Lifeboat Foundation

Most exoplanets lying in the habitable zones around stars are in fact inhospitable to plant life as we know it. That is according to a new study from microbiologists and astronomers at the University of Georgia who say that taking into account the light a planet receives as well as its ability to hold liquid water is a better definition of whether life could exist on other planets.

The Habitable Zone (HZ) is traditionally defined to be the range of distances around a star where an exoplanet can support liquid water on its surface. Too far, and the planet remains frozen like Mars. Too close and the oceans evaporate, as happened to Venus. The zone in the middle is neither too hot, nor too cold, but just right – the so-called “Goldilocks zone”.

Nothing certain is known about the properties and requirements of alien life. However, there are generally two schools of thought in astrobiology. One is that evolution on other planets can figure out ways to sidestep seemingly insurmountable barriers to life as we know it, while others claim that life is everywhere bounded by the same universal physical principles, and can thus only operate a certain way, similar to as on Earth.

NASA has big plans in the works to test if we can eventually live life on mars and a Springfield doctor is getting the chance to be a part of the process.

“Bad Astronomer” Phil Plait’s new book is full of the technical details authors need for their novels.

But we expect that it’s in that first tiny fraction of a second that the key features of our universe were imprinted.

The conditions of the universe can be described through its “fundamental constants”—fixed quantities in nature, such as the gravitational constant (called G) or the speed of light (called C). There are about 30 of these representing the sizes and strengths of parameters such as particle masses, forces, or the universe’s expansion. But our theories don’t explain what values these constants should have. Instead, we have to measure them and plug their values into our equations to accurately describe nature.

Continue reading “The Multiverse: Our Universe Is Suspiciously Unlikely to Exist—Unless It Is One of Many” »

The first 2 minutes includes the best layman description of how ChapGPT works that I’ve heard yet:

Ready to blast off into a new world of gaming? In this exciting video, we’re taking AI to the next level as we install ChatGPT as a co-pilot in my SimPit game station. But this isn’t just your average AI installation — get ready for a hilarious space adventure as we explore the ups and downs of integrating ChatGPT into our gaming setup.

Continue reading “I put an AI in my Spaceship Gaming Setup?!? You can too!!! (Chat GPT)” »

While the scientific debate about the origin of water on our planet remains open, the truth is that relative to its size, Earth is more like a desert compared to other celestial bodies in our cosmic neighbourhood. Estimates vary, but there could be as much as 50 times more liquid water in the solar system than is found on Earth—an astonishing revelation that would have sounded absurd just a few decades ago. And scientists are eager to send spacecraft to this extraterrestrial water in the hope of discovering conditions suitable for life.

Apart from Earth, the inner solar system—containing the four planets closest to the Sun—is largely devoid of liquid water. On Mercury and Venus liquid water simply boils away, while on Mars any liquid water would quickly freeze or evaporate due to the low atmospheric pressure and temperature. Although there is some intriguing evidence that liquid water may exist beneath the Martian southern polar ice cap, the amounts would be very small compared to those found on Earth.

Paradoxically, to find to find an unexpected abundance of liquid water, we must venture into the frigid depths of the outer solar system, far from the warmth of the Sun. There, deep beneath the frozen surfaces of moons orbiting the gas giants Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, scientists have found strong evidence of vast oceans. But how can water remain liquid in such an extremely cold environment, where the Sun is only a faint glow in the sky and the warmest surface temperatures are always well below zero?

Scientists could have been looking for extraterrestrial life in the wrong place all along, after it was revealed that unexpected types of star systems could be the key to potential discoveries in the future.

New research suggests that many of the things we thought about the habitable nature of certain planets could be proven wrong.

An exploration not of human artificial intelligence and chatbots, but what alien civilizations might do with the technology to very different outcomes.

An exploration of Machine Natural Selection and the potential of an AI Apocalypse.

Continue reading “Should We Fear Alien Artificial Intelligence?” »

‘Peculiar’ blob-like species discovered thriving in ‘toxic’ Romanian cave, study says.