We are All Aliens

OMG! According to this DNA test, humans are our ancient cousins..

Back in the days when MTV was more popular than Youtube, Moby was singing “We are Made of Stars”. And although I was not completely unaware of the meaning at that time, I found it interesting that mainstream science ideas was catching up with mainstream music of that time. This just came in a flashback because today I just read something that reminds me of the phrase, “We are all Aliens”. I first heard it back during the buzz about Martian asteroids fallen to Earth with traces of what seemed like primitive carbon life forms, which, if I recollect correctly, was later recanted by NASA. (what seemed like biggest conspiracy cover up. Haha) This would have supported theories that life on Earth did not originate from Earth, but elsewhere in the Universe.

Panspermia is a hypothesis that life on Earth has been seeded by falling bodies from outer space (meteors, asteroids, comets et al). Although it has fascinated public imagination over the years now it has not gained popular support for the scientific community. It owes its unpopularity maybe due to lack of evidence or maybe due to racism over its proponent- Chandra Wickramasinghe. Nope just kiddin’. Haha

Well unpopularity-due-to-lack-of-evidence may end now for Panspermia, as Chandra himself (now Director of the 'Cardiff Centre for Astrobiology) discovered that a two-inch wide meteorite that crash landed in a fireball in central Sri Lanka last December has tiny fossils of algae, similar to the kind found in our seaweeds. And while skeptics say the rock had probably become contaminated with algae fossils from Earth, Chandra maintains it saying that “The algae organisms are similar to ones found in Earth fossils, but the rock also has other organisms we have not identified.”

Not only that these would prove Panspermia, it would add proof that we are not alone the universe, and not that there are probably aliens out there but we may share the same cosmic ancestry (see wiki).

So, we are all aliens! Now, let’s wait for someone to make a song about that too.

The Largest Known Structure in the Universe

Map showing Huge LQG in dots

This month, a team of astronomers in England published the discovery of a clump of active galactic cores that stretches 4 billion light-years from end to end. Dubbed as The Huge LQG (large quasar group), it is composed of 73 luminous quasars

To help us to put this into perspective, we can us start with taking the distance between Manila and New York in mind, by plane if in a Boeing 707 and maintained an average cruise speed its takes 19.4 hours, but with the speed of light that same distance would only take a fraction of a second - approximately 0.046 seconds, the Sun and Earth in light speed is 8 minutes apart, then the distance across the milky way 100,000 light years. But with this new super structure, light will take 4 billion years to travel across it. Truly astronomical in the most literal meaning of the word. This new discovery goes against the existing Cosmological Principle that predict a homogeneous universe and that this type structure is not supposed to exist

Prior to this discovery, The Sloan Great Wall, a wall of galaxies that stretches 1.38 billion light years forming giant wall of galaxies, was considered the largest structure in the universe, so let us see what is next for us out there.

First Juan dela Cruz in Space

We have this Filipino pride that keeps us tracking the “First Filipino” to achieve something worthy of international attention. Like we all take pride to know who is the first Filipino Ms. Universe, first Filipino Olympic silver medalist, first Filipino world champion boxer to win eight divisions, and so on and so forth.

But we are all still waiting for the first Filipino to get an Olympic gold medal and of course the first Filipino Astronaut, every little kids dream – to become an astronaut.

Will we see them in our lifetime?

As for the Olympic gold medal, I can’t tell. But for the first Filipino astronaut, that could come very soon. AXE Apollo Program will be launching a search for the First Pinoy Astronaut. Yes, that is AXE – the brand of a male grooming of product that when you use can hypnotize lots of women to come dashing after you (or so the commercial puts it). Now not only they can drive these women crazy for you, they can now also send you to space to get away from all these women running after you.( hmm.. that would have been a good TV commercial idea) 

AXE Apollo Program have prepared a slot for one Filipino astronaut who will go with the group of 22 ordinary men from around the globe to travel to space. This program will be launched with Buzz Aldrin in (what seemed to me a not so very brassy) promotional video.

According to AXE website, interested applicants will have to sign up here. 100 initial contestant will be chosen from online voting. The 100 candidates will be sent to a 3-day space camp where they will have to pass fitness test. And those who will pass these tests will join the real astronaut training for the second half of 2014 when the lucky Pinoy will join 22 other people to go to space and eventually join a group 529 men and women astronaut in this elite group.

These is probably the biggest shot to have one Filipino to go space. Because the only other alternative is have one to get one in to space programs of other countries, since we can’t afford to put up our own. But even that latter idea seems to be even far fetch (even if we are good in sending Pinoy workers around the planet), since Filipinos are not much into this science and even if there are a handlful few, there will always be some Indian, Chinese, or Japanese guy that is more qualified to become part of these space programs.

I will register myself. But not to expect much, every Filipino out there who can catch this news will probably be applying for the heck of it. And not to expect much about the space travel itself, it’s not going to be like a moon mission or least even a space-walk, it will be like boarding an aircraft and getting it off really high up there. After all you just  need to go as high as 100 kilometers up there to be called an astronaut.