extraterrestrial

Searching for extraterrestrial life has an unexpected new enemy: neighboring black holes

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At the time of search for habitable exoplanetswe usually take into account factors such as whether they are within the habitable zone of their star or whether they have a sufficient amount of water. However, there is another parameter that has not been taken into account until now and that, according to a recently published study, may be decisive: the presence of supermassive black holes in the vicinity of the planet. Even distant black holes. This study, published in The Astrophysical Journalpoints to two types of winds generated by supermassive black holes. Some driven by moment and others driven by energy. The former are lighter, but the latter can be intense enough to leave a nearby exoplanet without an atmosphere. Since the atmosphere is indeed an essential ingredient for life, we should be paying much more attention to large black holes. In fact, if these winds are sufficiently energetic, an exoplanet could be affected even by a black hole located at a great distance. Much more than a living area. Generally, to search for habitable exoplanets, it is taken into account that they are within what is known as the habitable zone. This is a region that is at the right distance from its star so that it is neither too hot nor too cold and therefore the water can remain liquid. In recent years, much more specific factors have been taken into account, such as the proximity of supernovae. These stellar phenomena release so much radiation that it can sterilize life on a planet. They also emit shock waves so large that they can destroy their atmosphere. Since supernovae may be key, the authors of the recently published study also wanted to explore the role of black holes. What they found is very relevant to the future search for habitable planets. Active galactic nuclei. This study focuses on active galactic nuclei. That is, supermassive black holes, with masses billions of times greater than that of the Sun, that are actively feeding. That is, they continue absorbing matter into themselves. But, as is well known, black holes do not only absorb matter. There is also some radiation and particles that are released abruptly, giving rise to something known as jets. The movement of these particles also forms winds that can affect what happens around them. Based on the hypothesis that these scientists had, the more massive a black hole of this type is and the more it is feeding, the more energy it must release, so that the atmosphere of possible nearby exoplanets heats up more, its molecules move faster and escape more easily into space. Therefore, the atmosphere breaks down faster and its probability of habitability is lower. Unlike supernovae, which release energy much more abruptly, in this case it would be done in a sustained manner, so there may be more consequences. The two types of wind. Through the development of simplified models, it was observed that galactic nuclei release winds that, upon impact with the interstellar medium, divide into two streams. If they cool, they cannot expand, so they will have almost no energy. These do not propagate efficiently and have a limited effect on the galaxy. On the other hand, if these winds do not cool, they expand like a bubble, releasing a large amount of energy that can sweep the galaxy and affect the atmosphere of exoplanets along the way. These are the truly problematic ones, so it would be necessary to take into account whether there are any in the vicinity when choosing exoplanets that are candidates for hosting life. Also the ozone layer. It has been seen that these black holes can also release nitrogen oxides that affect the ozone layerin case a planet has it. If this is the case, it does not mean that there is not necessarily life, but it would be limited to the oceans. It would be another factor to take into account. With all these parameters, we can get a much more precise idea of ​​which planets could truly be habitable. Searching for life in the Universe seems to be like looking for a needle in a haystack. But the more we know, the smaller that haystack will become. Images | NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Jeremy Schnittman, cmglee In Xataka | The James Webb has broken another historical record: a supermassive black hole older than expected

Astronomers have no doubt that there is extraterrestrial life. Mathematics says that it will take 1,500 years to find it

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We have been sending signals to the cosmos for almost a century through high-power radio transmissions or even with military radars that exist around the entire planet. Little by little, humanity has been creating an electromagnetic “bubble” that expands at the speed of light, but unfortunately for some, we have not yet received a response to all these signals, and it is easy to fall into pessimism about the absence of other living beings beyond our atmosphere. The mathematics. The question here is not if we will connect with extraterrestrial intelligence, but when. And here the scientific community has great optimismsince the astronomical community is not based on UFO sightings, but on pure statistics. Here institutions like SETI They have been scanning the sky for decadesand although there is still no evidence of interference or signals of artificial origin, the conviction that we are not alone is stronger than ever. The bubble. To understand why scientists are so sure of this, you first have to look at the scale of the problem in our Milky Way, which is 100,000 light years across. This monstrous figure collides with our radio bubble that barely touches 100 light years, so on a galactic scale, we have not even crossed the street. This is where the famous Fermi paradox comes into play, which suggests that, if the universe is so vast and old, there should be someone around us, and that is why the question this researcher asked went down in history: where is everyone? The answer most supported by modern astrobiology is based on the “Mediocrity Principle”, an astronomical concept that maintains that there is nothing special about Earth and suggests that, if life arose here under certain physical and chemical conditions, it is statistically inevitable that it has arisen on a fraction of the billions of exoplanets that orbit habitable zones in our galaxy. Investigation continues. In 2016, an influential study from Cornell University put numbers to this paradox. To do this, the Drake equation was crossed with the expansion of our radio bubble with the aim of calculating how far our signal would have to travel to reach a sufficient number of stars to guarantee, by pure statistical probability, an answer. The result yielded a figure that has become a recurring reference in spatial dissemination: contact should not be expected before about 1,500 years. According to this mathematical model, for our signals to reach extraterrestrial ears requires that we cover at least half of the galaxy. Until then, it will seem like we are alone, even though the universe teems with life. Where do we look? While the 1,500-year clock continues to tick, scientists are not standing idly by, and that is why we have initiatives like SETI that they are not just looking to hear somethingbut to understand how we should listen to it. And for decades, the search for life has focused on very specific radio frequencies, highlighting the famous 1420 MHz hydrogen emission line, assuming that any advanced civilization would use that universal frequency to communicate. But… What if it’s not like that? New approaches aim to diversify the search towards broader technosignatures, since it is no longer just a matter of searching for an intentional “hello” in the form of a radio wave, but rather detecting electromagnetic pollution from other civilizations, the use of optical lasers for interplanetary communication, or even searching for signals at low-frequency radio frequencies that until now had been ignored or discarded by terrestrial interference. Images | Graham Holtshausen In Xataka | If we want to find extraterrestrial life, we already know where in space we should look: the “terminator zone”

We have been searching for extraterrestrial life for decades. According to these astrobiologists, we have been doing it wrong all this time

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We are very used to hearing that someone has found possible signs of life in space. Then life is never found, but the trail seems to be there. All of these findings often end up being false positives, something astrobiologists are more than familiar with. However, According to a study just published in Nature Astronomy, They could be overlooking false negatives and that would be serious. Pass life long. What the authors of this study point out is that false negatives could be more common than we think. That is to say, many of the times when it is clearly concluded that there is no life in a place in space, it could be that it did exist, but it had been passed by without being detected. The causes. There could be three reasons why these false negatives occur. On the one hand, no traces of life are preserved. That is, it exists or has existed, but has not left a detectable trace. It could also be that this fingerprint is difficult to detect. Or, perhaps, that the methods used to detect it have limitations. Along these lines, the authors of the study give an example. Let’s imagine that there is a living being that, through its metabolic reactions, generates some gas that is understood as a trace of life. Maybe oxygen or methane. But let’s also imagine that there is a geological activity in that place that captures that gas from the environment. I wouldn’t have time to measure it. Therefore, the detection of life would have to be covered from other points. The risks. There are two main risks of not paying attention to false negatives. On the one hand, instruments that would help find even more traces of life would be deprioritized. If we do not find anything that justifies its development, we limit the possibilities of continuing searching. On the other hand, if life is not adequately searched for, resources from other planets where such life is found could be exploited. We would destroy it before we even knew it existed. Solutions. These scientists believe that searching for patterns using artificial intelligence could be an option. If the usual methods have not worked so far, perhaps we should ask an algorithm to detect patterns that have gone unnoticed to find new search paths. Along the same lines, it would also be necessary to study the terrain better and pay attention to anomalies. For example, if an unconventional type of oxidation is detected on a planet, inexplicable with what we know on Earth, it could be that it was associated with some form of life. It may not look like the oxidation carried out by terrestrial living beings, but who says it has to be the same? You have to think outside the box. Combine different types of work. In short, these scientists consider that to adequately search for life it is necessary to combine laboratory experiments with modeling and field work. But, above all, it is important to change the questions we ask ourselves. What if it has already been found? In 2019, a former NASA scientist told in an article for Scientific American that, according to himhis agency found life on Mars, but accidentally destroyed it. Supposedly, it all happened in the 1970s, in an experiment that was part of the Viking mission. This consisted of depositing nutrients in the soil and checking if gases typical of microbial decomposition were produced. Then, to ensure that it was not a coincidence, they would repeat the process, but adding a substance lethal to living organisms to the soil. In that case, gases should not be produced. And no, they were not produced, so there was something alive generating the gases. It was great news, but NASA did not publish that result, because when trying to replicate the experiment it came back negative. In science it is very important to replicate the results, so they concluded that it must have been a false positive. However, this former member of NASA, Gilbert V. Levin, believes that they destroyed life unintentionally and that is why they could not replicate it. This is no longer an anecdote. Most likely, they would not have found life. However, this story shows that we are always more predisposed to false positive than false negative. The focus would have to be changed a little. Maybe then we will finally find some life beyond our own planet. Images | Eric Erbe and Christopher Pooley (illustrative image of E.coliit has nothing to do with the study)/ Brett Ritchie (Unsplash) In Xataka | Life on Earth underwent a spectacular change 540 million years ago. We have a new explanation why

Why 20°C “ice slush” changes our search for extraterrestrial life

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Titan, the crown jewel of the moons of saturnjust gave us a slap of reality. For two decades, the official narrative of space exploration focused on what was hidden beneath its thick haze. a vast global ocean of liquid water. But now we know that we were wrong, or at least, it was not as we imagined. The study. Led by Flavio Petricca, from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) from NASAand published this December 17, 2025 in Nature magazineproposes a radically different model: Titan does not have an interconnected ocean, but a dense, viscous layer of “slush ice” with pockets of trapped liquid water. The 15 hour lag. The Cassini probe ended its mission in 2017 crashing into Saturn, but its data remains a gold mine for physicists. Petricca’s team has therefore decided to reanalyze the probe’s Doppler data, that is, the changes in frequency in the radio signals generated by the moon’s gravity. But now with the most modern processing techniques that we have developed. The result of the analysis is a 15-hour lag in Titan’s tidal response. This means that when Saturn exerts its brutal force of gravity on Titan, the moon deforms as if stretched. In this way, if on its surface there would be pure waterthe response would be almost instantaneous as it is liquid. But what they saw is a 15-hour delay that indicated that the interior is highly viscous. What is it? The data collected suggests that the material on Titan behaves more like a pasty glacier or extremely dense slush. What seems ruled out is free-flowing water, where the existence of life in the future was already pointed out. A new Titan. With all the data that has been collected, it has been possible to completely define everything we knew about the internal geology of Saturn’s largest moon. Specifically, it is now known that the rock core has a radius of 2.26 km, and the layer that surrounds it is formed by high-pressure ice mixed with water. Although not everything has to be so cold, it also has hot water pockets due to the internal heat. This is what keeps liquid water lakes near the rock core at about 20ºC. The question of life. At first glance, eliminating a global ocean of liquid water may seem like a bad idea for astrobiologists who had hoped for life here. But for the members of this study, the opposite is true. In the new “slush” model, the liquid water in the pockets is in direct contact with the rock core. This is very important, as it allows the water to dissolve essential nutrients from the rose and also have a temperature of 20°C which is ideal for complex chemical reactions. But also, having a small size, all these components are more concentrated. Dragonfly. This discovery puts all the pressure on this NASA mission whose launch It is planned from 2028. Dragonfly is an octocopter designed to fly over the surface of Titan, but its most important instrument in this context is its seismometer. What was expected is that this mission would measure the tides of a deep ocean. Now their mission will be to confirm whether seismic waves propagate through this viscous “hail.” In the event that the characteristic vibrations are detected, we will have confirmed that Titan is the most promising chemical laboratory in our solar system. Images | Wikipedia Matt Hardy In Xataka | NASA changes hands in the middle of the space race with China: private astronaut Jared Isaacman will be its new director

Encell has everything to house extraterrestrial life. And Europe is moving to discover it before anyone else

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When NASA’s Cassini probe sent the first images of the water vapor jet That world was not dead. It was on, and the content of an underground ocean was expelling to space. Since then, Each new satellite data He has reinforced an idea that excites astrobiologists: if there is a place beyond the earth where to look for life, it is there. Short. A new Cassini data analysis, collected almost twenty years ago, has reinforced the possibility of Encelado to meet all the conditions to house life. The European space agency is clear: Encell is already a central objective of its long -term exploration plan, and it is time to launch a mission to answer the big question at once. The ingredients for life. For life to exist as we know it, three things are needed: liquid water, energy and several basic chemical elements: carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and sulfur. Once all seems to have them. We know that a global saltwater ocean is hidden under its icy cortex. The energy is provided by the friction of the tides that Saturn causes and, probably, Hydrothermal sources in the seabedsimilar to fumaroles that here are full of bacteria and more complex organisms, such as worms and snails. Promising news. Thanks to the brain speakers, who launch samples to space, Cassini was able to analyze the composition of their ocean. Although most of the essential elements had already been detected, including phosphorus, a new finding between probe data has re -raised enthusiasm. A study published in Nature Astronomy Analyzes a Cassini flight from 2008. The ship crossed the brain feathers at 18 km/s. That speed, which seemed like a problem, turned out to be useful: the impact broke the molecules in a way that allowed them to identify them better. The result has been the discovery of new complex organic molecules, such as aliphatic compounds, esters, ethers and other molecules with nitrogen and oxygen. On Earth, these molecules are linked to reactions that give rise to amino acids, the basic pieces of proteins. ESA plans. With such promising scenario, Europe does not want to be left behind. In his scientific road map Voyage 2050, Encesto is already the star destination for a future mission. The idea includes an orbiter and a landing module. The orbiter would fly over the brain feathers several times with more precise instruments than Cassini. The landing would pose near the “stripes of Tigre” of the South Pole, where the geysers emerge, to directly collect the newly fallen snow. It would be the first time that a probe analyzes a world with an active ocean, although it would not reach the surface until 2058. Europe is not alone in the race. The United States also has its proposal: the mission Alcamadus orbilandermarked as a maximum priority in the Survey decadal of 2023. Your plan is very similar: orbit first and then land. China, meanwhile, already works in nuclear technology for deep space probes and Enced is among its future goals. Image | POT In Xataka | If we want to find extraterrestrial life, we already know at what point in the space we must look for: the “Terminator”

NASA ignores Harvard’s study on an alleged extraterrestrial ship: “It is an interstellar kite”

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On July 1, 2025 he will go down in history as the day that astronomers confirmed the presence of an interstellar third object In the Solar System. 3i/Atlas is, according to NASA, a kite from another star. But for Harvard Avi Loeb teacher, it could be something much more disturbing: a piece of extraterrestrial technology, possibly hostile. Wait, what? In a series of articles and a Paper scientist Not yet reviewed by pairs, Avi Loeb and its collaborators pose a hypothesis that touches science fiction. Known for his controversial position on ‘oumuamua, The first interstellar object ever discoveredwhich also described as possible alien technology, Loeb bases his new theory on a series of characteristics that he considers “anomalous” on the path and nature of 3i/Atlas. The anomalies of 3i/Atlas. Loeb Point out in your blog that the retrograde path of 3i/Atlas is inclined only about five degrees with respect to the plane in which the earth orbit. The director of the Harvard Astronomy Department estimates that the probability that this occurs by chance is only 0.2%. His career about Venus, Mars and Jupiter unusually. An orbit like this, it argues, would be ideal for a probe that would like to observe the planets of the interior solar system. On the other hand, Loeb highlights its huge size, initially estimated at 20 kilometers in diameter. According to his article, we should have seen a million objects of the size of ‘oumuamua (about 100 meters) for each object of the 3I/Atlas caliber. To top it off, the new interstellar visitor will reach its closest point to the sun (its perihelium) on October 29, 2025, at which time it will have been hidden from our view by the sun itself. The dark forest hypothesis. Loeb suggests that becoming invisible from our point of view is intentionally, since the perihelium is the optimal point to perform an inverse Oberth maneuver: a high efficiency braking to be gravitationally trapped by the solar system without being detected from the earth. To round his hypothesis, Loeb is part of this idea in the dark forest hypothesis, popularized by the author of “The problem of the three bodies”, Cixin Liu. The hypothesis, One of the explanations of the Fermi paradoxsuggests that advanced civilizations remain silent to avoid being detected by other potentially predatory civilizations. In this scenario, 3i/Atlas would be a recognition probe exploring the solar system. NASA does not believe it is an alien ship. Although Loeb’s arguments are intriguing, they face Ockham’s Navaja, who says that the simplest explanation is usually correct. In this case, the simplest explanation is that 3i/Atlas is a kite, As NASA says. And the astronomical community has more and more evidence to support this conclusion, refuting, point by point, alleged anomalies. Telescope images such as North Gemini or the Vera C. Rubin Observatory They show what a coma looks like, A diffuse gas and dust cloud surrounding the kite ice cream When heated by the sun. This should invalidate the argument of the size of 20 km, since the real core is much smaller. Loeb himself He later recognized That the elongated appearance is due to the movement of the object during the photographic exposure, not to its shape. Disassembling the Avi Loeb hypothesis. Loeb said that no specific gases were detected. However, as explained by astronomer Darryl Seligman, the object was still far from the sun when those statements were made. It is normal for comime activity (basically, sublimation of ice) is weak to those distances. It is expected that as he approaches the sun, The spectral firms of gases They become visible. Loeb’s hypothesis has been received with strong skepticism. Chris Lentott, Astronomo of Oxford, described the suggestion In Live Science as “a nonsense about stilts and an insult to the exciting work that is being done to understand this object.” This reaction is not by closure, but because the overwhelming evidence available points in another direction. The reality is that 3i/Atlas is a fascinating object, a piece of another solar system that visits us very far, and that has probably more years than the Sun. Studying its composition and trajectory will give us very valuable information about how the planets are formed in other places of the galaxy. In Xataka | These real images were unthinkable before the Webb Telescope: they are planets orbiting other stars to 130 light years Image | Gemini Observatory/Noirlab/NSF/Aura/K. Meech (Ifa/U. Hawaii); Processing: Jen Miller, Mahdi Zamani (NSF/Noirlab)

Webb telescope has been looking for extraterrestrial life for years. He just found the strongest signal so far in K2-18b

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The finding. An international team of scientists, headed by researchers at the University of Cambridge, has just made public sulfide detection or dimethyl disulfide in the atmosphere of the exoplanet K2 –18B, which has been observing the James Webb space telescope. On earth, these molecules are only produced by living organisms, mainly marine phytoplankton. It is the strongest evidence so far of a biofirma, a sign of possible extraterrestrial life, outside the solar system. To confirm it, they will take between 16 and 24 hours of observation with the Webb Telescope, according to the study published by The Astrophysical Journal Letters. What is K2-18b. It is what is called a “subneptune”, a planet of 8.6 times the dough and 2.6 times the radius of the earth that orbits a red dwarf in the habitable zone (receiving a flow of energy from its star similar to the earth). It is 124 light years from us, in Leo’s constellation. He is also a candidate for planet Hacéano, worlds that could house global oceans under hydrogen -rich atmospheres. Webb’s first observations have already detected methane and carbon dioxide, which fits with this scenario. Reasons for optimism. When the planet passes in front of its star, part of the stellar light crosses its atmosphere. Each molecule leaves a pattern in the spectrum that scientists associate with molecules. Scientists They have seen twice the same pattern since 2023 With the Miri instrument of the Webb. We are facing the first coherent biofirma on a planet outside the solar system. Life could be more common than we think of planets greater than Earth. The planets made us would enter our external life search radar, today focused on rock worlds such as superstierras. Reasons for caution. Although on earth dimethyl sulfur is biological, researchers admit that in a world under high pressure and with an atmosphere of hydrogen, it could be the result of exotic geochemical reactions. They will need laboratory experiments and models to check.

launch a super hubble dedicated to looking for extraterrestrial life

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Last summer, NASA opened a new office at the Goddard Space Flight Center dedicated exclusively to design the most ambitious telescope in history. The habitable Worlds Observatory. With an investment of 17.5 million dollars only to explore the necessary technologies to materialize it, the HWO is described as a super hubblea new generation space telescope designed to look for extraterrestrial life on other planets. And we are not talking about planets of the Solar System. This observatory of habitable worlds will be dedicated to looking for biofirms on extra -land planets similar to the earth, the exoplanets that are discovered at a habitable distance of its star. A huge space telescope. If there is a clear thing is that The HWO will have imposing dimensions. NASA is considering mirrors that could measure between 4 and 15 meters in diameter. A savage compared to 2.4 meters of Hubble and 6.5 meters from James Webb. A greater magnitude would increase its ability to capture light and details of the exoplanets, but it would also complicate their deployment, taking into account that, like the webb, it will be located 1.5 million kilometers from the earth, in the second point of equilibrium Lagrange gravitational. Starship, heats you. Bringing such a large telescope to L2 will necessarily require any of the most powerful rockets in the world. Taking into account the SLS cancellation rumorsThere are two options left: New Glenn: The new Blue Origin rocket has a 7 -meter wide cofa, much larger than the standard of 5.4. I could launch the HWO if NASA opted for a compact version of the telescope Starship: The highest and most powerful rocket in the world has a 9 -meter load bay. By the time the HWO is ready, Spacex will have the completely operational ship, even with the ability to refuel in orbit to compensate for the enormous use of propellants in takeoff If the HWO ends up being larger than the James Webb space telescope (which was launched folded in the European rocket Ariane 5), Then Starship will be virtually the best option for deployment. What can we expect from HWO. Among the instruments planned for the telescope, there will be a very high sensitivity coronographer. It will allow to block the light of the stars to focus on the planets that orbit them. In addition, it will integrate high -resolution cameras, an advanced spectroscope and a fourth instrument yet to be defined. Unlike the Webb, which focuses on infrared, the HWO will operate on the visible spectrum and cover some ultraviolet and infrared bands, hence it is seen as the spiritual successor of the Hubble telescope. When will it be ready. According to the most optimistic calculations, around 2034. But taking into account that manufacturing its mirrors will require a precision at the scale of itchometers, we can expect a slow and complex process that perhaps approaches the release date to 2040. However, the lessons learned from James Webb (which cost 10,000 million dollars and launched after numerous delays) could help reduce cost overruns and postponements of this type of scientific missions. The HWO is not, in fact, a project that just put on the table. It arises from the convergence of previous initiatives such as Habex and Luvoir, and drinks from years of experience in previous missions. Image | NASA-GODDARD In Xataka | NASA has such a simple explanation that it scares about our inability to find extraterrestrial signs

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