Lifeboat Foundation

The farther we peer into space, the more we realize that the nature of the universe cannot be understood fully by inspecting spiral galaxies or watching distant supernovas. It lies deeper. It involves our very selves.

The farther we peer into space, the more we realize that the nature of the universe cannot be understood fully by inspecting spiral galaxies or watching distant supernovas. It lies deeper. It involves our very selves.

This insight snapped into focus one day while one of us (Lanza) was walking through the woods. Looking up, he saw a huge golden orb web spider tethered to the overhead boughs. There the creature sat on a single thread, reaching out across its web to detect the vibrations of a trapped insect struggling to escape. The spider surveyed its universe, but everything beyond that gossamer pinwheel was incomprehensible. The human observer seemed as far-off to the spider as telescopic objects seem to us. Yet there was something kindred: We humans, too, lie at the heart of a great web of space and time whose threads are connected according to laws that dwell in our minds.

Continue reading “How Life Creates Time, Space, and the Cosmos Itself” »

Life-producing elements came to Earth from another planet — study.

The elemental building-blocks of life arrived on Earth when it collided with a “Mars-sized planet” 4.4 billion years ago – an impact that also created the Moon, a new study has found.

Carbon, nitrogen, sulfur, and other volatile elements integral to life were transferred to Earth’s outer layers through collision with a slightly smaller planet rich in these elements at the beginning of its existence. This impact produced the moon and, eventually, gave rise to carbon-based life, according to a new model of Earth’s development devised by petrologists at Rice University.

Continue reading “Planetary collision that created Moon also seeded Earth with life-producing elements – study” »

CERN has revealed plans for a gigantic successor of the giant atom smasher LHC, the biggest machine ever built. Particle physicists will never stop to ask for ever larger big bang machines. But where are the limits for the ordinary society concerning costs and existential risks?

CERN boffins are already conducting a mega experiment at the LHC, a 27km circular particle collider, at the cost of several billion Euros to study conditions of matter as it existed fractions of a second after the big bang and to find the smallest particle possible – but the question is how could they ever know? Now, they pretend to be a little bit upset because they could not find any particles beyond the standard model, which means something they would not expect. To achieve that, particle physicists would like to build an even larger “Future Circular Collider” (FCC) near Geneva, where CERN enjoys extraterritorial status, with a ring of 100km – for about 24 billion Euros.

Experts point out that this research could be as limitless as the universe itself. The UK’s former Chief Scientific Advisor, Prof Sir David King told BBC: “We have to draw a line somewhere otherwise we end up with a collider that is so large that it goes around the equator. And if it doesn’t end there perhaps there will be a request for one that goes to the Moon and back.”

“There is always going to be more deep physics to be conducted with larger and larger colliders. My question is to what extent will the knowledge that we already have be extended to benefit humanity?”

Continue reading “Why it is dangerous to build ever larger big bang machines” »

Ron Miller’s work spans five decades—and the galaxy.

The dark waters of a lake deep beneath the West Antarctic ice sheet and a few hundred miles from the South Pole are teeming with bacterial life, say scientists — despite it being one of the most extreme environments on Earth.

The discovery has implications for the search for life on other planets — in particular on the planet Mars, where signs of a buried lake of liquid saltwater were seen in data reported last year by the European Space Agency’s orbiting Mars Express spacecraft.

Expedition leader John Priscu, a professor of polar ecology at the University of Montana, told Live Science in a telephone interview from Antarctica this week that early studies of water samples taken from Lake Mercer — which is buried beneath a glacier — showed that they contained approximately 10,000 bacterial cells per milliliter.

Please join us on our journey to the wonders of our Ethno astronomy, learning how planets and stars have guided us in sea navigation, agriculture, fishing and the right timing of celebrating life. We are open 10 am to 5 pm (last admission 4:30 pm), Tuesday to Sunday. Exhibition is free but we charge for planetarium shows (Php 50.00 for regular viewers, Php 30.00 for students with ID, and Php 40.00 for senior citizens and PWD). For more information, please call (02) 527 7889 or email [email protected].

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This may be old but still interesting:

A paper by Harvard researchers wonders whether the interstellar object known as “‘Oumuamua” is a visitor from an alien civilization.

How are stars and planets born? What happens to its planets when a star dies?

Come along on an epic interstellar journey, billions of years long, through the life and death of a planetary system: https://go.nasa.gov/2EqOwlb

A human-made object has entered the space between the stars for the second time in history, scientists report.

NASA will announce the details live at a press conference today at 11 a.m. ET, at the meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) in Washington. You can watch the press conference live here.

Continue reading “It’s Official: Voyager 2 Has Entered Interstellar Space” »