The development represents “an important advance in extraterrestrial research, in which biology has often lagged behind chemistry and geology.”
A new study has revealed a new way to enhance the search for aliens on Mars by teaching artificial intelligence to detect sites that could contain “biosignatures.”
And so, the researchers trained a deep learning framework to map biosignatures in a three-square-kilometer area of Chile’s Atacama Desert… More.
NASA/JPL-Caltech.
According to NASA, a biosignature is any “characteristic, element, molecule, substance, or feature that can be used as evidence for past or present life.” But before testing such a tool on Mars or other worlds, they need to be tested on Earth first.
The robots contain miniaturized sensors which are deployed as they traverse a cave or other subsurface environment.
Life on Mars is closer than you think. And researchers at the University of Arizona College of Engineering are already scouting real estate and house hunting. Their helpers? A flock of robots that can explore the subsurface environments on other worlds.
“Lava tubes and caves would make perfect habitats for astronauts because you don’t have to build a structure; you are shielded from harmful cosmic radiation, so all you need to do is make it pretty and cozy,” said Wolfgang Fink, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at UArizona.
Fink and team have published a paper in Advances in Space Research that details a “communication network that would link rovers, lake landers, and even submersible vehicles through a so-called mesh topology network, allowing the machines to work together as a team, independently from human input,” according to a press release.
New simulations paint a picture of our solar system resembling an ornate clock. “Throw more gears into the mix and it all breaks.”
A new experiment shed new light on the role Jupiter has played in the evolution of life on Earth. In a series of simulations, scientists showed that an Earth-like planet orbiting between Mars and Jupiter would be able to alter Earth’s orbit and push it out of the solar system.
Such an event would extricate Earth from its life support system, the Sun, and would therefore wipe out all life on our planet.
Ultimately, the experiment highlighted how the solar system’s largest gas giant, Jupiter, plays a crucial role in stabilizing the orbits of its surrounding planets. The hypothetical scenario was considered as part of a UC Riverside experiment.
To us everything seems normal. Our planet, blue and bursting with life, sits in the middle of the “habitable zone” around the Sun, with burning hot Venus inwards and lifeless Mars beyond. Giant gas planets exist way farther out. That’s as how it should be, right?
An updated look at how we are preparing to search the solar system in SETI to see whether anyone has ever stationed an alien probe in the star system including just what we might look for.
“We Can Remember It for You Wholesale” is a short story by Philip K. Dick first published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction in April 1966. It features a melding of reality, false memory, and real memory. The story has been the subject of two film adaptations, 1990’s Total Recall, with Arnold Schwarzenegger as the story’s protagonist; and 2012’s same-titled with Colin Farrell in a similar role.
Douglas Quail, a simple and ordinary clerk, wishes to visit Mars. Unable to afford it, he visits a company, REKAL (pronounced “recall”) Incorporated, which promises to implant an “extra-factual memory” of a trip to Mars as a secret agent. The procedure involves administration of narkidrine, a sedative and truth drug, which causes Quail to remember and reveal that he actually did go to Mars as a secret government agent. His conscious memories of the trip have been erased, but his initial desire to sign up for the trip cannot be removed. The REKAL staff quickly get Quail out of their office without implanting anything, but his real memories are now returning slowly. At home, he finds physical evidence to support his trip but also remembers that he attended REKAL. This conflict causes him to angrily return for a refund, which he is given.
When two police officers show up to kill him, Quail discovers that his former handlers have been reading his thoughts by means of an implanted device that was used to communicate with him during his mission on Mars. As more memories return, he realizes that he was an assassin for the government, but also remembers how to disarm the cops and escape. Since he can be tracked by the device, this cannot last for long. He thus makes a deal for the memory of his Mars mission to be replaced by a false memory of his deepest fantasy as analyzed by psychiatrists, in order to prevent any further desires to visit REKAL. He is sent back to REKAL for the procedure, but under the narkidrine, he reveals that the memories they are about to implant are real — that aliens visited him when he was nine and were so touched by his kindness and compassion that they decided to postpone their invasion until his death. By simply remaining alive, he is the most important person on Earth, and the government is now unable to kill him.
In this episode of the Physics World Weekly podcast we meet three scientists who are trying to answer a question that humanity has long pondered: does intelligent life exist elsewhere in the universe?
Peter Ma and Leandro Rizk of the University of Toronto and Cherry Ng of the French National Centre for Scientific Research in Orleans are part of a team that has used machine learning to identify eight potential “technosignatures” in data from the Robert C Byrd Green Bank Telescope. The trio explain how they look for signs of intelligent life in radio-telescope data and how machine learning gives a helping hand.
Ng also talks about her research on how signals from pulsars could be used to detect gravitational waves.
The renowned physicist and science communicator, Brian Cox delves into the topic of alien life and in particular, the question about intelligent alien civilization. With his trademark enthusiasm and engaging style, Brian Cox explores the possibility of extraterrestrial life and why we haven’t found any.
The video starts with a brief overview of what Brian Cox & astronomers call: “The Great Silence”. Cox then goes on to explain the Fermi Paradox and the Dark Forest Hypothesis, which suggest that intelligent life may be intentionally avoiding contact with other civilizations to avoid being destroyed.
Cox uses his expertise in physics and astronomy to explain how alien life may be closer than we think. Like on the surface of the red planet, Mars. He discusses the potential for life to exist in other planets because there are at least 20 billion other earth like planets in our galaxy alone.
Throughout the video, Cox provides easy-to-understand explanations, making complex scientific concepts accessible to a broad audience.
Whether you’re a science enthusiast or simply curious about the possibility of life beyond Earth, Brian Cox’s insights and knowledge are sure to captivate and inform. Don’t miss out on this thought-provoking and entertaining exploration of the universe and our place within it.
Located in Austrailia, the CSIRO Parkes Radio Telescope picked up the strange signal stemming from Proxima Centauri.
CSIRO/A. Cherney.
On 29 April 2019, the Parkes Radio Telescope in New South Wales, Australia, picked up an unusual signal while searching for signs of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. The telescope was observing Proxima Centauri, the nearest star to the sun and host to a number of exoplanets that are potentially habitable.
