Lifeboat Foundation

A trans-neptunian object has been discovered using the Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope!

Stunning.

For its first science image, the NASA IXPE observatory zoomed in on the remains of a star that exploded in the 17th century, revealing the intensity of X-Ray light coming from the blast.

After its successful launch last Dec. 9, 2021, the Imaging X-Ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) of the National Aeronatics and Space Administration (NASA) finally shared its first captured photo from space.

Specifically, the subject of the photo is the Cassiopeia A.

Continue reading “NASA IXPE Captured Cassiopeia A in Its First Photo From Space” »

A Martian biosphere may not be hiding only in the deep subsurface.

But let’s not forget habitable niches in salts, ices, and caves!

Amid a maelstrom set off by a prominent AI researcher saying that some AI may already be achieving limited consciousness, one MIT AI researcher is saying the concept might not be so far-fetched.

Our story starts with Ilya Sutskever, head scientist at the Elon Musk cofounded research group OpenAI. On February 9, Sutskever tweeted that “it may be that today’s large neural networks are slightly conscious.”

In response, many others in the AI research space decried the OpenAI scientist’s claim, suggesting that it was harming machine learning’s reputation and amounted to little more than a “sales pitch” for OpenAI work.

Astronomers have been waiting decades for the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope, which promises to peer farther into space than ever before. But if humans want to actually reach our nearest stellar neighbor, they will need to wait quite a bit longer: a probe sent to Alpha Centauri with a rocket would need roughly 80,000 years to make the trip.

Igor Bargatin, Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics, is trying to solve this futuristic problem with ideas taken from one of humanity’s oldest transportation technologies: the sail.

As part of the Breakthrough Starshot Initiative, he and his colleagues are designing the size, shape and materials for a sail pushed not by wind, but by light.

Astronomers have just found an absolute monster of a galaxy.

Lurking some 3 billion light-years away, Alcyoneus is a giant radio galaxy reaching 5 megaparsecs into space. That’s 16.3 million light-years long, and constitutes the largest known structure of galactic origin.

The discovery highlights our poor understanding of these colossi, and what drives their incredible growth. But it could provide a pathway to better understanding, not just of giant radio galaxies, but the intergalactic medium that drifts in the yawning voids of space.