Category: Space

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Alien life is no joke

Fernando Kaskais

A starry night and an atmospheric glow. Photo courtesy NASA/Johnson Not long ago the search for extraterrestrials was considered laughable nonsense. Today, it’s serious and scientific By Adam Frank – is professor of astrophysics at the University of Rochester in New York. He is the author of several books, the latest being The Little Book of Aliens (2023). Suddenly, everyone is talking about aliens. After decades on the cultural margins, the question of life in the Universe beyond Earth is having its day in the sun. The next big multibillion-dollar space telescope (the successor to the James Webb) will be tuned to search … Continue reading Alien life is no joke

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Total Eclipse Of The Mind

Fernando Kaskais

An eclipse sequence as seen from near La Higuera in Elqui Province, Chile, on July 2, 2019. (Charles Pevsner) I used to think I was chasing eclipses because I couldn’t trust my memory of the previous ones. But just as moments in the past can’t be perfectly remembered or recreated, so too nature is ever different. BY LAURENCE PEVSNER Laurence Pevsner is an inaugural Moynihan Public Scholar at the City College of New York. From 2021 to 2023, he was the director of speechwriting for the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. By the time you read this, I will be … Continue reading Total Eclipse Of The Mind

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Welp, So Much For Sending Humans Back to the Moon in 2024

Fernando Kaskais

LeonardoFernndezLzaro / 500px//Getty Images Space is hard. Here’s why NASA is delaying the much-anticipated Artemis III mission. BY DARREN ORF 2024 was shaping up to be a big year for space. And, to be fair, it still is. NASA plans to finally send the Europa Clipper toward Jupiter’s most promising candidate for life, and the agency’s Parker Solar Probe will also make its closest approach to the Sun this year. But the much-anticipated Artemis II mission was set to finally return astronauts to lunar orbit. And now we have to scratch that one off the calendar. According to a NASA announcement on Tuesday, the space agency needs … Continue reading Welp, So Much For Sending Humans Back to the Moon in 2024

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Could the Universe Be Finite?

Fernando Kaskais

It’s not absurd to think the universe might endure forever. BY ERIC SCHWITZGEBEL & JACOB BARANDES On recent estimates, the observable universe—the portion of the universe that we can detect through our telescopes—extends about 47 billion light-years in every direction. But the limit of what we can see is one thing, and the limit of what exists is quite another. It would be remarkable if the universe stopped exactly at the edge of what we can see. For one thing, that would place us, surprisingly and un-Copernicanly, precisely at the center. But even granting that the universe is likely to be larger … Continue reading Could the Universe Be Finite?

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The skyhook solution

Fernando Kaskais

The International Space Station seen from the SpaceX Crew Dragon Endeavour on 8 November 2021. Courtesy NASA/Johnson Space junk surrounds Earth, posing a dangerous threat. But there is a way to turn the debris into opportunity Angelos Alfatzis is a practising architect with a research background specialising in space architecture and construction. He’s based in Athens, Greece. Every human-made object sent into orbit around Earth will meet a fiery death. It will fall out of orbit, and be promptly eradicated by our atmosphere, or else be left for dead in an orbital graveyard of decommissioned spacecrafts, destined to pollute our exosphere … Continue reading The skyhook solution

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Are We Ready to Head to Mars? Not So Fast.

Fernando Kaskais

Top: In this artist’s concept of a future Mars mission, two explorers stop to inspect a robotic lander and its small rover. Visual: NASA/Pat Rawlings, SAIC “A City on Mars” is Kelly and Zach Weinersmith’s cheeky account of the many challenges to visiting the red planet. BY CHRISTIE ASCHWANDEN IN AUGUST 1998, 700 people came to Boulder, Colorado to attend the founding convention of the Mars Society. The group’s co-founder and president, Robert Zubrin, extolled the virtues of sending humans to Mars to terraform the planet and establish a human colony. The Mars Society’s founding declaration began, “The time has … Continue reading Are We Ready to Head to Mars? Not So Fast.

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The Race to Colonize Mars Perpetuates a Dangerous Religion

Fernando Kaskais

We can learn about the universe without conquering it. BY BRIAN GALLAGHER My alarm rang me awake at 6:25 AM, and I drowsily yet eagerly tapped my way to YouTube, blinking my bleary eyes to see clearly. There was SpaceX’s livestream of its latest spectacle: the orbital flight test of its gargantuan new spacecraft and rocket, Starship, designed to take dozens humans or heavy cargo to the moon, Mars, and the rest of the solar system. Millions had tuned in to watch it, excited by the uncertainty of what would happen.  I dropped in with the launch countdown at … three … Continue reading The Race to Colonize Mars Perpetuates a Dangerous Religion

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Life Need Not Ever End

Fernando Kaskais

Camden Colwell New interpretations of the laws of thermodynamics suggest the infamous “heat death” hypothesis, which foretells the end of all life and organization in the universe, might not hold. BY BOBBY AZARIAN Bobby Azarian is a cognitive neuroscientist, a science journalist and the author of the book “The Romance of Reality: How the Universe Organizes Itself to Create Life, Consciousness and Cosmic Complexity.” Perhaps the most depressing scientific idea that has ever been put forth is the infamous “heat death hypothesis.” It is a theory about the future of the universe based on the second law of thermodynamics, which in … Continue reading Life Need Not Ever End

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Should People Live on the Moon?

Fernando Kaskais

BY BRIAN GALLAGHER One question for Joseph Silk, an astrophysicist at Johns Hopkins University and the author of Back to the Moon: The Next Giant Leap for Humankind. Should people live on the moon? Why not? We have to start somewhere if we ever want to leave Earth. And the only realistic place to start is the moon. It’s going to be for a minority, right? For explorers, for people exploiting the moon for commercial reasons, for scientists. They will be living on the moon within the next century. And it will be a starting point to go elsewhere. It’s a much … Continue reading Should People Live on the Moon?

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How long until all life on Earth dies?

Fernando Kaskais

We have less time than you might think. KEY TAKEAWAYS Adam Frank The end is near. This is often prophesied, and if you are thinking on astronomical time scales, it really is true.  It is curious how most of us would rather not think about our own mortality, but we do have a fascination with cataclysmic endings on the cosmic scale. There is something a bit delightful in considering an inevitable apocalypse. That’s why today we want to consider how the Earth and its life will end. The Sun cannot win forever Earth’s doomsday clock started ticking before the planet … Continue reading How long until all life on Earth dies?