We might have already encountered alien life and not known it or recognized it for what it is.
Our notions of life is based around the laws on this planet and this environment. Who knows what's evolved out there.
I still have my doubt that someday some shiny UFO will land and some kind of bipedal alien pops out and starts trying to converse, or a massive ship arrives with a massive food processing ship manned by aliens being filmed for their planets version of deadliest catch.
We might not be able to see or perceive them or vice versa.
This is one of my favourite aspects of the plot for The Expanse.
Also, if you have not yet watched The Expanse, then get off your ass and do something about it.
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Originally Posted by woob
"...harem warfare? like all your wives dressup and go paintballing?"
The evidence they gathered in the muddy sediments underlying Lake Chichancanab, which was once a part of the empire, underscore the devastating power of a drought on a population.
The sediment cores that the scientists dug up from the depths of the lake are like a time machine, giving a glimpse of what past environments look like. In the study, the team specifically looked at precipitated gypsum, a soft mineral that incorporates oxygen and hydrogen isotopes of water molecules into its crystalline structure. Looking at it was like peering into fossil water, and in this case, it showed that the area surrounding the lake had gone through extremely arid periods. During periods of drought, larger amounts of water evaporate, and so a higher proportion of lighter isotopes in gypsum indicates a period of drought.
The team determined that between the years 800 and 1,000, annual rainfall in the Maya lowlands decreased by nearly 50 percent on average and up to 70 percent during peak drought conditions. This means the rainfall in this region essentially stopped about the same time that the empire’s city-states were abandoned.
When we finally discover life off of Earth, it's going to be a non-dramatic whimper to the public because it's going to be bacteria / microbial life - not aliens landing in flying saucers.
That's the first step though, in preparing the public for aliens landing in flying saucers.
OSIRIS-REx apparently was successful - landed on Bennu, scooped up some dirt and rocks, and took off again.
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It will take a few more days before scientists can completely declare success. At present, they can only say that the spacecraft executed its instructions exactly as programmed. What is not yet known is how much material was actually grabbed. Scientists are hoping for at least a couple of ounces, but the sampling mechanism can hold up to four pounds.
I still can't wrap my head around that we can land on an asteroid traveling at 63,000 mph and 200 million miles away, gives me hope for the future if we find a planet killer early enough we'll be able to stop it.
With or without Bruce Willis
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Not really anything new, but I really enjoy these PBS Space Time videos. I wish I understood more about these topics, but the host combined with the animations they use are helping me over the hump a little bit. If you are into theoretical physics, you should watch these.
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Researchers in Iceland have turned CO 2 into stone in just two short years—mere nanoseconds on a geological scale.
Many scientists speculated it would take decades—if not centuries or millennia—for gaseous carbon dioxide to solidify. But an international project known as CarbFix, a project based at the Hellishedi geothermal power plant outside of Reykjavik, Iceland, accelerated that timetable by injecting CO 2 -laden water into the basaltic rock beneath the power plant. There, the mixture of minerals in the rock reacted with the dissolved gas to form carbonate minerals, a solid and stable form of rock that will lock the carbon away for millennia. The results were announced this week in the journal Science.
My understanding from the article and a couple related ones is that the energy required comes from naturally underground heat and pressure. I think the challenge here is going to be more-so about scalability: how do you create the necessary conditions for capturing a meaningful amount of carbon on an industrial scale.
It's a very interesting approach though, because this is the main way planet recaptures C02 anyway: through C02 reacting in the ocean with sea-floor basalt and eventually getting subducted.