Discoveries That Really, Really Seemed Like Aliens
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As the famous
X-Filesposter declares, “I want to believe.” This wanting, however, often leads us astray. When confronted with shocking and inexplicable celestial phenomena, we tend to see intelligent design. This jumping to conclusions is a sin for which we can be forgiven we have an insatiable need to know if someone’s out there. When we say, “I want to believe,” what we’re actually saying is, “I hope we’re not alone.”
Artistic conception of a neutron star. (Image: NASA)
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Astronomers are puzzling over observations that show a black hole smashing into a mystery object of unusual size.
New research published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters describes a collision between a black hole and a yet-to-be identified object. At the time of this celestial tryst, the black hole was 23 times more massive than our Sun, but the unknown object was just 2.6 times the Sun’s mass, which is distinctly weird.
2015 Andrea Recalde, Hobart, New York
2015 Charlie Blanchard, San Francisco, California Back 2010 Angelique Pierre, Port-au-Prince, Haiti
As a means of arriving at a more critical and focused view of the dense capital city of Port-au-Prince, Haiti I sought to define a tangible image of the social and spatial conditions around the infrastructural systems linking the city through water distribution, the program of the latrine, and, subsequently, that of the market.
Upon arriving in Port-au-Prince the greatest challenge was to read the internal logic of the city, as there were seemingly a number of systems operating simultaneously and without resolution. Traveling along any major route, moments of complete desertion suddenly yield to moments of dense commercial activity. In the commercial centers, various informal programs, often incompatible, flow into contiguous spaces as a means of adaptation to allow new merchants to enter the commercial sphere and compete to surviv
Alum’s career at University spanned 70 years, impacted generations of students
Prof. Emeritus Peter O. Vandervoort, an astrophysicist who was trained by legendary scientists at the University of Chicago and spent his career mentoring hundreds of students, colleagues and the public, died Dec. 11. He was 85.
Part of the UChicago community for nearly seven decades, Vandervoort, AB’54, SB’55, SM’56, PhD’60, was remembered by colleagues as the resident historian of the Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics and a lifelong champion for the University.
“In many ways, Peter was the embodiment of the history and culture in the astronomy department, but I also thought of him as embodying the ideals of the University,” said Prof. Richard Kron, a longtime friend and colleague in the department. “He valued your opinion regardless of whether he disagreed, and he had the utmost respect for everyone as human beings and as participants in this academic world, wh
As the famous
X-Filesposter declares, “I want to believe.” This wanting, however, often leads us astray. When confronted with shocking and inexplicable celestial phenomena, we tend to see intelligent design. This jumping to conclusions is a sin for which we can be forgiven we have an insatiable need to know if someone’s out there. When we say, “I want to believe,” what we’re actually saying is, “I hope we’re not alone.”
From the moment the first members of our species took the time to look up and ponder existence, we’ve been misinterpreting the stars. Someone once told me that ancient peoples probably mistook the tiny twinkling dots above for distant campfires, in what was probably the first example of humans “seeing” aliens that aren’t actually there. We’re still doing this, as these historical examples demonstrate.