In a Hubble picture, a red circle indicates an object in a distant galaxy that could be an ejected black hole.

A super-massive black hole — heavier than one billion suns — appears headed on an exit out of its home galaxy at 670,000 miles-an-hour.

“We have located a peculiar X-ray source,” says the upcoming study in The Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society journal, led by Marianne Heida of Utrecht University in the Netherlands, “either a very blue type IIn supernova, a (X-ray star) with a very bright optical counterpart or a recoiling super-massive black hole.”

Noted by NASA’s Chandra X-ray space telescope, the object called CXO J122518.6+144545 resides some 607,000 light years away in the SDSS DR7 galaxy (one light year is about 5.9 trillion miles.) Curiously, the object is about 10,500 light years outside the center of the galaxy, marked by an accompanying bright spot in the sky, noted by Hubble space telescope images.

Read complete article here. {via USA Today}

Aliens are out there and Earth had better watch out, at least according to Stephen Hawking. He has suggested that extraterrestrials are almost certain to exist — but that instead of seeking them out, humanity should be doing all it that can to avoid any contact.

The suggestions come in a new documentary series in which Hawking, one of the world’s leading scientists, will set out his latest thinking on some of the universe’s greatest mysteries.

Scientist suggests that aliens might simply raid Earth for its resources and then move on: “We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn’t want to meet. Aliens are out there and Earth had better watch out, at least according to Stephen Hawking. He has suggested that extraterrestrials are almost certain to exist — but that instead of seeking them out, humanity should be doing all it that can to avoid any contact.The suggestions come in a new documentary series in which Hawking, one of the world’s leading scientists, will set out his latest thinking on some of the universe’s greatest mysteries.

Read complete article here. {via foxnews.com}

Hadron Collider

Scientists claim the giant atom-smashing Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is being jinxed from the future to save the world.

In a bizarre sci-fi theory, Danish physicist Dr Holger Bech Nielsen and Dr Masao Ninomiya from Japan claim nature is trying to prevent the LHC from finding the elusive Higgs boson. Called the “God particle,” the theoretical boson could explain the origins of mass in the universe — if physicists can find the darn thing.

The scientists say their math proves nature will “ripple backward through time” to stop the LHC before it can create the God particle, like a time traveller who goes back in time to kill his grandfather.

“One could even almost say that we have a model for God,” Dr Nielsen says in an unpublished essay. “He rather hates Higgs particles, and attempts to avoid them.”

Read complete article here. {via Fox News}

UFOs over Washington, D.C., 1952(ufocasebook)

For many years “UFology” – or the study of the UFO phenomenon has generally been dismissed by the scientific community.  Many scientists continue to debunk the reality of UFO’s even in light of the fact that a recent national survey indicated that nearly 70 percent of the American public believes that UFO’s are real, and that they most likely are guided by intelligent beings from other worlds or dimensions.  There is ample evidence from credible witnesses including: former NASA astronauts and Russian cosmonauts, ex-military, and law enforcement officers.  So, what will it take to convince mainstream science to seriously consider the possible existence of UFO’s?  Patricia B. Corbett, in her article “UFOs-A Challenge to Mainstream Science”, suggests that it is essential to prevent this important phenomenon to serious scientists it a context with which they can identify, namely the discipline of science as it is practiced today.  Second, it is equally important to show that the tools of science can be used to investigate the UFO phenomenon, and to reach valid conclusions.

Read complete article here. {via The Examiner}

Butterfly emerges from stellar demise in Planetary Nebula NGC 6302. (Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble SM4 ERO Team)

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope is back in business, ready to uncover new worlds, peer ever deeper into space, and even map the invisible backbone of the universe.

The first snapshots from the refurbished Hubble showcase the 19-year-old telescope’s new vision. Topping the list of exciting new views are colorful multi-wavelength pictures of far- flung galaxies, a densely packed star cluster, an eerie “pillar of creation,” and a “butterfly” nebula.

With the release of these images, astronomers have declared Hubble a fully rejuvenated observatory. Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski, D-Md., unveiled the images at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 9, 2009.

Read complete article here. {via Science Daily}

A clip from a BBC documentary explaining Hawking radiation around black holes. {source: stevebd1}

Milky Way Galaxy. Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech

(PhysOrg.com) — 95%. That is the percentage of the known Universe that is missing. As in it is not there. Or at least if it is there, we can’t see it. We call this unseen stuff “dark matter”. That has been well known for sometime. What is trickier in answering is why? Why is it that 95% of the universe is made up of this so-named “dark matter?” An even trickier question is where? As in where is this dark matter? It is those two questions that have plagued physicists for decades. Dark matter, by its own definition cannot be seen, hence its name. So how do we “see” it, how do we know “where” to look?

Physicists have been trying to think of various “indirect” ways to “see” dark matter for decades. Now physicists at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, NJ and the Max Planck Institute for Physics in Munich are ready to test their methods, The Economist reports.

Read complete article here. {via physorg.com}

Embedded in darkness (economist)

MOST of reality appears to be missing. Physicists reckon that the missing matter must be there, but that it is dark. Finding the stuff is damned tricky because dark matter, by definition, cannot be seen. So some of those physicists have been busy trying to devise ways of glimpsing it indirectly—and two groups of them now think their methods are ready to test.

One reason to believe dark matter exists is that galaxies rotate at such speeds that they would fly apart without it, or so the argument goes. The fact that galaxies persist suggests they are held together by the gravitational pull of something invisible—in other words, dark matter. This stops stars being shed from their edges.

Read complete article here. {via economist}

A still of the original video feed from Apollo 11. (NASA)

A carefully worded media advisory note issued Monday promised that “greatly improved video imagery from the July 1969 live broadcast of the Apollo 11 moonwalk” would be made public Thursday.

Rumors have been flying around the Internet for weeks that NASA, after years of searching, had discovered the original recordings of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin’s lunar excursion — which the space agency once feared had been accidentally destroyed.

Read complete article here. {via Fox News}

Laboratory scientist Dean Radin describes an experiment testing the relationship between mind and matter. In this experiment, random number generators are used to test whether collective human attention corresponds to a change in the physical environment. {source: globaloneness}