Particle physics and cosmology go hand-in-hand, despite the vast difference in scales. So when something new starts brewing in the quantum world, we pay attention. On this week’s Big Picture Science - could physics experiments take us “Beyond the Standard Model?”
For World Turtle Day, please enjoy this 54-million-year-old fossil of a baby sea turtle, which was found in Denmark and includes preserved soft tissue.
In fact, it's so well-preserved that scientists discovered molecules of a pigment that would have darkened the turtle's shell, perhaps to protect it against sun damage.
The 2008 book, A TIME TRAVELLER'S FIELD NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS OF DINOSAURS; I'll post a bunch of my illustrations. It is a fictional story, so be prepared for plenty of inaccuracies, for example, there is no evidence for autotomy in Tanystropheus.
The SETI Institute’s 2024 Drake Awards ceremony took place last Thursday at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California, honoring significant contributions to the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. This event brought together experts in astrobiology, astrophysics, nuclear physics, and signal processing.
Could recent information about dark energy fundamentally alter our understanding of the universe? It's possible. Here's a deep dive into what dark energy is and how new results on the expansion history of the universe may change everything we thought we knew.
TONIGHT, May 22, 2024, at 7 pm (PDT), Dr. Robert Pappalardo (NASA Jet
Propulsion Lab) will give a free, illustrated, non-technical lecture entitled:
“Europa Clipper: Exploring Jupiter’s Ocean World"
#PPOD: Mimas drifts along in its orbit against the azure backdrop of Saturn's northern latitudes in this true-color view. The long, dark lines on the atmosphere are shadows cast by the planet's rings. At the bottom, craters on icy Mimas (398 kilometers) give the moon a dimpled appearance. Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute/CICLOPS
This year, the SETI AIR program is launching a series of new residencies, each focused on a discipline, or “territory,” of creative practice. The first residency off the starting block is Cosmic Consciousness, which interweaves language and the written word with the exploration of consciousness and intelligence.
#PPOD: This stunning photo was taken by the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) onboard the ESA's Mars Express spacecraft. Phobos is the larger and closer of Mars's two moons, the other being Deimos. One hypothesis of their origin involves the possible capture of primitive asteroids. Unfortunately, Phobos is being pulled apart and closer by Mars's tidal forces and gravity. Credit: ESA/DLR/FUBerlin/ @andrealuck CC BY (https://www.flickr.com/photos/192271236@N03/53635851891/)
A single gold earring found in a burned Iron Age settlement in Iberia was hidden by its owners more than 2,000 years ago, perhaps to keep it safe from invaders under Hannibal during the Second Punic War.
Archaeologists found the earring in the scorched remnants of a two-story building, along with more than 1,000 fragments of pottery, tools for weaving, and the burned remains of sheep, goats and a horse.
In 2007 I painted a mural on the ceiling of an exhibition room at Pools Cavern Visitor Centre, Derbyshire, UK. It was a Carboniferous scene, partly depicting life on land but mostly marine and freshwater species. It was fun but it demanded long hours and a few nights sleep in my car.
New resource! 📣 Science is more than lab coats and beakers, so I've illustrated 18 science objects for you to use in your presentations and social media
On Wednesday, May 22, 2024, at 7 pm (PDT), Dr. Robert Pappalardo (NASA Jet Propulsion Lab) will give a free, illustrated, non-technical lecture entitled: “Europa Clipper: Exploring Jupiter’s Ocean World"
Something interesting is rumbling in the physics community. Are we on the brink of discovering a new force of nature? At least one particle physicist thinks so. We venture “Beyond the Standard Model” on Big Picture Science.
#PPOD: ESA's ExoMars orbiter caught a close-up view of a huge crater on Mars. This remnant of an ancient impact is just one of the many scars asteroids have inflicted upon the Red Planet. Water, volcanoes, and impacts from asteroids shaped the Martian surface in the ancient past, but the preservation of this impact is remarkable. The crater is located in Utopia Planitia and is about 8 km in diameter. Credit: ESA/TGO/CaSSIS
How should numeric probabilities be translated into words? Maybe they shouldn't be.
"Words of estimative probability" wreak havoc in high-stakes communication like #intelligenceCommunity assessments and briefings, in part because intelligence and defense institutions map numbers to different words (!) — see Amelia Kahn's forthcoming work at ameliakahn.wordpress.com.
Another “victim” of my sorting & clearing ahead of our move: five copies of my 1988 University of Edinburgh PhD thesis headed for recycling 😬✌️
But don’t panic: these are all water-damaged & I still have eight clean copies of the one hundred originally printed for me during my first postdoc at NASA Goddard 🚀🛰️
The rest were circulated to colleagues back in the early days of infrared arrays in astronomy 🔭
#ICYMI: Dr. Andrew Siemion received the Drake Award Thursday night. Ahead of the awards reception, communications specialist Beth Johnson sat down at the SETI Institute offices and talked with him about his career so far, receiving the Drake Award, and his vision for the future of SETI research.
https://www.seti.org/keeping-eye-comet-a3-next-naked-eye-comet-candidate
In early 2023, a new comet took stargazers by surprise. Called Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinan-Atlas), this icy visitor was discovered by two separate observatories in South Africa and China. Comet A3 had scientists and amateurs alike wondering if it would be the next naked-eye comet to light our skies. As 2024 unfolds, we eagerly anticipate whether Comet A3 will deliver the breathtaking celestial display we have all been hoping for!
The SETI Institute is proud to learn that Science Advisory Board member Mike Garrett was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society yesterday. Prof. Garrett is the Sir Bernard Lovell Chair of Astrophysics and the Director of Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics (JBCA), Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Manchester.