dg6group:

Welldressed Gentleman

moderation:

“Humans May be One of the Early Advanced Species in Our Universe” — Dimitar Sasselov of Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics

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Intelligent life may be in it’s “very young” stage in the observable Universe. Its 200 billion galaxies show a clear potential to continue on as we see them today for hundreds of billions of years, if not much longer. Because planets and life are so young in our Universe, says Harvard’s Dimitar Sasselov, perhaps “the human species are not late comers to the party. We may be among the early ones.”

That may explain why we see no evidence of “them” and may go a long way to explaining the famous Fermi Paradox, which asks if there’s advanced intelligent life in the Universe, where are they? Why haven’t we discovered any evidence of their existence?

The story of the Universe according to Sasselov in is new study, The Life of Super-Earths, looks like this: generations of stars made enough iron and oxygen, silicon and carbon, and all the other elements from the original hydrogen and helium about 13 billion years ago to be able to form the Earth we live on and the planets the Kepler Mission is discovering today.

Stable environments in galaxies that were enriched enough to have planets only became available some nine billion years ago and rocky Earth-like planets and larger super-Earths, only some 7 to 8 billion years ago. And Life had to wait until that time if not later to begin its emergence throughout the Universe. Between 7 and 9 billion years ago, enough heavy elements were available for the complex chemistry needed for life to emerge were in place along with the terrestrial planets with stable environments necessary for chemical concentration.

(via dailygalaxy)

14-billion-years-later:

Replacement Jaw Made Using 3D Printing

One of the benefits of 3D printing is that it enables to essentially download spare parts for cars or electronics. Well, now you may be able to download spare parts for yourself (surgeons not included). An 83 year old woman from the Netherlands has now become part cyborg after a chronic bone infection meant her lower jaw had to be removed. No worries though, a new jaw was simply made by fusing together titanium dust using a laser, one layer at a time, in a manner very similar to more conventional 3D printing. It takes 33 layers to make up 1 mm of height and was then covered in ceramic. The surgery itself only took 4 hours, a fifth of the time usually required for reconstructive surgery of this type. The woman was also able to return after only 4 days and was apparently capable of uttering a few words directly after surgery.

moderation:

China Unveils High Resolution Global Moon Map

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Chinese scientists have assembled the highest resolution map ever created of the entire Moon and unveiled a series of global Moon images on Monday, Feb. 6.

The composite Lunar maps were created from over 700 individual images captured by China’s Chang’e-2 spacecraft and released by the country’s State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defence (SASTIND), according to reports from the state run Xinhua and CCTV new agencies.  

“The map and images are the highest-resolution photos of the entirety of the Moon’s surface to be published thus far,” said Liu Dongkui, deputy chief commander of China’s lunar probe project, reports Xinhua.

Of course there are much higher resolution photos of numerous individual locations on the Moon taken from orbit by the spacecraft of other countries and from the surface by NASA’s Apollo lunar landing astronauts as well as unmanned Russian & American lunar landers and rovers.

(via universetoday)

thenewenlightenmentage:

What If Earth’s Magnetic Poles Flip?

The end of the world as we know it could come in any number of ways, depending on who you ask. Some people believe global cataclysm will occur when Earth’s magnetic poles reverse. When north goes south, they say, the continents will lurch in one direction or the other, triggering massive earthquakes, rapid climate change and species extinctions.

The geologic record shows that hundreds of pole reversals have occurred throughout Earth’s history; they happen when patches of iron atoms in Earth’s liquid outer core become reverse-aligned, like tiny magnets oriented in the opposite direction from those around them. When the reversed patches grow to the point that they dominate the rest of the core, Earth’s overall magnetic field flips. The last reversal happened 780,000 years ago during the Stone Age, and indeed there’s evidence to suggest the planet may be in the early stages of a pole reversal right now.

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ikenbot:

Dead Spacecraft on Mars Spotted in New Photos

A NASA probe orbiting Mars has captured new photos of two dead spacecraft frozen in place at their Red Planet graves.

The photos were taken by NASA’s powerful Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), which has been circling the planet since 2006.

The spacecraft first spied NASA’s dead Phoenix Mars Lander in the Martian arctic on Jan. 26 in a color photo that reveals the lander and its frigid surroundings as they appeared following Phoenix’s second winter on the planet. The Phoenix spacecraft landed successfully on Mars in 2008.

In a separate photo, MRO also spotted the three-petal landing platform that delivered NASA’s Mars rover Spirit to the surface of the Red Planet in January 2004. The platform used parachutes and airbags to bounce to a stop on Gusev crater so the Spirit rover could begin its mission.