#aliens

For all of the horrible things humans do, we are also capable of some pretty spectacular things.

Being able to tag an exoplanet 124 light years away as potentially having life? That’s wild.

https://www.404media.co/behold-a-genuinely-promising-sign-of-alien-life/

#Space #Exoplanet #Aliens #Science #Astronomy #Extraterrestrial

Scripting my podcast, I needed a short break. And made the mistake to read an article about the parallel reality on the other side of the pond. OMG.

Only *one* short article and you're torn between accusing this #felon regime of massive abuse of a completely derailed designer drug or believing that aliens have taken over the White House and are secretly farting. Can someone pls call the Doctor!?! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYX2VhXxEIc

#DrWho #RealityGetsCrazy #aliens #WhiteHouse

Time for another World of Green and Black featured creature. Today we're learning about one of the most mysterious Black World creatures; bipeds.

#sciencefiction #art #worldbuilding #aliens

http://jaydeholmes.com/2025/04/22/world-of-green-and-black-featured-creature-biped/

Alpha Zeta investigates a fluffy Earth creature distributing colorful “avian reproductive capsules.” Science? Culture? Mystery? Discover the enigma at https://buff.ly/X2FnTdo

#AI #AIart #scifi #Aliens #AIComics #Easter #humor #UFOTwitter

The Kraken Wakes

Adrian Tchaikovsky announced the other day that he and Emma Newman were starting a new podcast: Starship Alexandria, where they will take turns recommending sci-fi and fantasy books, with most of the episode devoted to discussing them. Their first episode dropped a couple of weeks ago, and Newman made the first recommendation: The Kraken Wakes by John Wyndham.

This is a classic science fiction novel from 1953 that I had never heard of. I had heard of Wyndham and a few of his other books but not this particular one. The story sounded interesting so I decided to check it out.

Whenever I read old novels, particularly sci-fi, I’m reminded of how tight old school writing used to be, and how fast paced the books were. This is no exception. The story told here in 246 pages is one that would take at least 500 pages with contemporary approaches, assuming it wasn’t made into a trilogy or larger series. There’s a lot to be said for telling an epic scale story in a manner that can be completed in a couple of days.

This is an alien invasion story, but with a twist. It begins with fireballs entering the atmosphere. All of them go into the sea, entering the deepest parts of the oceans. The selectivity implies an intelligence behind whatever is going on. A few of the fireballs are shot at, and immediately explode, implying they were containers under high pressure.

Attempts are made to send submersibles down to the ocean depths, but whatever is down there destroys them, killing the crew. When ships passing over the deep regions start to be attacked and sunk, various militaries send atomic bombs down. A few make it down and detonate. But at some point, the bombs stop detonating, as though something is capturing and disabling them. As the sinkings become increasingly common, ships start having to avoid the deepest parts of the ocean, crashing world trade.

All of this takes place over a period of years. The story is told through the eyes of Mike Watson. He and his wife Phyllis work in Britain as reporters for the EBC, a fictional competitor to the BBC. Mike and Phyllis are at a few key events in the story, but most of the narrative is based on news from around the world as they’re able to glean it.

This book has some interesting innovations for a 1953 novel. The invaders’ technology is very alien. Their method of attacking ships appears to be based on some kind of focused vibrations. At a certain point they send biological robots to attack island and coastal regions. And eventually, they attack humanity by melting the polar ice caps, causing sea levels worldwide to rise. It’s hard to read these portions of the novel today without thinking about climate change.

The most interesting thing about this novel is how little is able to be learned about the aliens, and how people react to the limited information. For a long time there is a debate whether it even is aliens. Conspiracy theories run rampant before the evidence becomes overwhelming.

There is speculation that their natural habitat must be a high pressure one, possibly Jupiter. (This is never confirmed, saving the novel from being too outdated.) Which, it is thought, is why they target the deepest regions of Earth’s oceans. Early on there are arguments about whether, due to the different environment they live in, there’s any necessary reason for hostilities between them and humanity.

A recurring theme in the book is how people react over the years as information becomes available, and to proposals about what needs to be done. Politics, business interests, and just overall refusal to accept what’s happening, keep getting in the way. This happens so much throughout the novel, that if I’d read it before Covid, I might have found it too cynical. Today it seems prescient.

Of course, Wyndham was writing this book in the early Cold War years, when memory of World War II was still fresh. His memories of those events would include the often ugly realities, instead of the heroic stories most of us grew up with. Strangely enough, I find it comforting to realize people in the past were just as blinkered in their reactions.

A minor spoiler. We never meet the aliens. There is never a conversation with them. They’re just too different. They are only known through their effects. The closest we get is speculation about what they might be like. I’m generally not a fan of sci-fi that never shows the damn aliens. (It seems like it became a popular move after 2001 A Space Odyssey, but Kubrick didn’t show his aliens because 1960s technology couldn’t do it well.) That said, in this book it ends up fitting with the theme of having to work with limited information.

Overall I enjoyed the book and recommend it. The Godzilla theme song kept running through my head as I read it. It had that kind of feel. (BTW, Godzilla Minus One, if you haven’t seen it yet, a damn good movie!)

Often when I recommend old books, it has to be with caveats about the quality of the writing or social attitudes in the story, but not this time. It’s aged relatively well. Which isn’t to say it isn’t very dated, but not in a way that I found too distracting.

Worth checking out if you’d like a quick read!

#AdrianTchaikovsky #Aliens #bookReview #books #EmmaNewman #Fiction #podcasts #sciFi #sciFi #ScienceFiction #StarshipAlexandria

https://youtu.be/OOdxuQS0iaM

#aliens #space #telescope #meme

#aliens #xenomorph #easter #eggs #facehugger

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope detects signs of alien life on a nearby exoplanet
https://newstainmentora.blogspot.com/2025/04/nasas-james-webb-space-telescope.html
#NASA #jameswebbspacetelescope #Aliens

OMG It's ALIENS!! :aliendance:

(probably not, but I love John Michael Godier's videos, so I'm gonna share this one before even watching it.. so if it IS actually aliens, you heard it here first! )

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82cLukqLgME

#Aliens #Godier

https://www.europesays.com/2004569/ Could there be extraterrestrial life on another planet? • FRANCE 24 English #Aliens #atmosphere #breaking #estraterrestrial #F24 #france #FRANCE24 #FRANCE24English #FranceNews #france24 #FRANCE24English #FrenchNews #Headlines #international #jameswebbspace #jameswebbspacetelescope #Latest #life #News #NewsFrance #planet #researchers #solarsystem #system #TopStories #tv #world

Scientists say the most likely extraterrestrial planet to support life overwhelmingly smells of caggage farts.
https://www.livescience.com/space/exoplanets/alien-world-may-be-teeming-with-life-new-chemical-biosignatures-indicate
#science #aliens #cabbagefarts #nothingburger #A1in350ChanceDownhillOnAGoodDayWithAFollowingWind

Are there signs of life on alien planet K2-18b, or is it just a lot of hot air?

An ocean world that's teeming with microbes — and who knows what other kinds of life — is currently the best explanation for some chemical signatures that the James Webb Space Telescope has spotted in the atmosphere of a distant planet.
https://www.npr.org/2025/04/16/nx-s1-5364805/signs-life-alien-planet-biosignatures-exoplanet?utm_source=globalmuseum #space #planets #aliens #jameswebbspacetelescope

@paukokura Para quien no sepa de qué hablamos: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2025/apr/17/scientists-hail-strongest-evidence-so-far-for-life-beyond-our-solar-system
Imagino el notición: "Descubren la prueba definitiva de vida en otro planeta: olor a repollo cocido. Ha llegado hasta aquí a través de 124 años-luz" https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimetilsulfuro #exobiology #K218b #aliens

This is huge! Astronomers at Cambridge University have found the strongest evidence of life outside our solar system that we've ever seen. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/4/17/is-there-life-on-another-planet-scientists-find-the-strongest-evidence-yet It sounds like they've proven it beyond reasonable doubt (but scientists have to prove beyond possible doubt, so we can't get too excited yet).

K2-18b is a planet 124 light years away from us. It's much bigger and denser than Earth, and it's far enough away from its star for liquid water to exist on its surface.

We're 99.7% sure (not quite good enough yet, btw - the magic number is 99.99997%) that its atmosphere has "traces of either dimethyl sulfide (DMS) or dimethyl disulfide (DMDS) – or both", in concentrations thousands of times higher than on Earth.

On Earth, these compounds are only made by living things, particularly by single-celled organisms. As far as we know, it's not even theoretically possible for them to form any other way. #Astronomy #Science #Aliens #k218b #Cambridge

Scientists detect possible signs of life on another planet — but it’s not aliens #Science #Trending #World #Aliens #Astronomy #K218b

https://globalnews.ca/news/11136876/aliens-life-k2-18b-planet-biosignatures//612

Astronomers Detect a Possible Signature of Life on a Distant Planet

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/16/science/astronomy-exoplanets-habitable-k218b.html?unlocked_article_code=1.AU8.BrsT.tyFQTLWCZbMm

#space #spaceexploration #astronomy #cosmology #astrophysics #astrobiology #extraterrestrial #exoplanets #searchforlife #aliens

Little green men!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c39jj9vkr34o

#Aliens #WellMaybe

The Barbarian hordes feasting on the carcass of liberal democracy.

"NASA’s science budget could be cut nearly in half under an early version of President Donald Trump’s budget proposal to Congress, a move that would terminate billions of dollars’ worth of ongoing and future missions, according to two individuals with direct knowledge of the administration’s plan."
#science #NASA #USpolitics #research #astronomy #Space #aliens
https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2025/04/11/nasa-science-budget-cuts-trump/

No matter how the scientists revisited their readings, the signal stayed strong. They concluded that K2-18b may in fact harbor a tremendous supply of dimethyl sulfide in its atmosphere, thousands of times higher than the level found on Earth. This would suggest that its Hycean seas are brimming with life.
#science #biology #astronomy #exobiology #aliens #physics #chemistry #NASA #JPL
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/16/science/astronomy-exoplanets-habitable-k218b.html