Can the Drake equation’s final term predict humanity’s demise?
Here in 2026, we still have not found the existence of any life beyond Earth.
What does that mean for the Drake equation, the longevity of intelligent civilizations, and humanity's future?
bigthink.com/starts-with-...
#space #astro
No, particle physics colliders cannot ever destroy the Universe
Every time we push the energy frontier in particle physics, laypersons fear that the world, or even the Universe, will be destroyed.
Here's why we're certain it's all safe... for now.
bigthink.com/starts-with-...
#physics #astro
So does
www.nytimes.com/2026/03/05/w...
www.cnn.com/2026/03/06/m...
apnews.com/article/iran...
and
www.washingtonpost.com/world/2026/0...
First 24 hours of embryonic development in 9 different animal species: (From left to right) Zebrafish, Sea urchin, Black widow spider, Tardigrade, Sea squirt, Comb jelly, Parchment tube worm, Roundworm, Slipper snail. Credit to @tessamontague.bsky.social & Zuzka Vavrušová. #ZebrafishZunday #devbio 🧪
Moms First CEO Reshma Saujani on Why Childcare Is an Economic Issue
1. Graphic showing asteroid 2024 YR4’s potential locations on December 22, 2032, estimated last year on June 3, 2025. 2. Graphic showing new estimate of asteroid 2024 YR4’s potential locations on December 22, 2032. The locations now lie on the far side of the moon.
Sorry, new data from NASA JWST indicates that asteroid 2024 YR4 will not crash into the moon on Dec. 22 2032, as predicted earlier with 4.3% prob; instead, it will fly by 21,200 km away on the far side of the moon.
science.nasa.gov/blogs/planet...
fosstodon.org/@AkaSci/1142...
#PlanetSci
Perhaps we should say -
92K jobs lost last month (mid-Jan to mid-Feb).
or
-92K jobs change last month (mid-Jan to mid-Feb).
How does recent growth compare to recent years?
Economy added just 0.16 million jobs over 12 months to Feb 2026.
Job growth stopped.
Tardigrades, the toughest animals in the Universe, fail to survive in simulated Martian regolith.
However, they did much better when the regolith was washed, leaching away some of the salts and other chemicals.
Don't book that ticket yet 😜
More at fosstodon.org/@AkaSci/1161...
#PlanetSci #Science
Artemis III Concept of Operations (2023) including the different rockets (SLS, Starship) and vehicles (Orion, Starship HLS) Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_III
What about in-orbit refueling?
And lunar Gateway.
The impressive skills of the brainless, unicellular Slime Mold.
"Encounters with food lead to an increase in local fluid flow within the tubes, causing greater shear force on the tube walls, which grow thinner, allowing the tubes to expand and fan out."
knowablemagazine.org/content/arti...
#Science
As new images are taken, Rubin Observatory’s sophisticated software automatically compares each one with a template image. The template image, built by combining Rubin's previous images of the same area in the same filter, is subtracted from the new image, leaving only the changes. Each change triggers an alert within minutes of image capture. This compilation contains five examples of Rubin alerts for supernovae. The images were captured during commissioning with the LSST Camera. Each alert includes three “postage stamp” images — the left shows the template image, the center shows the new image, and the right shows the subtracted, or difference, image. The object of interest for a particular alert is centered in the images. In the case of the supernova alert at the bottom, the bright spots in the upper left corners of the template and new images are the center of the supernova’s host galaxy. The supernova itself — not seen in the template image — is clearly revealed in the center of the difference image. Credit: NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory/NOIRLab/SLAC/AURA
During a trial run on Feb 24, the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, with its 3.5° FOV and 3.2 billion pixel camera, generated 800,000 alerts, identifying new asteroids, supernovae, black holes and other changes in the night sky!
noirlab.edu/public/news/...
fosstodon.org/@AkaSci/1161...
#Astronomy
The European Space Agency's (ESA) Proba-2 satellite captured this ring from its viewpoint in space. Flying around Earth, the spacecraft witnessed the same solar eclipse no less than four times, including this perfect ring of fire at 11:31 Universal Time. The images were taken by the spacecraft's SWAP extreme ultraviolet imager, at a wavelength of 17.4 nanometres. Source: https://proba2.sidc.be/Eclipse17February2026 Credit: ESA/Royal Observatory of Belgium
Spectacular image of the annular solar eclipse of Feb 17, taken by the ESA Proba-2 satellite (725 km alt), at 17.4 nm wavelength, using the SWAP extreme ultraviolet imager.
From earth, the eclipse was visible only from the Antarctic region.
More at fosstodon.org/@AkaSci/1161...
#Astronomy
Agents of Chaos -- what are autonomous OpenClaw agents up to? How do they interact with each other? Read our investigation of OpenClaw at
researchgate.net/publication/...
And an interactive website agentsofchaos.baulab.info
@davidbau.bsky.social @natalieshapira.bsky.social @openclaw-x.bsky.social
Please tell us about asteroid 23238 Ocasio-Cortez.
How did it get its name?
Oh no! A day after the successful wet dress rehearsal, NASA has detected a helium flow issue with the Artemis II rocket that will require a rollback to the Vehicle Assembly Building for diagnosis and repair. The March 6 launch window will likely be missed.
www.nasa.gov/blogs/missio...
#Space #NASA
Dr. Robert Malone has been around for a while. As of 2021, Malone promoted himself as the inventor of mRNA vaccines and that he had been wronged by the medical establishment. Then with COVID, he started attacking mRNA vaccines.
www.nytimes.com/2022/04/03/t...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_...
1. A massive hotspot — larger the Earth’s Lake Superior — can be seen just to the right of Io’s south pole in this annotated image taken by the JIRAM infrared imager aboard NASA’s Juno on Dec. 27, 2024, during the spacecraft’s flyby of the Jovian moon. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/ASI/INAF/JIRAM 2. Map of IO from angle that is close to that of the images below, with the South Pole in view. And my guess for the scarred area of the eruption near Nemea Planum. 3D-map source: http://terkeptar.elte.hu/vgm/2/?show=globe&id=111&descid=219 3. Images of Io captured in 2024 by the JunoCam imager aboard NASA’s Juno show significant and visible surface changes (indicated by the arrows) near the Jovian moon’s south pole. These changes occurred between the 66th and 68th perijove, or the point during Juno’s orbit when it is closest to Jupiter. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS Image processing by Jason Perry
On Dec. 27, 2024, NASA’s Juno spacecraft witnessed the most intense eruption ever recorded on Io, Jupiter’s most volcanically active moon. The eruption spanned 65,000 sq km and released > 80 TW of energy.
www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasa-ju...
More at fosstodon.org/@AkaSci/1159...
#Astronomy
Also, check out the blunt assessment of "AI datacenters in space” by Prof. Matthew Buckley.
bsky.app/profile/phys...
www.physicsmatt.com/blog/2025/12...
Image of the first page of the filing - SpaceX requests authority to launch and operate a constellation of satellites with unprecedented computing capacity to power advanced artificial intelligence (“AI”) models and the applications that rely on them. By directly harnessing near-constant solar power with little operating or maintenance costs, these satellites will achieve transformative cost and energy efficiency while significantly reducing the environmental impact associated with terrestrial data centers. Launching a constellation of a million satellites that operate as orbital data centers is a first step towards becoming a Kardashev II-level civilization—one that can harness the Sun’s full power—while supporting AI-driven applications for billions of people today and ensuring humanity’s multi-planetary future amongst the stars SpaceX is designing its satellite system to accommodate the explosive growth of data demands driven by AI, machine learning, and edge omputing, where processing needs are already beginning to outpace terrestrial capabilities. To deliver the compute capacity required for large- scale AI inference and data center applications serving billions of users globally, SpaceX aims to deploy a system of up to one million satellites to operate within narrow orbital shells spanning up to 50 km each (leaving sufficient room to deconflict against other systems with comparable ambitions). This system will operate between 500 km and 2,000 km altitude ...
New FCC filing by SpaceX for a constellation of million data center satellites for AI 😮
Even if it could be done, what will this do to #astronomy and #space debris?
Or is this yet another scam and grift scheme?
www.scribd.com/document/990...
More at fosstodon.org/@AkaSci/1159...
Typo correction - Researchers used a neural network named AnomalyMatch to search thru ~100 million images from the Hubble Legacy Archive. In 2.5 days, it found more than 1,300 anomalous objects, at least 800 previously unknown.
Space Oddities!
Researchers used a neural network named AnomalyMatch to search thru ~100 million images from the Hubble Legacy Archive. In 2.5 days, it found more than anomalous 1,300 objects, more than 800 previously unknown.
esahubble.org/news/heic2603/
@cmdr-hadfield.bsky.social
#Astronomy
1. Pic of the SLS rocket exiting the VAB taken from inside the building. Credit: Reid Wiseman 2. SLS on the launch pad this evening
The NASA Artemis II SLS stack was rolled out today to launch pad 39B at KSC for testing and wet rehearsals.
Launch on Feb. 6, for a 10-day journey around the Moon and back (no moon landing) with 4 astronauts.
More at fosstodon.org/@AkaSci/1158...
#Space
The four paths forward for US scientists in 2026
If you're feeling hopeless about being a scientist in the United States in 2026, know that there are four good paths that can take you forward.
Which one is right for you?
bigthink.com/starts-with-...
#space #science #astro #scientists #usa
NASA has set a target date for the ISS Crew-11’s early return to earth, due to the medical issue with one of the crew members.
Undocking: 5 p.m. EST, Wednesday, Jan. 14.
Splashdown: 3:40 a.m. Thursday, Jan. 15, off the coast of CA.
www.nasa.gov/blogs/spaces...
NASA is postponing tomorrow's scheduled ISS spacewalk because of "a medical concern" with one astronaut. www.nasa.gov/blogs/spaces...
Chang'e-3 lander on the Moon just turned on again 📡〰️calling home and in command lock with groundstation! Sun's elevation at Chang'e-3 landing site in Mare Imbrium is 20°. Landing date was 14th December 2013. #HNY2026
Barry Webb's photograph of glistening Comatricha nigra slime moulds titled "Glistening Slime Mould". It won the people's choice in the macro category of the British Photography Awards 2025 Photographed on an old, rotting fence post in my back garden. I used a spray bottle to create a wet foreground to add a reflection and give the image an extra dimension. These fruiting bodies are around 2.5mm tall. 56 images were focus stacked to create the final image. Camera settings: 2.0 sec, f3.2, ISO 400 Source: https://www.britishphotographyawards.org/2025-shortlist/shortlist/macro/glistening-slime-mould/d4795926-9090-4f80-b07b-e7a743ec9459
Check out these beautiful macro photographs of Slime Moulds by Barry Webb at www.barrywebbimages.co.uk/Images/Macro...
Additional links -
Fungi: www.barrywebbimages.co.uk/Images/Macro...
Instagram: www.instagram.com/barrywebbima...
Slime mould info: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slime_mo
#Nature
Trump: The FBI Informant Who Did Not Bark. A key email from Epstein’s estate, in combination with statements by Trump ally House Speaker Mike Johnson, shows it is highly likely that Trump was an FBI informant in the sex abuse investigation into Epstein. bit.ly/44OKNct
1. This artist’s concept shows what the exoplanet called PSR J2322-2650b (left) may look like as it orbits a rapidly spinning neutron star called a pulsar (right). Gravitational forces from the much heavier pulsar are pulling the Jupiter-mass world into a bizarre lemon shape. Illustration: NASA, ESA, CSA, Ralf Crawford (STScI) 2. This artist’s concept shows what the exoplanet PSR J2322-2650b may look like. Gravitational forces from the much heavier pulsar it orbits are pulling the Jupiter-mass world into this bizarre lemon shape. Illustration: NASA, ESA, CSA, Ralf Crawford (STScI) Source: https://science.nasa.gov/missions/webb/nasas-webb-observes-exoplanet-whose-composition-defies-explanation/
This is lemon-shaped exoplanet PSR J2322-2650b orbiting a pulsar every 7.75h.
It's atmosphere contains He, C2 and C3, but little H, O or N.
The pulsar contains 1.4 Suns crushed into a 10-20 km sphere, rotates every 3.33 ms and deforms the planet.
More at fosstodon.org/@AkaSci/1157...
#Astronomy
