Past Our Horizons

Science fiction as a genre has existed almost as long as storytelling itself. Jules Verne wrote of travel to the moon in the eighteen hundreds. The Princess of Mars, upon which Disney’s recent film John Carter of Mars was based, was published in the early part of the twentieth century. Even in Ancient Greece there was sci-fi: Lucian of Samasota wrote of creatures that resided on the sun and the moon in the second century C.E. That’s right – nearly two thousand years ago, someone wrote a book about aliens. Philosophy, science, and literature have always sought to reach beyond our planet, and the general public devours stories that combine this super-terrestrial striving with the very human desire for adventure and exploration.

Last week, NASA released a panoramic photo taken by Opportunity, the sole remaining functioning Mars rover since Spirit fell silent in August 2010. (The new Mars rover, Curiosity, will not land until this August). This beautiful image (which you can click to make massively large) was seen worldwide – the alien landscapes of Mars brought home to Earth. This is the power of space exploration. Children dream of becoming astronauts. Consumers in cafés discuss the possibility of alien life. Dreams of exploring other planets, other galaxies, and even other universes enthrall the public. It is possibly the single greatest way to popularize science as a whole.

Read more at The Inclusive.

The Face of God (Particles)

The Large Hadron Collider in Geneva Switzerland may have caught a glimpse of the elusive “god particle” – a subatomic particle predicted by the Standard Model of physics. This particle, officially named the Higgs boson, is called the “god particle” because without it, the universe as we know it would simply not exist.

Last week – as America was celebrating Independence Day – European scientists were also celebrating.  CERN announced the discovery of a new particle – a boson that fits the description of the Higgs. They were careful to call the data preliminary, and stated that more analysis was needed, but discovery of a particle that fits the parameters of a predicted particle is exciting at least and world-shaking at most.  If the results are verified, we could essentially have proof for one of the most important theories in modern physics. And I, for one, am confident the results will prove to be the Higgs boson. The scientists said there is approximately a one in two million chance that the data from the collision would not correspond to the Higgs boson. You don’t have to know much about science to know that those odds are pretty good.

Hapless Star Devoured by Black Hole

Black holes: infinitely deep pits from which nothing can escape. They’ve captured the imaginations of scientists, writers, and the general population, and are commonly found in science fiction, pop culture, and common vernacular. But despite our interest in black holes, we actually know very little about them.

This year has been awash with tales of black holes devouring other cosmic entities. In February, NASA reported that the supermassive black hole at the center of our very own galaxy was “snacking” on asteroids. Now, researchers at Johns Hopkins have detected a supermassive black hole approximately two billion light years from us that recently swallowed an entire star.