Lifeboat Foundation

The longer you gaze at this depiction of the hidden architecture of the universe, the more you can’t help but notice how similar it looks to neurons communicating with each other in the human brain.

3D interactive visualization lets users explore the vast, hidden structure of the universe.

By Amanda Montañez on April 14, 2016.

Continue reading “The Beautiful Complexity of the Cosmic Web” »

Ever since Kepler’s observation in the 17th century that sunlight is one of the reasons that the tails of comets to always face away from the sun, it has been understood that light exerts pressure in the direction it propagates. Radiation pressure is produced by the momentum carried by light, and it plays a crucial role in a variety of systems, from atomic to astronomical scales.

In a recent theoretical paper, a group from the RIKEN Center for Emergent Matter Science in Japan showed that momentum density in non-uniform optical fields has an unusual component, which is orthogonal to the propagation direction of light and is proportional to the optical spin, which means the degree of circular polarization. They predicted that this spin momentum would produce a transverse spin-dependent optical force, a few orders of magnitude weaker than the usual radiation pressure.

Now, based on the theoretical work, a group from RIKEN, the University of Bristol, and other institutions have used an extremely precise technique to experimentally verify that light does in fact exert the extraordinary perpendicular force, which is determined by the polarization of the light. The research has been published in Nature Physics.

Space is hot again.

Bradford Tousley, DARPA’s director of tactical technology, discusses DARPA’s XS-1 Space Plane and Phoenix programs, hypersonics, and more.

Jupiter’s four largest moons — the Galileans — have long been considered as possible sites for human habitation, and even terraforming.

Every year, the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program puts out the call to the general public, hoping to find better or entirely new aerospace architectures, systems, or mission ideas. As part of the Space Technology Mission Directorate, this program has been in operation since 1998, serving as a high-level entry point to entrepreneurs, innovators and researchers who want to contribute to human space exploration.

This year, thirteen concepts were chosen for Phase I of the NIAC program, ranging from reprogrammed microorganisms for Mars, a two-dimensional spacecraft that could de-orbit space debris, an analog rover for extreme environments, a robot that turn asteroids into spacecraft, and a next-generation exoplanet hunter. These proposals were awarded $100,000 each for a nine month period to assess the feasibility of their concept.

Continue reading “NASA Invests In Radical Game-Changing Concepts For Exploration” »

It takes a bold person to declare that interstellar travel is now within our grasp. Physicist Stephen Hawking has shown that he is just that, taking part in the Breakthrough Starshot initiative. The project has announced a $100m research programme to investigate the technology of using light to propel spacecraft out of the solar system to explore neighbouring stars.

For the first time in human history, interstellar travel is a realistic and achievable aspiration, and not just the playground of science fiction.

So what has changed that makes interstellar travel achievable? First of all, clear expectations. This is not about a great big spaceship with a colony of astronauts travelling for generations to settle a planet around a distant star. Neither is it about faster-than-light travel, tunnelling through wormholes to arrive at the other side of the universe in an instant of time. This is about technology that already exists, or nearly exists, being applied in new and exciting ways.

Continue reading “Why sailing to the stars has suddenly become a realistic goal” »

Real-life space-mining could be a reality next year.

I suppose that us being in a simulation would answer Fermi’s Paradox very (disturbingly) neatly…

(Business Insider)

Continue reading “Neil deGrasse Tyson thinks there’s a ‘very high’ chance the universe is just a simulation” »

“NASA is soliciting ideas from U.S. industry for designs of a Mars orbiter for potential launch in the 2020s. The satellite would provide advanced communications and imaging, as well as robotic science exploration, in support of NASA’s Journey to Mars.”

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