A German astrophotographer has taken an HD photo of the ISS from the surface of Earth, showing two astronauts on a spacewalk.
Category: cosmology – Page 280
Hubble views a galaxy with an active black hole
This image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope reveals tendrils of dark dust threading across the heart of the spiral galaxy NGC 7172. The galaxy lies approximately 110 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Piscis Austrinus. The lane of dust threading its way across NGC 7,172 is obscuring the luminous heart of the galaxy, making NGC 7,172 appear to be nothing more than a normal spiral galaxy viewed from the side.
When astronomers inspected NGC 7,172 across the electromagnetic spectrum they quickly discovered that there was more to it than meets the eye: NGC 7,172 is a Seyfert galaxy—a type of galaxy with an intensely luminous active galactic nucleus powered by matter accreting onto a supermassive black hole.
This image combines data from two sets of Hubble observations, both proposed to study nearby active galactic nuclei. The image also combines data from two instruments—Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys and Wide Field Camera 3.
Timeline of the Milky Way
We live in the Milky Way galaxy, an immense, flat, spiral galaxy surrounded by a massive halo of stars and dark matter. The disk of stars, gas, and dust in which the Sun resides is fully 120,000 light years across; a soul-crushing distance on the human scale. In the middle of the disk is the central bulge, a lozenge-shaped hub of stars.
How did all this structure come together? We know it didn’t all happen at once, but what were the different chapters in the galaxy’s life? What is the timeline of the Milky Way?
This has been the subject of intense research for decades, but new tools are now online that help target specific structures and stars, aiding in understanding how the galaxy came to be the way it is today. In newly published research, a pair of astronomers has tackled this problem and discovered something surprising: One part of the Milky Way is much older than previously thought, changing how we think our cosmic home was constructed [link to paper].
Crypto 2022: Hackers have nabbed $1.22 billion already
Hackers so far are focusing on decentralized finance (DeFi) projects to steal crypto this year, a new report found, a reversal from 2021 when they used scams and online fraud for most of their exploits.
So far, investors have lost over $1.22 billion to hackers in the first three months of the year, nearly eight times more than the $154 million lost in the first quarter of 2021, according to crypto security firm Immunefi. Ninety-nine percent of those losses were from software exploits, the report found, specifically the hacks against Wormhole and Ronin.
This is not an anomaly, experts warn. It’s likely this kind of nefarious activity will become more common, while scamming of investors could wane.
Hubble smashes record for most distant star ever seen
The Hubble Space Telescope has smashed a record, identifying its most distant star ever. The star is so far away that its light has taken nearly 13 billion years to reach us, meaning it is from the first one billion years after the Big Bang.
Hubble’s previous record for farthest star observed, set in 2018, was for a star from 4 billion years after the Big Bang. So this new finding is a considerable step older and was only observable thanks to a fortuitous cosmic alignment. “We almost didn’t believe it at first, it was so much farther than the previous most distant, highest redshift star,” said astronomer Brian Welch of the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, lead author of the paper, in a statement.
The star in question, named Earendel, which means “morning star” in Old English, is massive, coming in at at least 50 times the mass of our sun. It is also millions of times brighter. However, even allowing for its mass and brightness, it is so far away that it was only possible to observe it thanks to a huge galaxy cluster that passed between it and us. The cluster’s gravity is so large that it warps the light coming from the star and acts as a magnifying class.
Bridging the Chasm Between Quantum Physics and the Theory of Gravity — “We Have Found a Surprisingly Simple Solution”
Quantum information theory: Quantum complexity grows linearly for an exponentially long time.
Physicists know about the huge chasm between quantum physics and the theory of gravity. However, in recent decades, theoretical physics has provided some plausible conjecture to bridge this gap and to describe the behavior of complex quantum many-body systems, for example black holes and wormholes in the universe. Now, a theory group at Freie Universität Berlin and HZB, together with Harvard University, USA, has proven a mathematical conjecture about the behavior of complexity in such systems, increasing the viability of this bridge. The work is published in Nature Physics.
“We have found a surprisingly simple solution to an important problem in physics,” says Prof. Jens Eisert, a theoretical physicist at Freie Universität Berlin and HZB. “Our results provide a solid basis for understanding the physical properties of chaotic quantum systems, from black holes to complex many-body systems,” Eisert adds.
Could the Information Paradox Finally Be Resolved?
The information paradox may finally be resolved with the help of the holographic theory – but this time on a fractal scale.
Ever since Hawking predicted the thermal emission of black holes and their subsequent evaporation, the question arose as to where this information goes. In the context of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics – which states that the information about a system is entirely encoded in its wave function – information is always conserved. Thus, any loss in information, like that predicted by Hawking and his evaporating black holes, would violate quantum theory. This problem is known as the information paradox.
To resolve this paradox, physicists have been actively looking for a mechanism to explain how the information of the infalling particles re-emerges in the outgoing radiation. To begin, they need to determine the entropy of the Hawking radiation.
Max Laughlin and his controversial theory: CERN sent us to a parallel universe?
The young man has made several statements that compromise the scientific community, but the most shocking is related to CERN and how it could have destroyed our universe.
Regarded as a genius child and listed as the “most intelligent young man in the world”, Max Laughlin surprised the world with his great intellectual abilities.
With only 13 years old he could develop from scratch its own device for energy access. A system that is capable of providing all the necessary energy without the need for oil, coal or solar energy.
Towards The Cybernetic Theory of Mind
Local consciousness, or our phenomenal mind, is emergent, whereas non-local consciousness, or universal mind, is immanent. Material worlds come and go, but fundamental consciousness is ever-present, according to the Cybernetic Theory of Mind. From a new science of consciousness to simulation metaphysics, from evolutionary cybernetics to computational physics, from physics of time and information to quantum cosmology, this novel explanatory theory for a deeper understanding of reality is combined into one elegant theory of everything.
#CyberneticTheoryofMind #Consciousness #Evolution #Mind #Documentary
Based on The Cybernetic Theory of Mind eBook series (2022) by Alex M. Vikoulov as well as his magnum opus The Syntellect Hypothesis: Five Paradigms of the Mind’s Evolution (2020), comes a recently-released documentary Consciousness: Evolution of the Mind.
This film, hosted by the author of the book from which the narrative is derived, is now available for viewing on demand on Vimeo, Plex, Tubi, Xumo, Social Club TV and other global networks with its worldwide premiere aired on June 8, 2021. IMDb-accredited film, rated TV-PG. This is a futurist’s take on the nature of consciousness and reverse engineering of our thinking in order to implement it in cybernetics and advanced AI systems.
What mechanism may link quantum physics to phenomenology? What properties are inherently associated with consciousness? What is Experiential Realism? How can we successfully approach the Hard Problem of Consciousness, or perhaps, circumvent it? What is the Quantum Algorithm of Consciousness? Are free-willing conscious AIs even possible? These are some of the questions addressed in this Part V of the documentary.