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READER QUESTION: My understanding is that nothing comes from nothing. For something to exist, there must be material or a component available, and for them to be available, there must be something else available. Now my question: Where did the material come from that created the Big Bang, and what happened in the first instance to create that material? Peter, 80, Australia.

“The last star will slowly cool and fade away. With its passing, the universe will become once more a void, without light or life or meaning.” So warned the physicist Brian Cox in the recent BBC series Universe. The fading of that last star will only be the beginning of an infinitely long, dark epoch. All matter will eventually be consumed by monstrous black holes, which in their turn will evaporate away into the dimmest glimmers of light. Space will expand ever outwards until even that dim light becomes too spread out to interact. Activity will cease.

Or will it? Strangely enough, some cosmologists believe a previous, cold dark empty universe like the one which lies in our far future could have been the source of our very own Big Bang.

Please join us on January 18th at 6pm Pacific / 9pm Eastern for Episode 7 of Red Planet Live! We are excited to welcome Astrobiologist Dr. Graham Lau to the show!

Known online as “The Cosmobiologist”, Dr. Graham is a research scientist with the Blue Marble Space Institute of Science, director of communications & marketing for Blue Marble Space, host of the show “Ask an Astrobiologist”, sponsored by the NASA Astrobiology Program and SAGANet, and director of logistics for the Mars Society’s University Rover Challenge.

Bring all your questions about the ongoing search for life in our solar system and beyond.

#astrobiology #searchforlife #mars #venus #europa #enceladus #explorethesolarsystem #redplanetlive

As of Jan. 8, 2022, NASA’s (Washington D.C., U.S.) James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) team fully deployed its 21-foot, gold-coated primary mirror, successfully completing the final stage of all major spacecraft deployments (including the 70-foot sunshield) since its Dec. 25 launch, to prepare for science operations. The telescope makes ample use of composite materials.

A joint effort with the European Space Agency (ESA) and Canadian Space Agency (CSA), the Webb mission will explore every phase of cosmic history, from within our solar system to the most distant observable galaxies in the early universe.

“NASA [has] achieved another engineering milestone decades in the making. While the journey is not complete, I join the Webb team in breathing a little easier and imagining the future breakthroughs bound to inspire the world,” says NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “The James Webb Space Telescope is an unprecedented mission that is on the precipice of seeing the light from the first galaxies and discovering the mysteries of our universe. Each feat already achieved and future accomplishment is a testament to the thousands of innovators who poured their life’s passion into this mission.”

👽 Many experts, for years, believe that the scientific community no longer has a way to hide it. Life outside the earth exists. 🛸VIDEO 🛸

O’Connell reveals that life is capable of surviving in environments inhospitable to humans. For this reason, he believes that life can be found in a lake of sulfuric acid, inside barrels of nuclear waste, in water superheated to 122 degrees Celsius and even in Antarctica.

Furthermore, he adds that Mars was once an ideal place for life. He believes that the presence of methane in its atmosphere is proof that extraterrestrial life existed there.

Obviously, this brings us closer to the theory that Mars, not only had life, but was able to adapt to survive in the climate caused by some nuclear disaster.

These words are the closest to a situation in which you do not want to mention. Also, what is wanted to be kept hidden: there could be life on Mars as on Earth.

I found this super interesting. I never considered the idea that I may have lived this exact life an infinite amount of times already. I find stuff like this to be brain candy, and this article is particularly well-written in my opinion. Did The Big Bang Arise Out of Nothing?


“The last star will slowly cool and fade away. With its passing, the Universe will become once more a void, without light or life or meaning.”

So warned the physicist Brian Cox in the recent BBC series Universe. The fading of that last star will only be the beginning of an infinitely long, dark epoch. All matter will eventually be consumed by monstrous black holes, which in their turn will evaporate away into the dimmest glimmers of light.

“Interstellar Travel and Post-Humans” by Martin Rees is one of the chapters of the book “The Next Step: Exponential Life”.


Astronomers like myself are professionally engaged in thinking about huge expanses of space and time. We view our home planet in a cosmic context. We wonder whether there is life elsewhere in the cosmos. But, more significantly, we are mindful of the immense future that lies ahead—the post-human future where our remote descendants may transcend human limitations—here on Earth but (more probably) far beyond. This is my theme in the present chapter.

The stupendous timespans of the evolutionary past are now part of common culture. But the even longer time-horizons that stretch ahead—though familiar to every astronomer —have not permeated our culture to the same extent. Our Sun is less than half way through its life. It formed 4.5 billion years ago, but it has got six billion more before the fuel runs out. It will then flare up, engulfing the inner planets and vaporizing any life that might still remain on Earth. But even after the Sun’s demise, the expanding universe will continue—perhaps forever—destined to become ever colder, ever emptier.

Any creatures witnessing the Sun’s demise six billion years hence will not be human —they will be as different from us as we are from a bug. Post-human evolution could be as prolonged as the Darwinian evolution that has led to us, and even more wonderful—and will have spread far from Earth, even among the stars. Indeed, this conclusion is strengthened when we realize that future evolution will proceed not on the million-year timescale characteristic of Darwinian selection, but at the much accelerated rate allowed by genetic modification and the advance of machine intelligence (and forced by the drastic environmental pressures that would confront any humans who were to construct habitats beyond the Earth). Natural selection may have slowed: its rigors are tempered in civilized countries. But it will be replaced by “directed” evolution.