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☆ A Harvard professor is risking his reputation to search for aliens. Tech tycoons are bankrolling his quest.
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-08 | by ( Marianne Guenot | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +26 min

The Harvard professor's research is bankrolled by tech tycoons "pissed off" at academia's dogma. But this boundary-pushing is exactly why he's backed Loeb's research. AdvertisementDesch, the astrophysicist from Arizona University, posted a critique of Loeb's work on arXiv alleging "multiple fatal flaws with the manuscript's arguments." Asked whether he no longer believes in a possible technological origin for the meteor, Loeb said they need to investigate further. As he plans more extravagant expeditions to prove the origin of the interstellar meteor, Loeb likens his critics to crows pecking at the neck of an eagle.

Persons: Avi Loeb, Loeb, —, Steven Desch, they're, Loeb's, they've, Charles Hoskinson, that's, Anibal Martel, Mark Zuckerberg, Stephen Hawking, Lucas Jackson, Oumuamua, Desch, It's, Meech, Hoskinson, Rather, Lane Turner, James Webb, Bill Diamond, Stenzel, AARO, UAPs, Loeb hasn't, Joe Rogan's, Eugene Jhong, Galileo, ", Frank Laukien, Laukien, Charles Alcock, Seth Shostak, Stephen Wolfram, Richard Branson's, Vera, Rubin, Avi Loeb Loeb, what's, Rob McCallum, Mariana Trench, James Cameron, Avi Loeb Hoskinson, spherules, Harvard's Stein Jacobsen, Loeb didn't, Monica Grady, Patricio Gallardo, it's, Diamond, That's Avi, Adam Glanzman Organizations: Harvard, Service, Arizona State University, Netflix, Galileo, Anadolu Agency, Reuters, University of Hawaii, Boston Globe, James Webb Telescope, NASA, SETI Institute, Pew Research Center, Department of Defense, UAP Department of Defense, Jhong, Bruker Corporation, Smithsonian's, for Astrophysics, MIT, Wolfram Research, Harvard University, Survey, US Space Command, Hoskinson, UK's Open University, University of Chicago, Arizona University, U.S . Government, The Washington, Getty, Loeb, Astronomy, Astrophysics Locations: Lexington , Massachusetts, United States, Getty, Loeb's, New York, Cambridge, Massachussetts, UAPs, Colorado, Chile, Papua New Guinea, 2401.09882, IM1

☆ Black holes mysteriously burp up fragments of stars they destroyed years earlier, and scientists have no idea why
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-05 | by ( Marianne Guenot | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Black holes have been spotted spitting up remnants of stars years after gobbling them up. AdvertisementAdvertisementSince then, the collaborators have been turning their instruments to monitor 24 black holes for years on end. In another two of the cases, Cendes noticed the black holes peaking, then fading, then turning on again. Everything we know about accretion disks may be wrongThe findings could mean we need to rethink how black holes swallow up stars, Cendes said. The new findings suggest astronomers will have to rethink the relationship between stars and black holes.

Persons: Yvette Cendes, we'd, Cendes, They've, She's, Cendres, I've Organizations: Service, Harvard, Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, ESO, ESA, Hubble, Kornmesser Locations: Wall, Silicon, TDEs

☆ Is There a Crisis in Cosmology? - The New York Times
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-02 | by ( Adam Frank | Marcelo Gleiser | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

A potent mix of hard-won data and rarefied abstract mathematical physics, the standard model of cosmology is rightfully understood as a triumph of human ingenuity. It has its origins in Edwin Hubble’s discovery in the 1920s that the universe was expanding — the first piece of evidence for the Big Bang. Over the past 60 years, cosmology has become ever more precise in its ability to account for the best available data about the universe. Cosmic inflation is an example of yet another exotic adjustment made to the standard model. There is nothing inherently fishy about these features of the standard model.

Persons: Edwin Hubble’s, can’t

☆ I'm one of only 26 Black women astrophysicists in America. Acting helped me overcome the stereotypes I felt as a woman of color in STEM.
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-11 | by ( Yoonji Han | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

She's long grappled with her two loves, acting and astronomy, spending 11 years acting before getting her Ph. Shields said her acting experience helped her break free of the stereotypes she faced as a woman of color in science. D. program in astrophysics. D. program. D. program.

Persons: Aomawa Shields, Shields, astrobiologist, Kelly McGillis, Charlotte Blackwood, I'd, didn't, I've, Spitzer, — Organizations: Service, UC Irvine, Blue Angels, Miramar Air Force Base, Diego's La Jolla Playhouse, MIT, Lowell Observatory, Madison, PBS, University of Washington Locations: America, Wall, Silicon, San Diego, Shields, Miramar, Diego's, . Wisconsin, Los Angeles, grad

☆ The world's top alien hunters explain why a Harvard physicist's discovery of 'alien' tech is likely a false alarm
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-22 | by ( Adam Barnes | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Harvard physicist Avi Loeb announced the discovery of tiny "spherules" at the bottom of the Pacific. But three of the world's top experts on the search for aliens are skeptical the tech is from aliens. The fragments "could be a spacecraft from another civilization, or some technological gadget," Loeb told CBS News. This will constitute independent evidence for the interstellar origin of IM1 in addition to its measured speed," Loeb wrote. Loeb told Insider that, when ready, the team will publish their findings in a scientific paper that will be "shared openly and submitted for a peer-reviewed journal."

Persons: Avi Loeb, Loeb, Dan Werthimer, IM1, aren't, Douglas Vakoch, Vakoch, Monica Grady, Werthimier Organizations: Service, CBS, SETI Research, University of California, Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence, SETI, Center, Object, Sun, Space Command, NASA, DOD, The Open University, HMS Locations: Wall, Silicon, Berkeley, Papua New Guinea

☆ James Webb Space Telescope spots a supermassive black hole in the early universe, much sooner after the Big Bang than scientists can explain
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-07 | by ( Morgan Mcfall-Johnsen | Jenny Mcgrath | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

The most distant supermassive black hole seen yet appears as three bright spots clumped together. Webb shows details of the supermassive black hole's size and structureAn artist's conception of the James Webb Space Telescope. NASA GSFC/CIL/Adriana Manrique GutierrezNot only is this mysterious beast the earliest supermassive black hole ever observed, it's also the most distant active supermassive black hole on record. For comparison, a 9 million solar mass black hole is closer to the size of the supermassive black hole at the center of our own galaxy, the Milky Way. The first image of Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy.

Persons: —, James Webb, NASA's Webb, Webb, Leah Hustak, Steven Finkelstein, NASA GSFC, Adriana Manrique Gutierrez, it's, Dale Kocevski Organizations: Service, NASA, ESA, CSA, James Webb Space Telescope, Colby College, Bang

☆ Europe's Euclid space telescope set for launch to explore 'dark universe'
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-01 | by ( Steve Gorman | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

The mission focuses on two foundational components of the dark universe. One is dark matter, the invisible but theoretically influential cosmic scaffolding thought to give shape and texture to the cosmos. Scientists estimate dark energy and dark matter together make up 95% of the cosmos, while ordinary matter that we can see accounts for just 5%. EUROPEAN-LED MISSION[1/2]An artist's concept shows the Euclid space telescope, built by the European Space Agency (ESA) that is set to be launched by a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, in operation, in this undated handout image. "Measuring the shapes and positions of galaxies allows us to infer the properties of dark matter and dark energy," Rhodes said on Friday.

Persons: Euclid, Elon Musk, James Webb, Jason Rhodes, Rhodes, Yannick Mellier, Steve Gorman, William Mallard Organizations: SpaceX, European Space Agency, ESA, Cape Canaveral Space Force, Space Agency, REUTERS, NASA, Euclid, Russian Soyuz, Elon, James Webb Space, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Euclid Consortium, Institut d'Astrophysique de, Thomson Locations: Florida, Cape, U.S, Canada, Japan, Russian, California, Ukraine, Los Angeles, Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris

☆ Neutrinos Build a Ghostly Map of the Milky Way
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-29 | by ( Kenneth Chang | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

From ghostlike particles, astrophysicists have pieced together a new map of the galaxy we live in. For now, that map of the Milky Way is blurry and incomplete. “This is the first time we’ve seen our own galaxy in anything other than light,” said Naoko Kurahashi Neilson, a professor of physics at Drexel University in Philadelphia who came up with the idea that a new view of the galaxy could be gleaned from particles known as neutrinos. Dr. Kurahashi Neilson and the more than 350 other scientists who collaborate on analyzing data from a neutrino detector at the South Pole reported their findings in a paper published on Thursday in the journal Science. “This is at last really the beginning of neutrino astronomy,” said John G. Learned, a physicist at the University of Hawaii who was not involved with the research.

Persons: ”, Naoko Kurahashi Neilson, Kurahashi Neilson, John G Organizations: Drexel University, University of Hawaii Locations: Philadelphia

☆ Structures newly discovered in the Milky Way
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-02 | by ( Kristen Rogers | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

CNN —An international team of astrophysicists has discovered hundreds of mysterious structures in the center of the Milky Way galaxy. Sagittarius A* “is the closest supermassive black hole to us, but it’s relatively quiet and therefore somewhat difficult to really study,” Hamden added. The vertical filaments surround the nucleus of the Milky Way, but the horizontal ones appear to spread out to one side toward the black hole. The vertical filaments, on the other hand, are magnetic and hold cosmic ray electrons moving nearly as fast as the speed of light. “One way to confirm that the (filament) structure is created by something like a jet is to find both sides of it.”This would add “to the complex, active picture of our own Milky Way,” she said.

Persons: astrophysicists, Farhad Yusef, Yusef, Zadeh, “, ”, who’s, Erika Hamden, ” Yusef, Hamden Organizations: CNN, Northwestern University’s Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration, Research, Astrophysics, University of Arizona, South African Locations: Hamden

☆ New image reveals violent events near a supermassive black hole
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-26 | by ( Will Dunham | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

[1/2] This image shows the jet and shadow of the black hole at the center of the M87 galaxy together for the first time. The supermassive black hole pictured resides at the center of a relatively nearby galaxy called Messier 87, or M87, about 54 million light-years from Earth. This black hole, with a mass 6.5 billion times that of our sun, was the subject of the first image of such an object ever obtained, released in 2019, with another black hole pictured last year. Seeing the entire scene in the vicinity of a supermassive black hole can be insightful. The EHT project has yielded the images of the two supermassive black holes.

☆ Messy eating habits might reveal elusive black hole
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-25 | by ( Ashley Strickland | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

The clues uncovered in the experiment might help astronomers find intermediate-mass black holes by searching for evidence of their behaviors. During the simulations, the intermediate-mass black hole snagged the star in its orbit, and each time the star made another lap, the black hole took another bite out of it. Each flare is brighter than the last, creating a signature that might help astronomers find them.”The search for elusive black holesAstrophysicists are still trying to prove if intermediate-mass black holes exist in the first place. The mass of a medium-mass black hole is thought to be between that of a supermassive black hole and a much lower-mass black hole. For example, what appears to be an intermediate-mass black hole might actually be the accumulation of stellar-mass black holes.”During the 3D modeling experiment, stars were able to complete as many as five orbits around an intermediate-mass black hole before being kicked away.

☆ NASA image may show first-ever 'rogue' supermassive black hole, leaving a trail of newborn stars in its wake
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-09 | by ( Morgan Mcfall-Johnsen | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

A NASA Hubble image may show the first runaway supermassive black hole ever discovered. Astrophysicists have long theorized that black holes could "go rogue" or "run away," if other black holes pushed them out of their galaxies. But nobody has ever confirmed a black hole wandering through intergalactic space, much less a supermassive black hole going rogue. And while two galaxies colliding is the simplest explanation for a rogue black hole, that's not what seems to have happened here. Even though they're invisible, there's no reason to worry about rogue supermassive black holes sneaking up on us from other galaxies.

☆ ‘First Contact: An Alien Encounter’ Review: The Age-Old Cosmic Question
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-04 | by ( John Anderson | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +1 min

Highly speculative while maintaining a tight orbit around reality, “First Contact: An Alien Encounter” supposes what would happen if—or, as many would say, when—humankind receives a confirmable signal of extraterrestrial life. No little green aliens. Just a radio message that we’re not alone. The program, which might have wandered into the cosmological weeds, occupies a well-traveled lane in the science-fiction tradition: The closer fantasy comes to truth, the more convincing it is. And writer-director Nic Stacey doesn’t wander far at all from hard science: The kickoff is the NASA Voyager I probe, 16 billion miles from Earth, picking up a signal.

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