hasn’t the Earth been visited, and even colonized? Hawking asks. “I discount suggestions that UFO’s contain beings from outer space. I think any visits by aliens, would be much more obvious, and probably also, much more unpleasant.”

Hawking continues: “What is the explanation of why we have not been visited? One possibility is that the argument, about the appearance of life on Earth, is wrong. Maybe the probability of life spontaneously appearing is so low, that Earth is the only planet in the galaxy, or in the observable universe, in which it happened. Another possibility is that there was a reasonable probability of forming self reproducing systems, like cells, but that most of these forms of life did not evolve intelligence.”

We are used to thinking of intelligent life, as an inevitable consequence of evolution, Hawking emphasized,  but it is more likely that evolution is a random process, with intelligence as only one of a large number of possible outcomes.

Intelligence, Hawking believes contrary to our human-centric existece, may not have any long-term survival value. In comparison the microbial world, will live on, even if all other life on Earth is wiped out by our actions. Hawking’s main insight is that intelligence was an unlikely development for life on Earth, from the chronology of evolution:  “It took a very long time, two and a half billion years, to go from single cells to multi-cell beings, which are a necessary precursor to intelligence. This is a good fraction of the total time available, before the Sun blows up. So it would be consistent with the hypothesis, that the probability for life to develop intelligence, is low. In this case, we might expect to find many other life forms in the galaxy, but we are unlikely to find intelligent life.”

Another possibility is that there is a reasonable probability for life to form, and to evolve to intelligent beings, but at some point in their technological  development “the system becomes unstable, and the intelligent life destroys itself. This would be a very pessimistic conclusion. I very much hope it isn’t true.”

Hawkling prefers another possibility: that there are other forms of intelligent life out there, but that we have been overlooked. If we should pick up signals from alien civilizations, Hawking warns,”we should have be wary of answering back, until we have evolved” a bit further. Meeting a more advanced civilization, at our present stage,’ Hawking says “might be a bit like the original inhabitants of America meeting Columbus. I don’t think they were better off for it.”

Posted by Casey Kazan.

Image Credit: www.astro.columbia.edu/~astrobio/ProjectsII.html

This is the third in a three-part series on Stephen Hawking’s views on life in the universe:

Stephen Hawking: “Humans Have Entered a New Stage of Evolution”
Stephen Hawking: “Asteroid Impacts Biggest Threat to Intelligent Life in the Galaxy”

Related Galaxy posts:

The METI Controversy (Revisited) : Should Detection by an Exo Civilization Be Viewed as a Threat?

The 10,000 Year Explosion: Has Human Civilization Turbo Charged Evolution?
Homo Sapiens -The “Time Travelers” -A Galaxy Classic
"Hyper-Speed" Evolution Discovered
Bringing Ancient Human Viruses Back to Life: A Jurassic Park or Salvation?

Immense Journey

Source: http://www.rationalvedanta.net/node/131

Stephen Hawking on "The Great Silence" (A Holiday Classic)

In his famous lecture on Life in the Universe, Stephen Hawking asks: “What are the chances that we will encounter some alien form of life, as we explore the galaxy?”

If the argument about the time scale for the appearance of life on Earth is correct, Hawking says “there ought to be many other stars, whose planets have life on them. Some of these stellar systems could have formed 5 billion years before the Earth. So why is the galaxy not crawling with self-designing mechanical or biological life forms?”

Why hasn’t the Earth been visited, and even colonized? Hawking asks. “I discount suggestions that UFO’s contain beings from outer space. I think any visits by aliens, would be much more obvious, and probably also, much more unpleasant.”

Hawking continues: “What is the explanation of why we have not been visited? One possibility is that the argument, about the appearance of life on Earth, is wrong. Maybe the probability of life spontaneously appearing is so low, that Earth is the only planet in the galaxy, or in the observable universe, in which it happened. Another possibility is that there was a reasonable probability of forming self reproducing systems, like cells, but that most of these forms of life did not evolve intelligence.”

We are used to thinking of intelligent life, as an inevitable consequence of evolution, Hawking emphasized,  but it is more likely that evolution is a random process, with intelligence as only one of a large number of possible outcomes.

Intelligence, Hawking believes contrary to our human-centric existece, may not have any long-term survival value. In comparison the microbial world, will live on, even if all other life on Earth is wiped out by our actions. Hawking’s main insight is that intelligence was an unlikely development for life on Earth, from the chronology of evolution:  “It took a very long time, two and a half billion years, to go from single cells to multi-cell beings, which are a necessary precursor to intelligence. This is a good fraction of the total time available, before the Sun blows up. So it would be consistent with the hypothesis, that the probability for life to develop intelligence, is low. In this case, we might expect to find many other life forms in the galaxy, but we are unlikely to find intelligent life.”

Another possibility is that there is a reasonable probability for life to form, and to evolve to intelligent beings, but at some point in their technological  development “the system becomes unstable, and the intelligent life destroys itself. This would be a very pessimistic conclusion. I very much hope it isn’t true.”

Hawkling prefers another possibility: that there are other forms of intelligent life out there, but that we have been overlooked. If we should pick up signals from alien civilizations, Hawking warns,”we should have be wary of answering back, until we have evolved” a bit further. Meeting a more advanced civilization, at our present stage,’ Hawking says “might be a bit like the original inhabitants of America meeting Columbus. I don’t think they were better off for it.”

Posted by Casey Kazan.

Image Credit: www.astro.columbia.edu/~astrobio/ProjectsII.html

This is the third in a three-part series on Stephen Hawking’s views on life in the universe:

Stephen Hawking: “Humans Have Entered a New Stage of Evolution”
Stephen Hawking: “Asteroid Impacts Biggest Threat to Intelligent Life in the Galaxy”

Related Galaxy posts:

The METI Controversy (Revisited) : Should Detection by an Exo Civilization Be Viewed as a Threat?

The 10,000 Year Explosion: Has Human Civilization Turbo Charged Evolution?
Homo Sapiens -The “Time Travelers” -A Galaxy Classic
"Hyper-Speed" Evolution Discovered
Bringing Ancient Human Viruses Back to Life: A Jurassic Park or Salvation?

Immense Journey

Source: http://www.rationalvedanta.net/node/131

Our Pale Blue Dot - A Thanksgiving (VIDEO)

"IRIS" - Web's Most Awesome Acronym (Internet Router in Space)

The IRIS project satisfies all conditions required of an awesome acronym:

a)  It’s a real word

b)  They didn’t have to torture a thesaurus to make the words fit

c)  It stands for something really cool

The US Department of Defense’s Internet Routing In Space project has placed an internet router in orbit around the Earth, as part of a plan to ensure the web will never be out of reach.  For them, at least.

The spaceborne Cisco system provides a wonderful symmetry to the development of the internet.  The web’s grandfather, ARPAnet, was built by the Advanced Research Projects Agency, who were in turn created because of the Soviet satellite Sputnik - now the result of their work is launching itself into space as if to follow its inspiration.

The Cisco Space Router, and it’s actually called that, is installed onboard the Intelstat IS-14 satellite.  While communications satellites are the exact opposite of new, this space-side server system will speed service to remote locations.  Previous relay satellites could only pass information on to ground-based routers.  This was often passed right back for further relay.  Space-side switching of cross-planetary packets can therefore preserve precious bandwidth by cutting out such back-and-forth.

Satellites won’t be serving Rickrolls and cats who happen to laugh out loud anytime soon: the extremely limited bandwidth of radio transmissions means this is more for “actual communications with useful content”, which amazingly enough don’t usually involve three minute videos.  Or fake facebook farms.  Or pretty much anything else you’re using it for.  It also serves one of the internet’s original functions, acting as a communications system utterly immune to anything happening on the ground.

The system is scheduled for three months of military tests starting in 2010, after which it’ll move on to commercial activity.  Because nothing could go wrong with ex-military hardware out in space with the ability to access our human computer networks.  

Luke McKinney

IRIS Project http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/48399

"Hypernovas" - The Most Violent Object in the Universe Confirmed

Most astronomers today believe that one of the most plausible reasons we have yet to detect intelligent life in the universe is due to the deadly effects of local supernova explosions that wipe out all life in a given region of a galaxy.

While there is, on average, only one supernova per galaxy per century, there is something on the order of 100 billion galaxies in the observable Universe. Taking 10 billion years for the age of the Universe (it’s actually 13.7 billion, but stars didn’t form for the first few hundred million), Dr. Richard Mushotzky of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, derived a figure of 1 billion supernovae per year, or 30 supernovae per second in the observable Universe!

Certain rare stars -real killers -type 11 stars, are core-collapse hypernova that generate deadly gamma ray bursts (GRBs). These long burst objects release 1000 times the non-neutrino energy release of an ordinary “core-collapse” supernova. Concrete proof of the core-collapse GRB model came in 2003.

It was made possible in part to a fortuitously “nearby” burst whose location was distributed to astronomers by the Gamma-ray Burst Coordinates Network (GCN). On March 29, 2003, a burst went off close enough that the follow-up observations were decisive in solving the gamma-ray burst mystery. The optical spectrum of the afterglow was nearly identical to that of supernova SN1998bw. In addition, observations from x-ray satellites showed the same characteristic signature of “shocked” and “heated” oxygen that’s also present in supernovae. Thus, astronomers were able to determine the “afterglow” light of a relatively close gamma-ray burst (located “just” 2 billion light years away) resembled a supernova.

It isn’t known if every hypernova is associated with a GRB. However, astronomers estimate only about one out of 100,000 supernovae produce a hypernova. This works out to about one gamma-ray burst per day, which is in fact what is observed.

What is almost certain is that the core of the star involved in a given hypernova is massive enough to collapse into a black hole (rather than a neutron star). So every GRB detected is also the “birth cry” of a new black hole.

Who ever said science is boring!

Casey Kazan.Adapted from NASAJPL materials.

http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/science/know_l1/why_hyper.html

Human Gene Mutation Creates Resistance to Kuru -A Rare, Violent Epidemic

“It’s absolutely fascinating to see Darwinian principles at work here. This community of people has developed their own biologically unique response to a truly terrible epidemic. The fact that this genetic evolution has happened in a matter of decades is remarkable.”

Professor John Collinge, Director of the Medical Research Council (MRC) Prion Unit 

A community in Papua New Guinea that suffered a major epidemic of a fatal brain disease called kuru has developed strong genetic resistance to the disease, according to new research by Medical Research Council scientists.

Kuru is a fatal prion disease geographically unique to an area in Papua New Guinea. In the mid 20th Century, an epidemic of kuru devastated a population in the Eastern Highlands of Papua New Guinea. The infection was passed on at funeral feasts, where mainly women and children consumed their deceased relatives as a mark of respect and mourning -a practice banned and ceased in the late 1950s.

Prion diseases or transmissible spongiform encephalopathies belong to group of fatal progressive conditions that affect the nervous system in humans and animals. In humans, prion diseases impair brain function, causing memory changes, personality changes, a decline in intellectual function (dementia), and problems with movement that worsen over time. 

Scientists from the MRC Prion Unit, a national centre of excellence in prion diseases, assessed over 3000 people from the affected and surrounding Eastern Highland populations, including 709 who had participated in cannibalistic burial feasts, 152 of whom subsequently died of kuru. They discovered a novel and unique variation in the prion protein gene called G127V in people from the Purosa valley region where kuru was most rife.

This gene mutation, which is found nowhere else in the world, seems to offer high or even complete protection against the development of kuru and has become frequent in this area through natural selection over recent history, in direct response to the epidemic. This is thought be one the strongest examples ever of recent natural selection in humans.

The study, which began in 1996, is published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Jason McManus

Source:  Medical Research Council (UK)

What Happened to Mars' Once-Great Ocean?

New research tracking Mars extensive network of valleys and adds to the growing body of evidence suggesting the Red Planet once had an ocean covering a large portion of the northern hemisphere. In a new study, scientists from Northern Illinois University and the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston used an innovative computer program to produce a new and more detailed global map of the valley networks. The findings indicate the networks are more than twice as extensive as had been previously shown in the only other planet-wide map of the valleys forming a belt around the planet between the equator and mid-southern latitudes.

Scientists have previously hypothesized that a single ocean existed on ancient Mars, but the issue has been hotly debated.

“All the evidence gathered by analyzing the valley network on the new map points to a particular climate scenario on early Mars,” NIU Geography Professor Wei Luo said. “It would have included rainfall and the existence of an ocean covering most of the northern hemisphere, or about one-third of the planet’s surface.”.

Since the networks were discovered in 1971 by the Mariner 9 spacecraft, scientists have hotly debated whether they were created by erosion from surface water, which would point to a climate with rainfall, or through a process of erosion known as groundwater sapping, which can occur in cold, dry conditions.

The large disparity between river-network densities on Mars and Earth had provided a major argument against the idea that runoff erosion formed the valley networks. But the new mapping study reduces the disparity, indicating some regions of Mars had valley network densities more comparable to those found on Earth.

“It is now difficult to argue against runoff erosion as the major mechanism of Martian valley network formation,” Luo said.

“When you look at the entire planet, the density of valley dissection on Mars is significantly lower than on Earth,” he said. “However, the most densely dissected regions of Mars have densities comparable to terrestrial values.

“The relatively high values over extended regions indicate the valleys originated by means of precipitation-fed runoff erosion—the same process that is responsible for formation of the bulk of valleys on our planet,” he added.

The researchers created an updated planet-wide map of the valley networks by using a computer algorithm that parses topographic data from NASA satellites and recognizes valleys by their U-shaped topographic signature.

“The only other global map of the valley networks was produced in the 1990s by looking at images and drawing on top of them, so it was fairly incomplete and it was not correctly registered with current datum,” Stepinski said. “Our map was created semi-automatically, with the computer algorithm working from topographical data to extract the valley networks. It is more complete, and shows many more valley networks.”.

“Such a single-ocean planet would have an arid continental-type climate over most of its land surfaces,” Luo said.

The northern-ocean scenario meshes with a number of other characteristics of the valley networks.

“A single ocean in the northern hemisphere would explain why there is a southern limit to the presence of valley networks,” Luo added. “The southernmost regions of Mars, located farthest from the water reservoir, would get little rainfall and would develop no valleys. This would also explain why the valleys become shallower as you go from north to south, which is the case.

“Rain would be mostly restricted to the area over the ocean and to the land surfaces in the immediate vicinity, which correlates with the belt-like pattern of valley dissection seen in our new map,” Luo said.

Casey Kazan

Source: Northern Illinois University

iPhone App Sends DNA To The Stars

Sending the genetic code for fundamental protein that makes all photosynthetic life (and therefore almost all life on Earth) possible to alien stars? There’s an app for that! MIT artist in residence Joe Davis has, as well as one of the coolest titles it’s possible to have, an iPhone which was Areciboically connected to three distant stars.  Take a couple of goes at pronouncing that if you must, it’s worth it: Arecibo is an immense three-hundred meter radio telescope, and if you’ve ever seen GoldenEye you don’t have to imagine how cool that looks - you’ve already seen it. Joe MacGyver (an honorary surname we’re awarding him for this effort) wired his phone to the main transmitters via an old TV connector to transmit the genetic code of the RuBisCo protein to GJ83.1, Teagarden’s star, and Kappa Ceti.  Which kicks the hell out of your contacts, “Anne”, “Paul” and “Work.”

The problem is in the conversion: they translated our well-know G A Ts and Cs into two-digit binary codes based on molecular weight, so far so funky, but then the artist in Joe decided to turn those codes into extracts from the edict of Apollo engraved at the entrance of the temple at Delphi.  Which we’re sure is fascinating art but suddenly turns an earnest effort at interstellar communication something only an alien Dan Brown would understand (and even then only after a bottle of exo-absinthe and a serious blow to whatever it has instead of a head).  This, by the way, is where the iPhone came in, reading out the converted text file using the standard “Speak” application.

It’s still in awesome event, and the basic fact that it’s an obviously intentional message isn’t ruined by the deliberately convoluted communications convention.  The only downer involved was the opposition of some Arecibo staff - they were forced against the idea simply because it threatened their already endangered funding.  We live in a world where the attitude towards contacting extraterrestrials ranges from mockery to outright hostility, and the politicians in charge of spending range from flunking high-school science to mounting all-out attacks on reason itself.  So even if it’s an impenetrable riddle to all but John Davis himself, we’ll take any transmission we can get.

Luke McKinney

The RuBisCo Stars Story

Part I 

Part II 

"Deep Thought"? - Beyond the Large Hadron Collider

Some scientists are already looking beyond the Large Hadron Collider and onto the next generation of ultimega-atom-smasher.  That’s because scientists actually plan things and can concentrate for longer than four seconds, unlike the mass media which reports on them.  One potential particle pulverising system is a muon collider: the latest concept in the cutting edge that parts particles.

It might seems spoiled to be calling for another multimillion dollar megacollider when the latest one hasn’t even started, but the LHC is no Deep Thought: they aren’t going to turn it on and have the answer to Life, the Universe and Everything (eventually) tumble out.  Whatever the results of the proton-pounding experiments underneath the Franco-Swiss border there are whole swathes of the high-energy particle spectrum still out of reach - and which we want to look at next will be determined by the LHC.

The muon collider concept combines exciting potential with challenging problems.  Muons are only a ninth of the mass of protons and so can be accelerated to higher energies with current hardware (in fact, because they’re made of fewer subatomic bits they can reach higher effective energies even with less powerful equipment).  They’re two hundred times heavier than electrons, but because they’re less prone to radiate away energy via synchrotron radiation when being bent around curves by magnetic fields, they can be kept in rings at energy levels where electrons would require vast linear accelerators.

The challenges are just as cool: a muon’s stable lifetime is only two point two microseconds, and when faced with the problem “they only hang around for a couple millionths of a second” the designers said “let’s just accelerate them to close to the speed of light” - that way they hang around long enough (in our frame) due to relativistic time dilation.  If that sounds improbable, it’s already happened to you a bunch of times while reading this sentence: muons created by cosmic ray impacts classically couldn’t survive long enough to reach the surface, it’s only time dilation extending their life from our reference frame that lets them stream into the surface of the Earth, bubble chambers, and your body right now.

There are still extraordinarily significant challenges to overcome: how do you streams muons into the accelerator from the reactions that cause them, who wants to pay for something this big, and will they be able to overcome other accelerator strategies to get that funding?  Only time, and awesome science, will tell.

Luke McKinney

Muon Accelerator http://www.nature.com.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/news/2009/091118/full/462260a.html

Buried Antarctica "Alps" Point to Hyper-Speed Global Warming

An international team of experts have mapped a huge, incredibly old location, mentioned in the notes of a Russian explorer from half a century ago, buried under hundreds of meters of ice.  In an amazing break with tradition this process did not result in the unleashing of ancient horrors, a self-destruct sequence, alien invasion or anyone shooting at Indiana Jones.  They’ve examined the entire Gamburtsev mountain range, 700 meters tall and buried under a kilometer of Antarctica.

The team used an array of tools including seismic wave reflection, radar, and precise gravitational measurements to map the frozen features - there are a lot more differences between ice and rock than “one works in drinks”, and they used them all.  If “Sub-Antarctic Mountain Range” isn’t good enough for you, the valleys between the peaks come complete with rivers and lakes - yes, lakes.  Under the ice.  At the South Pole.

The mountains are a massive mystery - they seem to be half a billion years old, but on a tectonic scale you can’t just say “that’s a long time ago so who cares.”  There are no other indications of such titanic tectonics in the area at the time, and the range has none of the signs of volcanic formation.  Which is a pity, as volcanoes erupting into thousands of tons of solid ice is probably the only way this incredible landscape could sound any more awesome.

The researchers predicted a flat plateau, but instead found a range similar in height and shape to the Alps - with massive peaks as high as Mount Blanc and deep valleys.

Water, turned to liquid due to the pressure of East Antarctic Ice Sheet above, could be seen in rivers and lakes nestled in valleys. One lake, Vostok, a possible living biological lab of ancient lifeforms, was an incredible 300 kilometers.

Scientists hope the findings will aid predictions about the effects of climate change on ice sheets and challenge long-held views that the ice sheet formed over millions of years.The new research suggests they formed in a fraction of the time and the area could have been ice free at some points in history.

This means any rapid fluctuation in global temperature could have a much faster effect on the formation of ice sheets than previously thought

Posted by Luke McKinney

Related Galaxy posts:

Secrets of Antarctica’s 15-Million Year-Old Lake -A Galaxy Classic
World’s Oldest Living Microbes May Cast Light on Aging & Life on Mars
Will Jupiter’s Moon -Europa- Provide the 1st Proof of Extraterrestrial Life? -A Galaxy Insight
Ancient Antarctic Microbes Revived in Lab
Antarctica -Mapping The White Continent

Links:

Lake Vostok Slide Show

http://www.unspecial.org/UNS633/UNS_633_T13.htm

A PDF on the Vostok drilling 
Wiki to Vostok - 
Wiki on the Antarctic Treaty

Is an Imminent "Little Ice Age" Possible? -Scientists Says "Yes"

Evidence has mounted that global warming began in the last century and that humans are, at least in part, responsible. The concern is that the warming of our climate will greatly affect its habitability for many species, including humans. Both the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the U.S. National Academy of Sciences concur that this is the case. But some argue that this thinking is too limited. They say that too many scientists are either ignoring, or don't understand, the well-established fact that Earth's climate has changed rapidly in the past and could change rapidly in the future—in either direction.

Evidence for abrupt climate change is readily found in ice cores taken from Greenland and Antarctica. One of the best known examples of such an event is the Younger Dryas cooling of about 12,000 years ago, named after the arctic wildflower found in northern European sediments. This event began and ended rather abruptly, and for its entire 1000 year duration the North Atlantic region was about 5°C colder. Could something like this happen again? It sure could, and because the changes can happen all within one decade—we might not even see it coming.

The Younger Dryas occurred at a time when orbital forcing should have continued to drive climate to the present warm state. The unexplained phenomenon has been the topic of much intense scientific debate, as well as other millennial scale events.

Now an 11-year low in Sunspot activity has raised fears among a small number of scientists that rather than getting warmer, the Earth could possibly be about to return to another cooling period. The idea is especially intriguing considering that most of the world is in preparation for global warming. Could we be preparing for the wrong scenario?

A sunspot is a region on the Sun that is cooler than the rest and therefore appears darker. One theory is that a strong solar magnetic field, which causes plenty of sunspot activity, protects the earth from cosmic rays, but that when the field is weak - during low sunspot activity - the rays can penetrate into the lower atmosphere and cloud cover increases, which in turn leads to a cooler surface.

Geophysicist Phil Chapman, the first Australian to become an astronaut with NASA, notes that pictures from the US Solar and Heliospheric Observatory show that there are currently no spots on the sun. He believes this is the reason why the world cooled rapidly between January last year and January this year, by about 0.7C.

“This is the fastest temperature change in the instrumental record, and it puts us back to where we were in 1930,” Dr Chapman wrote in The Australian. “If the temperature does not soon recover, we will have to conclude that global warming is over.”

However, scientists from the US National Center for Atmospheric Research published a report in 2006 that claims the Sun likely has a negligible effect on climate change. Another study, recently published study in the Institute of Physics’ Environmental Research Letters, by researchers from Lancaster and Durham Universities found that there was no strong correlation between cosmic rays and the production of low cloud cover. If that is correct, it would mean the lack of sunspots is not necessarily an indicator of higher cloud cover and subsequent future cooling.

While it's true that some world regions have experienced record colds recently, other areas do seem to be warming up. In Australia, The Bureau of Meteorology says that temperatures there have been warmer than the 1960-90 average since the late 1970s. Even though there have been some cooler years mixed in, overall they are now 0.3C higher than the long-term average. Other countries are experiencing similar upward trends. On the other hand, since widespread temperature records have only been kept for a relatively short period of the Earth's history, it's hard to know exactly what these increases mean from a long-term perspective.

Cooling, or "Little Ice Age" proponents like Chapman, say that it could still swing either way. He proposes preventive measures to slow any potential cooling, such as bulldozing Siberian and Canadian snow to make it dirty and less reflective. “My guess is that the odds are now at least 50:50 that we will see significant cooling rather than warming in coming decades.”

Canadian scientist Kenneth Tapping of the National Research Council has noted that solar activity has entered into an unusually inactive phase, but what they means—if anything—is still anyone's guess. Another scientist, Oleg Sorokhtin, a fellow of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences agrees with Chapman. Sorokhtin believes that, in spite of the results of certain recent studies, lack of sunspots does indicate a coming cooling period. In fact, he calls manmade climate change “a drop in the bucket” compared to the cold brought on by inactive solar phases.

But while Sorokhtin is advising people to “stock up on fur coats”, the vast majority of prominent scientists believe the bulk of evidence points towards an overall warming trend, and that anomalies and exceptions to the rule do not make a significant dent in this consensus.

The Daily Galaxy asked climate expert Thomas Reichler, what he has to say about it. According to him, anyone claiming that the Earth isn't getting warmer, or that it's perhaps even getting colder, simply isn't looking at the actual data.

"There is absolutely no doubt that the world is in a warming phase," Reichler told the Daily Galaxy, "and that conclusion is supported by 99% of all serious scientists, so I'm certainly not alone in that certainty."

Reichler is probably right, but it wouldn't be the first time if the fringe opinion turned out to be onto something. But from a broader perspective, does it really matter who's "right" as far as preparations go? Whether the climate gets cooler or warmer, or does nothing at all, people will still need massive amounts of energy. Even if we were to take the reverse approach and intentionally increase greenhouse gases in the atmosphere in order to stave off cooling, it would likely have little effect other than to further pollute the environment with standard energy consumption's many toxic byproducts.

Are humans the major factor in the current warming trend? Maybe, maybe not. But what can't be disputed is that humans are polluting the planet. Current and future weather conditions do not change the fact that using oil and coal for energy isn't a good long-term idea. The need for cleaner energy, cleaner air and cleaner water has never been greater. The widespread call for better handling of resources, and habitat protection doesn't change with the thermometer.

Our commitment to stop polluting our water systems with pesticides and other dangerous chemicals should be as great as ever, with or without climate change considerations. Dismal air quality now poses significant health risks, especially in urban areas. Those who equate their global warming skepticism with an "anything goes" attitude regarding the environment are seriously jeopardizing the health of our planet and their own health along with it. If we prepare for global warming in ways that help protect the environment—we'll still be a lot better off—even on the off chance that we end up with a mini Ice Age instead.

Posted by Rebecca Sato.

Related Galaxy posts:

Abrupt Climate Change: Inevitable Surprises
Cosmic Rays -The Cause of Global Warming?
The Milky Way Enigma -How Galactic Forces May Control Life on Earth
Are Global Warming Models Accurately Predicting Our Future? New Study Reveals the Answer—A Galaxy Interview
As Temperatures Hit Record Lows, Global Warming Takes a Punch to the Gut

Alien Oxygen Atmosphere Discovered (on Stars!)

Our planetary surveys are nowhere near Star Trek’s strike rate - they keep finding worlds stuffed with green-skinned females, humanoid societies, and thinly veiled metaphors for the situations they left behind a few hundred light (and regular) years ago.  We find rocks which could freeze, explode and crush organic life just by looking at it.  Now we’ve found a couple of Earth-sized oxygen atmosphered bodies, which would be all the way M-Class except for one thing: they’re stars.

Specifically, they’re “white dwarfs”: old stars who’ve burned all their hydrogen fuel, gone through the red giant stages where they fuse their way up to heavier elements, but lack the mass to supernova and collapse into neutron stars or black holes.  This is actually what’ll happen to most stars, a relatively calm and cold fate, but there’s no explosion so you don’t hear about it much.

The stars were identified by scientists sifting through data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), an eight year examination of the universe with a two point five meter telescope at Apache Point Observatory.  Working at the University of Warwick and Kiel University, they identified stars with oxygen atmospheres at the very edge of the supernova-explosion mass limit.  More massive stars can fuse heavier elements, and these stars had just enough mass to fuse all their carbon, exposing their oxygen-neon core, but not quite enough to collapse that core into explosion.

The stars are instead sustained by electron degeneracy pressure, where every atom just about elbows all the other atoms away, and will remain so until it’s eventually eaten by a black hole.  Because you have to remember that everything eventually will be.

Luke McKinney

2 Earth-sized bodies with oxygen rich atmospheres http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/newsandevents/pressreleases/2_earth-sized_bodies/

Ford focuses on wind power

To create true zero emission technology, electricity must come from renewable sources – and now Ford is taking the lead with wind power.

The company has put two giant wind turbines, each standing more than 150 metres tall, into service at its Ford Genk plant in Belgium. The turbines were installed by Electrabel, a local energy company, with each having an output of 2MW of power. The turbines in Belgium are expected to meet a significant part of the plant's power needs, where it produces the Mondeo, Galaxy and S-MAX models.

Genk is not the first Ford of Europe plant to use renewable electricity – the Dagenham Diesel Centre in the UK was actually the world's first automotive plant to meet all its electricity needs from two giant on-site turbines which were installed five years ago.

Indeed a third turbine is expected to be added in Dagenham next year to ensure it remains 100 per cent powered by wind electricity following the installation of a new 1.4/1.6litre engine production line.

The Dunton Technical Centre, also in the UK, takes its electricity from renewable sources too. From March 2008, all the electric power on the 270acre site has been purchased from renewable sources including hydro, wind and waste generation. In Wales, the Bridgend engine plant uses roof mounted/solar voltaic panels and in Germany, Ford is also sourcing renewable electricity for all its power demands in Cologne.

Details…

Project MOON EXPLOSION Blows More Than Water Out Of Lunar Craters

NASA’s most awesome mission since pointing at the sky and saying “I bet we can put people there” has come to fruition, with absolute proof that there’s water ice on the Moon - and lots of it.

The Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) is the most explosive euphemism since Tom Clancy discovered the thesaurus.  It ’sensed’ the contents of the lunar crater Cabeus by dropping an entire Centaur rocket booster into it, and when you ‘drop’ something in orbit it’s very much like ‘fired at’ by the time it hits the ground.  The booster slammed into the shadowed regolith like a two ton bullet, blowing a twenty meter hole in the moon and ejecting dust tens of kilometers into space - where the LCROSS satellite, chasing the Centaur, could get a good look at it for four minutes before its own suicide strike into the same crater.

Both impacts were observed by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), the one part of the mission not designed to explode part of a astronomical body that day.  Spectrographic analysis unequivocally confirmed the presence of water, and that it made up a whole percent of the ejected material, so when we do build bases in the moon there’ll be plenty of this all-important liquid for the taking.  Even more interestingly, there were organic compounds as well as an unexpected amount of mercury, so in true science tradition we’ve spawned two more questions in answering one.

The permanently shadowed craters of the lunar poles seem to act as frozen traps for material moving through the solar system, collecting meteors where nothing will disturb them - until some awesome apes from another world blow them to bits.  And then those apes get to work out what happened, and why, and what we’re going to do when we get there!

Luke McKinney

Lunar impact tosses up water and stranger stuff

LCROSS NASA site