The early Earth didn't have many chemicals needed for life on its surface, but they were present in asteroids and comets. Astronomers think they were delivered by countless objects crashing into the planet early in its history. But there's also a constant rain of organic-rich cosmic dust entering the Earth's atmosphere, and some can even pile up into sedimentary deposits left behind by glaciers. Did cosmic dust help fertilize prebiotic chemistry?
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SETI researchers have directed their search toward interesting star systems where extraterrestrial civilizations could send signals toward Earth. According to a new paper, sufficiently advanced civilizations will communicate across the galaxy, sending signals between stars, rogue planets, and interstellar objects. They'll probably be using pulsars as a navigation system to coordinate their activities at a vast scale. To confirm their existence, we just have to listen in.
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Astronomers continue to find more and more evidence of black holes, but there's an alternative theory that could explain the observations: gravastars. First proposed in 2001, these objects are one possible solution to Einstein's field equations, having the same impact on the Universe. But they won't have an event horizon or singularity. Instead, they'd contain thin shells of matter surrounding an exotic dark energy that pushes back against the star's gravitational force.
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One of the largest reentries in recent years, ESA's ERS-2 satellite is coming down this week.
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Astronomers have found evidence of geothermal activity across the Solar System, from planets like Mars, icy moons like Europa and Enceladus, and even dwarf planets like Pluto. They've used JWST to find evidence of geothermal activity in Kupiter Belt Objects Eris and Makemake. It was thought that these tiny worlds were long dead and cold, but they found evidence of elements on the surface that indicate geothermal activity, like geysers or cryovolcanoes.
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