Image (Credit): Characters from SyFy’s television series Battlestar Galactica. (SyFy)
“Our findings open a new frontier in astronomy of studying what lies outside the solar system through microscopes rather than telescopes.”
-Statement by Harvard Professor Avi Loeb to USATodayregarding his recent recovery of what is believed to be fragments of an asteroid from outside our solar system that crashed into the Earth back in 2014. More tests are being conducted on the pieces recovered from the Pacific Ocean to determine whether the material is natural or artificially made. If the latter, it may be the first evidence of intelligent life beyond Earth.
Image (Credit): Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array in New Mexico. (NRAO)
On this day in 1933, American physicist and radio engineer Karl Guthe Jansky created the science of radio astronomy by publishing “”Radio Waves From Outside the Solar System” discussing his discovery that radio waves were emanating from the center of the Milky Way galaxy.
Unfortunately, Mr. Jansky was not a trained astronomer, so he was not in a position to develop the field of radio astronomy. He then died at the age of 44, which denied his the chance to earn a Nobel Prize for his finding, though he was nominated for the 1948 Nobel Prize in Physics.
Fortunately, the National Radio Astronomy Observatory’s (NRAO) Very Large Array was later rededicated as the “Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array,” an appropriate gesture to remember his incredible contribution to astronomy.
Image (Credit): The late Stockton Rush, CEO of OceanGate. (OceanGate)
If you go to the OceanGate Expeditions website, home of the recently lost Titan submersible, you will notice two statements that say it all:
A PR blurb for interested tourists: “95% of the Earth’s ocean is unexplored. You can change that.”
And the current status of the expeditions for interested tourists: “OceanGate has suspended all exploration and commercial operations.”
Exploring is fine, but you are not helping to explore the other 95 percent of the Earth’s ocean if you keep going down to the same spot. In addition, “commercial” operations should not be resumed until safety is part of the package.
Image (Credit): June 26, 2023 Starship engine test viewed from above. (SpaceX)
The image above shows the SpaceX Ship 25 rocket from above as it tested it engines on June 26, 2023. Presumably, Elon Musk was tweeting out this and other such shots, but given the restrictions placed on Twitter these days, you may not be able to acquire this on your own without an account.
As far as the next Starship launch, the exact date has yet to be shared. However, NASA is already talking about delaying the Artemis III lunar mission, which will use the Starship, from 2025 to 2026.
Image (Credit): Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) in New Mexico. (Jeff Hellermann, NRAO/AUI/NSF)
COSMIC, also known as the Commensal Open-Source Multimode Interferometer Cluster, is part of the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) by attempting to find technosignatures using the National Science Foundation’s Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) in New Mexico. This new project is a joint venture between the SETI Institute and the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO). The initial plan is to search for these technosignatures among about 40 million star systems.
Technosignature are basically indicators of technology not caused by natural phenomena. Examples include radio signals, pollutants, nighttime lighting, megastructures, or even the fallout from a nuclear war (not very optimistic, I know). This is different than the biosignatures that other astronomers are looking for among exoplanets by studying the composition of an exoplanet’s atmosphere.
The NRAO has created a page on the COSMIC project that provides plenty of details.
It is good to see federal funding going into the SETI program again after Congress walked away from the program in 1993. With all the new evidence coming to us regarding the multitude of exoplanets, it only makes sense to have a multi-pronged approach to find alien life, particularly intelligent life.
Let’s hope COSMIC is the start of a new and stronger SETI partnership.
Our Awesome Universe 