Lifeboat Foundation

Galaxies millions of light years away seem to be connected by an unseen network of massive intergalactic structures, which force them to synchronize in ways that can’t be explained by existing astrophysics, Vice reports. The discoveries could force us to rethink our fundamental understanding of the universe.

“The observed coherence must have some relationship with large-scale structures, because it is impossible that the galaxies separated by six megaparsecs [roughly 20 million light years] directly interact with each other,” Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute astronomer Hyeop Lee told the site.

When dinosaurs ruled the Earth, the planet was on a completely different side of the galaxy.

A new animation by NASA scientist Jessie Christiansen shows just how long the dinosaurs’ reign lasted, and how short the era of humans has been in comparison, by tracing our solar system’s movement through the Milky Way.

Our Sun orbits the galaxy’s centre, completing its rotation every 250 million years or so. So Christiansen’s animation shows that last time our Solar System was at its current point in the galaxy, the Triassic Period was in full swing and dinosaurs were just beginning to emerge.

Neil deGrasse Tyson talks candidly about the challenges facing astronomy and the search for life outside the solar system.

Tourists may soon be wining, dining, and even playing Quidditch in space. NASA’s search for space-habitat designs is starting a new tourism industry.

A critical milestone for our Commercial Crew Program, a Northrop Grumman Corporation cargo spacecraft makes a delivery to the International Space Station and a new wide-eyed view of the southern sky … a few of the stories to tell you about – This Week at NASA! Watch:

If we want to reach Mars, we may have to upgrade our DNA.

Samples of lunar dust and rock returned to Earth during the Apollo missions quickly offered scientists new insights into the makeup of our Moon, but what do they look like under the microscopes of today? NASA has just cracked open the first of two untouched lunar samples for study with modern scientific instruments, with one eye on the upcoming Artemis missions that will return humans to the Moon in 2024.

This NASA initiative is known as the Apollo Next-Generation Sample Analysis project. It concerns two samples collected in the early 1970s that were quickly sealed and stored in the form of tubes of rock and soil, representing two-feet of vertical layering from the lunar surface.

“We are able to make measurements today that were just not possible during the years of the Apollo program,” says Dr. Sarah Noble, ANGSA program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “The analysis of these samples will maximize the science return from Apollo, as well as enable a new generation of scientists and curators to refine their techniques and help prepare future explorers for lunar missions anticipated in the 2020s and beyond.”

Scientists analyzing data from a defunct satellite say we should all consider that our universe might be round, rather than flat. The consequences, they explain in a new paper, could be crisis-inducing.

Current theories of the universe, which describe its age, size, and how it evolves over time, are built around a flat spacetime. A new paper reiterates that data from the final Planck satellite release might be better explained by a round universe than a flat universe. Though not everyone agrees with the paper’s conclusions, the authors write that the consequences of assuming a flat universe when the universe is actually round could be dire.

Most every cosmologist believes the universe is flat. A new analysis argues that it’s closed.