by Dr. Amira Val Baker, Resonance Science Foundation Research Scientist

Galaxies seem to be communicating with each other across vast distances never thought possible before, putting the cosmological principle into question again.

These gravitationally bound structures consisting of gas, dust and trillions of stars exist in the trillions. Most observed galaxies are spiral galaxies like our very own Milky Way, with others being elliptical, lenticular or irregular. The formation and evolution of a galaxy is generally revealed in galactic kinematics, particularly the rotation which is constrained by the conservation of angular momentum. Through studying the rotation of galaxies, scientists can thus infer how the galaxy was formed and how it evolved. Did it form from a rotating dust cloud? Did it evolve as a merger?

As would be expected, galactic behaviour – including its rotation – is influenced by that of its neighbours. However, in a recent report, Korean scientists Joon...

by Dr. Amira Val Baker, Resonance Science Foundation Research Scientist

The universe now seems to be expanding at a rate even faster than previously thought.

Since first proposed by George Lemaitre and the subsequent confirmation by Edwin Hubble’s observational studies of galactic recession velocities, the expansion of the universe has long been a topic of debate. Improved methods along with differing techniques has continuously yielded discrepancies. For example, techniques utilizing standard candles, in the form of Supernovae Type 1a, Cepheid variables or Quasars, for nearby observations of the modern universe yields higher values than those found from the distant Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) observations of the early universe.

Now a team of scientists at the University of California, Davis, have found the highest value yet, suggesting that the universe is expanding at an even greater rate than previously thought.

The team led by Geoff Chen combined new adaptive optics...

by Dr. Amira Val Baker, Resonance Science Foundation Astrophysicist

The sun radiates at a range of energies from the high-energy range to the low-energy range. However, new data, spanning this broad energy range, reveals just how much we don’t know about our own star.

The gamma-rays we observe from the Sun are thought to be due to the interactions of hadronic cosmic rays with the solar atmosphere. Although gamma rays are produced in the solar interior, they are thought to leave the sun as much lower energy waves due to scattering effects. Back in 1991 David Seckel, Todor Stanev and Thomas Gaisser thus proposed that cosmic rays from outer space would be turned around or “mirrored” before entering the sun, thus emerging as a faint glow of gamma-rays. However, the underlying mechanism responsible for the production of these gamma rays is not fully understood – all that is known is that its efficiency must be enhanced by magnetic field interactions. Read more ...

^{By Dr. Inés Urdaneta / Physicist at Resonance Science Foundation}

Image from ESA

Stars were thought to be the principal and most important component for life to thrive… till now. Researchers from Harvard university explain that radiation coming from Black holes could do the same!

Habitable zones in outer space have been defined with respect to stars (suns), as regions where the stars radiation and energy are suitable for emergence of life. Closer or farther away from this source of energy, temperature would be too cold or too hot in order for liquid water to exist in a planet´s surface. The zones were liquid water and biological opportunity can happen are known as “Goldilocks zone”.

A new study published in The Astrophysical Journal have found such zones around supermassive black holes as well. This is quite surprising, since the surroundings of a black hole, consisting on swirling disks of gas and dust called Active Galactic Nuclei -AGN-, emit...

^{By Dr. Inés Urdaneta / Physicist at Resonance Science Foundation}

Photo: Hubble image depicting galaxy ESO 495-21 at the center. From NASA/ESA

Evolution of our understanding of Black Holes (BH) has gone from the mathematical outcome with no physical counterpart, up to their detection at the center of various galaxies and visualization of their shadow through the reconstructed image presented for the first time just a few months ago by the EHT global initiative (https://resonancefdn.oldrsf.com/the-first-image-of-a-black-hole-is-finally-here/). Now it is thought that every galaxy hosts a BH in its core. When the first BHs were inferred from cosmological observations, we believed they were an extravagant exceptional behavior in the universe. Since, they have proven not so exceptional as they are detected with increased frequency, but they remain an extravagancy, and not for the same reasons.

ESO 495-21 is a galaxy just 3.000 light years across in diameter, very small compared to...

by Dr. Amira Val Baker, Resonance Science Foundation Astrophysicist

The evolution from the first molecule to the complex chemistry that exists in our universe today is now one step closer to being understood.

When we think of complex chemistry, we usually think of all the matter that exists on our planet which in our atmosphere is a massive 10 trillion trillion molecules per cubic meter. As we move away from our planet this drops exponentially. However, surprising as it may be, space space – like the interstellar and intergalactic regions – are host to a myriad of molecules. Albeit not at quite the same high densities.

How these molecules formed and became the complex chemistry that we see today remains to be fully understood. It is currently agreed that the early universe consisted of only a few kinds of atoms and it wasn’t until the age of 100,000 years that hydrogen and helium combined to form the first molecule – helium hydride. However, although...

by William Brown, Resonance Science Foundation Research Scientist

featured image credit: Jack O’Malley-James/Cornell University: The intense radiation environments around nearby M stars could favor habitable worlds resembling younger versions of Earth.

A primary prediction of the USN model as presented in the Unified Spacememory Network publication by physicist Nassim Haramein, astrophysicist Amira Val Baker, and biologist William Brown is that the prebiotic chemistry that generates organic compounds and even complex biomolecules is occurring in nebulae throughout galaxies—a postulation that is termed universal biogenesis. Under this model, the precursors to cellular biology are abundant throughout the galactic medium, and therefore there is a very high likelihood that wherever conditions are hospitable to organisms, life will take hold there.

Considering the implications of universal biogenesis, it was very exciting when an Earth-like planet was discovered within...

by Dr. Amira Val Baker, Resonance Science Foundation Astrophysicist

The main ingredient of galaxies does not seem to be so significant – as for the first time it seems the universe made a galaxy without dark matter.

Dark matter is a hypothetical form of matter theorized to explain the anomalous rotational velocities of galaxies. According to the laws of physics for a galaxy to exist it needs more mass than what is observed – this extra mass is in the form of dark matter. However, although thought to account for 27% of the Universe and be the significant ingredient in galaxies it still remains a mystery with no agreement on what it actually is. Find out more here.

With more and more debate as to the actual existence of dark matter a new discovery has put a spanner in the works and discovered a galaxy lacking one ‘vital’ ingredient – dark matter!

In 2015 a team of astronomers discovered the ultra-diffuse galaxy NGC1052-DF2. It was deemed a bizarre new...

By: William Brown, Biophysicist with the Resonance Science Foundation

It was already a sensational story, an interstellar object was careening through our solar system, it was a historic first and an opportunity to learn more about the interstellar medium around us. Since it's first sighting in 2017, the sensationalism has only grown around ‘Oumuamua, as serious astrophysicists analyzing its anomalous trajectory and acceleration began to posit that it cannot be explained by any entirely naturalistic explanation. That is to say ‘Oumuamua’s anomalous behavior indicates that it is an engineered object, not a naturally occurring one.

Despite the fact that it is undoubted there is life throughout the universe and that inevitably will lead to multiple intelligent civilizations emerging, conservative scientists—particularly within the closely regulated confines of appropriate thought within academia—are hostile to the idea of observing such extraterrestrial...

^{By Dr. Inés Urdaneta / Physicist at Resonance Science Foundation}

How does it looks like, how does it sounds like, how would it feel? We perceive our reality through our senses: sight, smell, touch, hearing, taste. We usually don’t include the sense of perceiving how it would feel to be someone else… the sense of empathy. Most of our education is focused on the standard view that everyone shares the same senses, hence, they perceive almost the same. But even if we had the same senses, do they perceive the same? Discrimination arrives when we disregard the differences by assuming we all do.

In the USA alone there are approximately 11 million people with serious hearing problems. It is estimated to be 360 million around the globe. Astronomers at the University of California, Riverside, Gillian Wilson and Mario De Leo-Winkler (now director of the National System of Researchers SNI of Mexico), have teamed with teachers at the California School for the Deaf, Riverside...