NASA is embarking on a new Moon shot, aiming to one day build a permanent crewed station on the lunar surface. Before it sends any people, though, the agency is launching a golf-cart-sized robot to the Moon s freezing, shadowy south pole.
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Do you feel lucky? Chance likely played a major role in life persisting on Earth
A simulation of 100,000 Earthlike planets ended with very few remaining habitable for the billions of years we d expect it to take for life to evolve.
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An illustration of an Earthlike exoplanet(NASA) comments
Quirks and Quarks7:20Do you feel lucky? Chance likely played a major role in life persisting on Earth
A scientist who ran simulations of the evolution of 100,000 possible planets has concluded that the chance of any particular planet remaining habitable long enough for life to evolve intelligence are quite small.
Image Credit: NASA/Ames Research Center/Daniel Rutter
The Greeks had a word, hubris, that gets thrown about a lot. I have the impression that it means something like “self-confidence.” Right? Self-confidence is great stuff! Empowering! There are no challenges that human ingenuity cannot overcome: social conflicts, climate change, plagues and pandemics. We’ll just power through it all like a tank through soap bubbles.
I must admit that not every science fiction author adopts this buoyant stance. Some of them have taken a contrary point of view, in fact, positing that there are some circumstances that will defeat humans, no matter how smart and persevering they are. Circumstances like alien worlds that cannot be terraformed into human-friendly resort planets. Here are five worlds that steadfastly resist meddling…