Lifeboat Foundation

The next time you’re gazing out of the window in search of inspiration, keep in mind the material you’re looking through was forged inside the heart of an exploding ancient star.

An international team of scientists said Friday they had detected silica—the main component of glass—in the remnants of two distant supernovae billions of light years from Earth.

Researchers used NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope to analyse the light emitted by the collapsing mega-cluster and obtain silica’s “fingerprint” based on the specific wavelength of light the material is known to emit.

If astronomers’ calculations are correct, the Solar System is right in the middle of a turbulent space event.

The mysterious hurricane of “dark matter” leaves astronomers puzzled, but the remnants of dwarf galaxies could help prove this phenomenon’s existence.

Yes, here’s the story of the dark matter hurricane — a cosmic event that may provide our first glimpse of the mysterious, invisible particle.

by

• Jackson Ryan

I think aspects of our Universe are conscious. Dark matter or the æther perhaps. Stagnancy is death so change inherently means something is making decisions.

A new scientific concept has recently come to light, which scientists are calling “panpsychism.” Panpsychism says that the universe could be capable of consciousness, which could change everything.

Continue reading “Scientists Now Believe That The Universe Itself Is Conscious” »

Remarkable rules have been detected in the apparent chaos of disequilibrium processes. Different systems behave identically in many ways, if they belong to the same “universality class.” This means that experiments can be carried out with quantum systems that are easy to handle in order to obtain precise information about systems that cannot be directly studied in the experiment—such as the Big Bang.

Some phenomena are so complicated that it is impossible to precisely calculate them. This includes large quantum systems, which consist of many particles, particularly when they are not in an equilibrium state, but changing rapidly. Such examples include the wild particle inferno that occurs in particle accelerators when large atoms collide, or conditions just after the Big Bang, when particles rapidly expanded and then cooled.

At TU Wien and Heidelberg University, remarkable rules have been detected in the apparent chaos of disequilibrium processes. This indicates that such processes can be divided into universality classes. Systems belonging to the same class behave identically in many ways. This means that experiments can be carried out with quantum systems that are easy to handle in order to obtain precise information about other systems that cannot be directly studied in the experiment. These findings have since been published in the journal Nature.

Wormholes — yawning gateways that could theoretically connect distant points in space-time — are usually illustrated as gaping gravity wells linked by a narrow tunnel.

But their precise shape has been unknown.

Now, however, a physicist in Russia has devised a method to measure the shape of symmetric wormholes — even though they have not been proven to exist — based on the way the objects may affect light and gravity. [8 Ways You Can See Einstein’s Theory of Relativity in Real Life].

Continue reading “Ripples in Space-Time Could Reveal the Shape of Wormholes” »

Yeah, it sounds goth, but it could explain the enormous size of certain black holes.

In the distant future, our own galaxy could join hearts with its galactic neighbor Andromeda.

Lattice QCD is not only teaching us how the strong interactions lead to the overwhelming majority of the mass of normal matter in our Universe, but holds the potential to teach us about all sorts of other phenomena, from nuclear reactions to dark matter.

Later today, November 7th, physics professor Phiala Shanahan will be delivering a public lecture from Perimeter Institute, and we&s;ll be live-blogging it right here at 7 PM ET / 4 PM PT. You can watch the talk right here, and follow along with my commentary below. Shanahan is an expert in theoretical nuclear and particle physics and specializes in supercomputer work involving QCD, and I&s;m so curious what else she has to say.

Continue reading “At Last, Physicists Understand Where Matter’s Mass Comes From” »

An international team of astronomers has detected a new luminous quasar at a redshift of 7.02. The newly found quasi-stellar object (QSO), designated DELS J003836.10–152723.6, is the most luminous quasar known at a redshift of over 7.0. The discovery is reported in a paper published October 29 on the arXiv pre-print repository.

Powered by the most massive black holes, bright quasars at high redshift are important for astronomers as they are perceived as the brightest beacons highlighting the chemical evolution of the universe most effectively. They are the most luminous and most distant, compact objects in the observable universe and their spectrum can be used, for instance, to estimate the mass of supermassive black holes (SMBHs).

However, high-redshift QSOs are extremely rare and difficult to find. So far, only two quasars with redshifts over 7.0 have been identified. This limits our understanding of SMBH growth mechanism and reionization history.

Continue reading “Astronomers discover new luminous high-redshift quasar” »