Tag Archives: planets

SETI: What If?

Contacting extraterrestrial intelligence, meeting people whose ancestors developed on another world, has been a staple of pulp fiction for generations. Lately, it’s become a matter for serious discussion. I’ll be looking at an op-ed’s take on how learning that we’re … Continue reading

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Mars, Aliens, and SETI

I’d love to be talking about unambiguously artificial signals picked up by the Allen Telescope Array, or reports of a ship from beyond the Solar System settling into orbit around our moon. But that hasn’t happened, and probably won’t. Not … Continue reading

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Tides and Our Moon’s Origin

Scientists have been wondering how our moon formed, and why its orbit isn’t over Earth’s equator. It looks like our moon formed after something about the size of Mars hit Earth, roughly 4,500,000,000 years back. But the giant-impact hypothesis didn’t … Continue reading

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KIC 8462852 and Strange Stars

KIC 8462852, Tabby’s Star, has been in the news recently. Scientists are pretty sure that something very large orbits the star, but haven’t worked out what it is. A few scientists, looking at the data, say that it’s probably a … Continue reading

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Europa, Mars, and Someday the Stars

Scientists think they’ve detected more plumes of water, shooting up from near Europa’s south pole. It’s early days, but we may have found a comparatively easy way to collect samples from the Jovian moon’s subsurface ocean. Stephen Hawking says humanity … Continue reading

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