While our search for extraterrestrial intelligence teams have not yet detected meaningful signals from outer space, the Break Listen Project, with funding from Yuri Milner, did report on 20 August 2017 about picking up a series of 15 radio bursts from a dwarf galaxy about 3 billion light years away. Then, more recently, data was re-analyzed, and the count is up to around 300. However, the "best" they can determine is that the possibility of alien signals cannot be totally disregarded.
How close are we to alien invasion? Stephen Hawking, who passed away earlier this year, and was on the Breakthrough Starshot (BS) initiative, last year warned that the emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) could be the worst event in the history of civilization. But AI is human-made. BS, incidentally, another Milner supported team, will send light sail spacecrafts to Proxima Centauri b, an earth-sized exoplanet located a little more than 4 light years away.
But back to fear, what about a gamma ray burst to destroy life on Planet Earth? Astronomers are keeping an eye on star system WR104, located about 6,000 light years away, which is a binary star system. If those stars collide, a supernova could be the consequence, and there is a chance that a beam of gamma ray bursts could destroy our ozone layer, leaving us vulnerable to the Sun's UV radiation. But not to worry, for these stars are not close enough yet to be concerned.
The asteroid that caused the extinction of dinosaurs 66 million years ago was said to be between 6.2 and 9.3 miles in diameter. There are 18,000 known near-Earth asteroids being tracked, and even a very small one of 50 feet diameter can cause tsunamis. Interested? Read this.
Closer to Earth, but 91 million miles away, you can watch Insight landing on Mars tomorrow (Monday) at 3PM EST (10AM Hawaii time):
NASA TV will be broadcasting the landing live online between 2 p.m. and 3:30 p.m. ET on Monday (Nov. 26). You can also watch the landing on other sites such as Facebook and Space.com.
There will be viewing parties the world wide, such as in Times Square, California Science Center in Los Angeles, Adler Planetarium in Chicago and Le Reunion. Alas, this lander will not even search for life, primarily listening to native music: vibrations or marsquakes.
Let me end just with a note that Osaka won the competition for the 2025 World Expo. I'll follow up with a full report on these World Fairs later this week.
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