Posts tagged science
It’s Official: Mars Was Habitable
Long ago, Mars had the conditions and ingredients to support life.
That conclusion—the first ever made about another celestial body—was announced today by the Curiosity rover team after a wildly successful drilling campaign into what may have once been the bed of a Martian lake.
“We have found a habitable environment,” said John Grotzinger, project scientist for the Curiosity mission. “The water that was here was so benign and supportive of life that if a human had been on the planet back then, they could drink it.”
Read the article here.
An Existential Term a Day: Many-Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics →
The Many-Worlds Interpretation (MWI) is an approach to quantum mechanics according to which, in addition to the world we are aware of directly, there are many other similar worlds which exist in parallel at the same space and time. The existence of the other worlds makes it possible to remove randomness and action at a distance from quantum theory and thus from all physics.
![A new study by 22 biologists and ecologists has found that environmental changes on our planet are reaching a point of no return that leads to mass extinctions and harms human welfare. The situation, said one scientist, “scares the hell out of me.” That would be James H. Brown, one of the authors of alarming paper published by Nature, talking to New York Times Green blogger Justin Gillis. Brown is not one of your everyday cranks predicting raptures and the end of days. He is a macroecologist at the University of New Mexico.
“The most frightening thing is that this finding isn’t about what will come if we do not act, but that our effects on the planet’s environment — global warming, population growth, and overall resource extraction — means that we’ve already passed a ”tipping point.” This isn’t a plea for change. These are things scientists have been warning us about for decades.”
Read more at The Atlantic Wire. [Image: Reuters]]( http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m59aybROYE1qcokc4o1_500.jpg)
A new study by 22 biologists and ecologists has found that environmental changes on our planet are reaching a point of no return that leads to mass extinctions and harms human welfare. The situation, said one scientist, “scares the hell out of me.” That would be James H. Brown, one of the authors of alarming paper published by Nature, talking to New York Times Green blogger Justin Gillis. Brown is not one of your everyday cranks predicting raptures and the end of days. He is a macroecologist at the University of New Mexico.
“The most frightening thing is that this finding isn’t about what will come if we do not act, but that our effects on the planet’s environment — global warming, population growth, and overall resource extraction — means that we’ve already passed a ”tipping point.” This isn’t a plea for change. These are things scientists have been warning us about for decades.”
Read more at The Atlantic Wire. [Image: Reuters]
August 21, 1965 - Gemini V Mission Images
Check out all 270 images in the National Archives online catalog from the Gemini V Mission that took place from August 21-August 29, 1965.
This Is How Big Our Galaxy Is Compared to the Biggest Galaxy of Them All
The Milky Way is huge compared to our Sun, just one more speck of dust of the 400 billion stars in it. But, at 100,000 light years across, it’s tiny compared to other galaxies in the Universe.
(Source: Gizmodo)
Stephen Hawking: Heaven is "a fairy story" →
Physicist Stephen Hawking believes there is no afterlife, and that the concept of heaven is a “fairy story” for people who fear death.
Today in Pretty Space Pics: Stellar Birth and Death Captured in the Same Image
The cosmic fireworks above capture both stellar birth and stellar death in one sweeping view. With eyes pointed at nebula NGC 3582, part of a larger star factory here in the Milky Way, the Wide Field Imager at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile managed to capture a nebula shaped by supernova glowing with the intense light of baby stars.
(Source: itsfullofstars)
