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Archive for the ‘alien life’ category: Page 134

Jan 29, 2016

Biotechnology, synthetic biology keys to humans colonizing other planets

Posted by in categories: alien life, biotech/medical, food, genetics, particle physics, space travel, sustainability

Over the last 12,000 years or so, human civilization has noticeably reshaped the Earth’s surface. But changes on our own planet will likely pale in comparison when humans settle on other celestial bodies. While many of the changes on Earth over the centuries have been related to food production, by way of agriculture, changes on other worlds will result, not only from the need for on-site production of food, but also for all other consumables, including air.

As vital as synthetic biology will be to the early piloted missions to Mars and voyages of exploration, it will become indispensable to establish a long-term human presence off-Earth, namely colonization. That’s because we’ve evolved over billions of years to thrive specifically in the environments provides by our home planet.

Our physiology is well-suited to Earth’s gravity and its oxygen-rich atmosphere. We also depend on Earth’s magnetic field to shield us from intense space radiation in the form of charged particles. In comparison, Mars currently has no magnetic field to trap particle radiation and an atmosphere that is so thin that any shielding against other types of space radiation is negligible compared with the protection that Earth’s atmosphere affords. At the Martian surface, atmospheric pressure never gets above 7 millibars. That’s like Earth at an altitude of about 27,000 m (89,000 ft), which is almost the edge of space. And it’s not like the moon is a better option for us since it has no atmosphere at all.

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Jan 28, 2016

How to Build a Starship — and Why We Should Start Thinking About It Now

Posted by in categories: alien life, chemistry, engineering, nanotechnology, space travel

With a growing number of Earth-like exoplanets discovered in recent years, it is becoming increasingly frustrating that we can’t visit them. After all, our knowledge of the planets in our own solar system would be pretty limited if it weren’t for the space probes we’d sent to explore them.

The problem is that even the nearest stars are a very long way away, and enormous engineering efforts will be required to reach them on timescales that are relevant to us. But with research in areas such as nuclear fusion and nanotechnology advancing rapidly, we may not be as far away from constructing small, fast interstellar space probes as we think.

There’s a lot at stake. If we ever found evidence suggesting that life might exist on a planet orbiting a nearby star, we would most likely need to go there to get definitive proof and learn more about its underlying biochemistry and evolutionary history. This would require transporting sophisticated scientific instruments across interstellar space.

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Jan 19, 2016

That Weird Star That Doesn’t Have Alien Megastructures Around It? It Keeps Getting Weirder

Posted by in categories: alien life, habitats

While I AM aware that this is unlikely to end up being the work of an alien civilization, I DO believe that sooner or later (given the mindbogglingly powerful, state of the art observational instruments coming online soon, or already online, I’d DEFINITELY go with SOONER, rather than later!) we will detect an alien civilization in a similar way.


A star that made headlines due to weird brightness dips—leading to speculations of aliens building structures around it—is even weirder than we thought.

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Jan 18, 2016

Black hole sun could support bizarre life on orbiting planets

Posted by in category: alien life

A reversal of thermodynamics could allow life to exist on planets orbiting a black hole, as seen in the film Interstellar.

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Jan 18, 2016

Could this be humanity’s LAST century? Expert says ‘re-engineering our children’ will lead to the creation of a new species

Posted by in categories: alien life, engineering, habitats

Definitely something to ponder on.


‘We can eventually produce offspring that are as different from us as dogs are from grey wolves,’ said Seth Shostak in an opinion piece for Seti.

Continue reading “Could this be humanity’s LAST century? Expert says ‘re-engineering our children’ will lead to the creation of a new species” »

Jan 6, 2016

Alien Life May Be Hiding in These Brilliant Star Clusters

Posted by in category: alien life

We shall see. We shall see. wink


For three decades, humans have searched for signs of intelligent life beyond Earth, and yet we’ve only sampled a tiny drop of our vast cosmic ocean. If we’re ever to find a radio-hot, spacefaring civilization, we need to know where to point our telescopes.

But the answer may be simpler than we thought. According to a new study, there are roughly 150 brilliant patches of space that deserve our attention.

Continue reading “Alien Life May Be Hiding in These Brilliant Star Clusters” »

Dec 20, 2015

NASA’s Starshade

Posted by in category: alien life

Finding aliens with sunglasses!

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Dec 18, 2015

Meteor Fireball Terrorizes Georgia Residents: NASA Confirms Asteroid Chunk Flying Near Atlanta, Other Sightings

Posted by in categories: alien life, existential risks

Don’t panic.

Unless the dolphins start leaving the planet.

At that point, by all mean panic.

Continue reading “Meteor Fireball Terrorizes Georgia Residents: NASA Confirms Asteroid Chunk Flying Near Atlanta, Other Sightings” »

Dec 8, 2015

Sending humans to Mars could uncover a disturbing truth to one of life’s greatest mysteries

Posted by in category: alien life

If humankind successfully lands people on the surface of Mars, we could discover an important clue about the origins of life on Earth — one of the greatest scientific mysteries in human history.

A theory called panspermia, which dates back to the 5th century BC, posits that certain life forms can hop between planets, and even star systems, to fertilize them with life.

Following this theory, some scientists suspect that the first life on Earth never formed on our planet at all, but instead, hitched a ride inside planetary fragments from Mars that were flung into space after a powerful impact and eventually fell to Earth. We could be the aliens!

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Dec 8, 2015

New US space mining law to spark interplanetary gold rush

Posted by in categories: alien life, materials

Flashing some interplanetary gold bling and sipping “space water” might sound far-fetched, but both could soon be reality, thanks to a new US law that legalizes cosmic mining.

In a first, President Barack Obama signed legislation at the end of November that allows commercial extraction of minerals and other materials, including water, from asteroids and the moon.

That could kick off an extraterrestrial gold rush, backed by a private aeronautics industry that is growing quickly and cutting the price of .

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