“I think it’s going to be inconclusive, if not impossible to demonstrate conclusively,” one physicist said of the possible interstellar comet.
For the first time, researchers have recorded live and in atomic detail what happens to the material in an asteroid impact. The team of Falko Langenhorst from the University of Jena and Hanns-Peter Liermann from DESY simulated an asteroid impact with the mineral quartz in the lab and pursued it in slow motion in a diamond anvil cell, while monitoring it with DESY’s X-ray source PETRA III.
The observation reveals an intermediate state in quartz that solves a decades-old mystery about the formation of characteristic lamellae in material hit by an asteroid. Quartz is ubiquitous on the Earth’s surface, and is, for example, the major constituent of sand. The analysis helps to better understand traces of past impacts, and may also have significance for entirely different materials. The researchers present their findings in Nature Communications.
Asteroid impacts are catastrophic events that create huge craters and sometimes melt parts of Earth’s bedrock. “Nevertheless, craters are often difficult to detect on Earth, because erosion, weathering and plate tectonics cause them to disappear over millions of years,” Langenhorst explains.
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“Having focused on genetic advancements in ancient DNA for my entire career and as the first to fully sequence the Dodo’s genome, I am thrilled to collaborate with Colossal and the people of Mauritius on the de-extinction and eventual re-wilding of the Dodo. I particularly look forward to furthering genetic rescue tools focused on birds and avian conservation,” Shapiro added.
Researchers have found that some asteroids that are largely made from small pieces of rubble could be very difficult to deflect if one were to ever hurtle towards Earth, a terrifying finding that could force us to reconsider our asteroid defense strategies.
It’s an especially pertinent topic considering NASA’s recent successful deflection of asteroid Didymos by smashing its Double Asteroid Reduction Test (DART) spacecraft into it last year, a proof of concept mission meant to investigate ways for humanity to protect itself from asteroid threats.
An exploration of 10 Reasons Aliens Might Not Contact Earth and what that might mean for SETI and science in general, and also the Fermi Paradox.
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An exploration of the idea that life can actually cause the extinction of previously existing life.
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An astronomer has captured “extraordinary” footage of an asteroid that made an “extremely close” approach to the Earth on Thursday.
The space rock, known as 2023 BU, zoomed over the southern tip of South America yesterday, while it was only around 2,200 miles above the surface of the Earth.
This is one of the closest approaches of an near-Earth object ever recorded. Data from NASA’s Center for Near Earth Object Studies showed that the flyby of 2023 BU was the fourth-nearest of more than 35,000 past and future Earth close approaches in the 300-year period from 1900 to 2200.
CYBERNETIC THEORY: THE CODE OF REALITY & OUR FUTURE AS CYBERGODS: presenting my published works in a recent talk. Topics include evolutionary cybernetics, computational physics, consciousness, philosophy of mind, cybernetic theory, Omega Point cosmology, physics of time, simulation theory, Global Mind, AGI, VR, Metaverse, Cybernetic Singularity, transhumanism, posthumanism, cybernetic immortality, synthetic telepathy, mind-uploading, neurotechnologies, Fermi Paradox, Dark Matter, Dark Energy, the Argument for Cybertheism, and more.
The main 45-minute slide presentation is followed by a 15-minute Q&A session. This presentation is in Russian with slides and subtitles in English.
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They’re warning of a global AI-pocalypse.
While artificial intelligence systems might make lives exponentially easier, they could also have a sinister side effect — making us go extinct. That’s right, researchers are deeming rogue AI an “existential threat to humanity” that needs to be regulated like nuclear weapons if we are to survive.
Please join the Project on Nuclear Issues for a book launch event, featuring “The Fragile Balance of Terror: Deterrence in the Nuclear Age.”
In The Fragile Balance of Terror, edited by Vipin Narang and Scott Sagan, the foremost experts on nuclear policy and strategy offer insight into an era rife with more nuclear powers. Some of these new powers suffer domestic instability, others are led by pathological personalist dictators, and many are situated in highly unstable regions of the world—a volatile mix of variables. The increasing fragility of deterrence in the twenty-first century is created by a confluence of forces: military technologies that create vulnerable arsenals, a novel information ecosystem that rapidly transmits both information and misinformation, nuclear rivalries that include three or more nuclear powers, and dictatorial decision making that encourages rash choices. The nuclear threats posed by India, Pakistan, Iran, and North Korea are thus fraught with danger.
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This event is made possible by general CSIS support.
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