27 July 2015
Debating Kepler 452b, Yuri Milner, and the search for intelligent life
... time soon. In light of this, Yuri Milner’s generous $100 million donations to scientists on a quest to find a signal generated by alien life in the Milky Way seems like a particularly naive gesture – or does it? We’ve already written about how the...
04 August 2015
Pluto, Charon, Lovecraft, Tolkien and other geek culture staples we should use on new worlds
... Trek to Star Wars, from H.P. Lovecraft’s terrifying Cthulu to J.R.R. Tolkien’s equally terrifying Balrog. Joss Whedon and the Alien franchise are in there too. And Doctor Who. Of course. Plenty of people might scoff at the idea and...
10 September 2015
Ceres Occator crater: bright spots as you’ve never seen them before
... of an impact that exposed newer, brighter material below Ceres’ surface. Conspiracy theories suggesting the possibility of remnants of an alien civilisation were also fuelled by this strange feature on Ceres – but that is typical for any large-scale...
11 January 2016
Space Rock Legend David Bowie Dies Aged 69
... and the stars – the list is long and includes such hits as “The Prettiest Star”, “Loving the Alien”, “Starman”, “Spaceboy”, his “Serious Moonlight” tour, etc. The title track of his final album, “Blackstar” brings...
19 September 2016
New research challenges ideas on how the Earth was made
... that had drifted to our corner of the Galaxy from elsewhere. As the cloud collapsed to form planets, these ‘alien’ dust grains will have then become incorporated into the material that coalesced to form the planets...
12 October 2016
Proxima Centauri reveals yet more intrigue as a cycle of dramatic sunspots is observed
... spots on our Sun but at least a full one-fifth of the star's surface is covered in spots at once. "If intelligent aliens were living on Proxima b, they would have a very dramatic view," says lead author of the research, Brad...
