What was the first human species?

 

Image courtesy of The Natural History Museum via Alamy

Joel Kontinen

According to evolution, the first human species saw daylight roughly 300,000 years ago.

 Modern humans emerged roughly, but our genus Homo is much older. So what's the oldest human species on record?

“All humans today are members of the modern human species Homo sapiens — Latin for "knowing man." But we're far from the only humans who ever existed. Fossils are revealing more and more about early humans in the genus Homo — ancestors like Homo erectus (Latin for "upright man"), who lived in Africa, Asia, the parts of Europe between 1.9 million and 110,000 years ago.

Various species of Australopithecus lived from about 4.4 million to 1.4 million years ago. It may be that H. habilis evolved directly from the species Australopithecus afarensis — the best-known example of which is "Lucy," who was unearthed at Hadar in Ethiopia in 1974.

The fossils of our genus are usually distinguished from Australopithecus fossils by Homo's distinctively smaller teeth and a relatively large brain, which led to the greater use of stone tools.

But White noted that traits like smaller teeth and bigger brains must have emerged at times in the Australopithecus populations that early Homo evolved from."

Source:

Tom Metcalfe  2025 What was the first human species? | Live Science August 16

Ceres may have been habitable at just "half a billion years" old

 

Image courtesy of NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)

Joel Kontinen

According to evolution the dwarf planet Ceres might have been a flourishing planet and soon after its evolution the planet has been habitable. Now it is cold and icy, but according to evolutionary thinking, it may have been a flourishing planet after its formation.

Provided that intelligent design did not work, as intelligence is needed to form a habitable planet.

A billion or so years into its evolution, the icy dwarf planet Ceres may have had the right conditions to sustain life, which indicates the solar system may be more habitable than we thought

The dwarf planet Ceres looks cold and dead, but a billion or so years after its formation, it may have had a warm interior that made it habitable.

Sam Courville at Arizona State University says he can’t speculate on whether life ever arose on Ceres – but had this happened, the dwarf planet’s past environment may have enabled that life to survive.

Previous research has indicated there could be water ice and organic molecules on Ceres, pointing towards the possibility of life. But in this study, the researchers focused on what these alien life forms would have eaten. They considered microbes like those that live in hydrothermal vents in Earth’s oceans and extract energy directly from chemical molecules, rather than from consuming other organisms. Could similar microbes have survived in the oceans of ancient Ceres?

The team modelled Ceres’s past on a computer, finding that when it was between half a billion and 2 billion years old, pores close to its hot core could have released fluids that then mixed with the colder water in its oceans. That process could have delivered the chemical “food” that microbes would have needed.

If we want to find evidence of past or current life in our solar system, says Amanda Hendrix at the Planetary Science Institute, we need to look to worlds like Ceres that have – or once had – oceans.

Strikingly, the type of microbial life support that the team identified could also have occurred on other Ceres-sized icy objects. It may mean more planets than we expected could be habitable at some point in their evolution.

“If Ceres was habitable in the past, then probably there are tens of asteroids and moons that were also habitable in the past. And if you can keep them hot, maybe [they are] still habitable today,” says team member Joe O’Rourke, also at Arizona State University.

Habitability thus might be “a natural consequence of putting the right ingredients together, which seem to be the common ingredients in the solar system”, says Courville.

But many details remain to be ironed out, even just for Ceres. The researchers say their model would benefit from a precise chemical analysis of minerals on the planet’s surface, some of which may have been brought up by underground flows. But no spacecraft that might be able to collect them has ever landed on Ceres.

 Source:

Karmela Padavic-Callaghan 2025 Ceres may have been habitable at just half a billion years old | New Scientist 20 August 

Fossilized fish trails reveal earliest steps out of water

An artist’s rendition of an ancient lungfish squirming up onto land. Image courtesy of  Jakub Zalewski

Joel Kontinen

Evolution proposes that about 400 million years ago, vertebrates were confined to the sea. Fish did not evolve limbs adapted for walking on land.

A new study published in Scientific Reports has report in which the earliest version of fossil evidence from the sea to land by 10 million years in advance.

If this is true, the earliest migration will be out of the water on land by at least 10 million years.

The trace fossils closely resemble trails left by modern lungfish as they drag themselves across exposed shores, says Piotr Szrek, a paleontologist at the Polish Geological Institute and lead author of the study.

Possible lungfish tracks could push back animal migration onto land by 10 million years.

The new fossils were unearthed during excavations in 2021 in the Holy Cross Mountains in Poland, about 190 kilometers south of Warsaw.

Source:

Taylor Mitchell Brown 2025 Fossilized fish trails reveal earliest steps out of water | Science | AAAS 15 August

Unprecedented Arctic heatwave melted 1 per cent of Svalbard's ice

 

Image courtesy of Xinhua/Shutterstock

Joel Kontinen

Global warming has struck Svalbard. During the summer of 2024, a record number of ice melted on Svalbard.

During the summer of 2024, six weeks of record-smashing heat led to a record-obliterating amount of ice melting on the islands of Svalbard in the Arctic. By the end of the summer, 1 per  melted on cent of all the land ice on the archipelago had been lost – enough to raise the global average sea level by 0.16 millimetres.

“It was very shocking,” says Thomas Schuler at the University of Oslo in Norway. “It was not just elted a marginal record. The melt was almost twice as high as in the previous record.”

More than half of Svalbard is covered in ice. Winter snowfall adds to the ice, while the flow of glaciers into the sea and surface melting during summer leads to ice loss.

Schuler’s team has been using a combination of on-site measurements, satellite data and computer modelling to estimate how the total mass of ice on the archipelago is changing.

Since 1991, less than 10 gigatonnes of ice has melted during each summer, on average. But four of the past five years have set new records for summer ice loss. Altogether, the team estimates that around 62 gigatonnes of ice were lost last summer, almost entirely due to surface melting rather than ice flow into the sea.

By Michael Le Page 2025 Unprecedented Arctic heatwave melted 1 per cent of Svalbard's ice | New Scientist 18 August

 

 

Jupiter's moon Ganymede could be a giant dark matter detector

 

Image courtesy of JunoCam/NASA/JPL-Caltech​/SwRI/MSSS/Kalleheikki Kannisto

Joel Kontinen

Could Jupiter’s moon Ganymede be a vast dark matter detector? Some evolutionists suppose it could  be.

But dark matter is a farce.

Jupiter’s moon Ganymede could be a vast dark matter detector, and upcoming space missions might be able to spot distinctive dark matter craters on its ancient surface.

Physicists searching for dark matter usually look for tiny, extre, smely light particles that interact weakly with standard matter, requiring large and well-insulated underground detectors. Another kind of dark matter particle could instead be very large – from the size of basketballs to asteroids – but also vanishingly rare, interacting with normal matter extremely infrequently. To detect large dark matter particles, you would need a detector the size of a moon or planet to make up for their sparsity.

Source:

Alex Wilkins 2025 Jupiter's moon Ganymede could be a giant dark matter detector | New Scientist 18 August

First Temple Clay Seal Validates Biblical History: May Reference King Josiah’s Servant

 

The “Yed[a‛]yah (son of) Asayahu” bulla Zachi Dvira/Temple Mount Sifting Project

Joel Kontinen

On the evening of the 17th of Tammuz – the traditional fast day marking the breach of Jerusalem’s walls – archaeologist Mordechai Erlich made an extraordinary find while working with the Temple Mount Sifting Project. The small clay impression, measuring just 1.2 centimeters, bears the Hebrew inscription “לאשיהו” (belonging to Asayahu).

Some characters of the Old Testament have surfaced in Israel.  For instance, the Asayahu, who was among the Levites, who supervised the temple restoration project. The First Temple period during the reign of King Josiah (640-609 BCE), according to 2 Chronicles 34:13, Asayahu was among the Levites who supervised the Temple restoration project: “Also they were over the burden bearers, and were overseers of all that wrought the work in any manner of service.”

Source:

2025 First Temple Clay Seal Validates Biblical History: May Reference King Josiah’s Servant - Israel365 News 15 August

Oldest fast radio burst ever seen sheds light on early star formation

 

Image courtesy of Science Photo Library/Alamys

Joel Kontinen

Radio bursts are a phenomenon that surprise us. We don’t know the cause.

A bright flash of radio waves from 3 billion years after the big bang is illuminating parts of the universe that astronomers can’t normally see. Magnetars, which are a kind of neutron star, may be the source of fast radio bursts.

A strange flash of light from near the beginning of the universe could help astronomers map difficult-to-see gas in between galaxies, like a flashbulb in a dark room.

Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are extremely short but powerful blasts of radio-frequency light that have puzzled astronomers since they were first spotted in 2007. A leading theory is that they are produced by extremely magnetic neutron stars, called magnetars. But because we only know of a few thousand examples in the whole universe, with most coming from galaxies that are relatively close to the Milky Way, there is much we still don’t understand about them.

Source:

Alex Wilkins 2025 Oldest fast radio burst ever seen sheds light on early star formation | New Scientist 15 August 

 

300,000-year-old teeth from China may be evidence that humans and Homo erectus interbred, according to new study

 

Image courtesy of X. Wu et al. / Journal of Human Evolution

Joel Kontinen

Early humans came from Adam and Eve. They were the early members of the human race and no interbreeding of humans and Homo erectus took place. They were all members of the human race.

“A small collection of 21 teeth may have big implications for the evolution of humans in Asia. The dentition, which comes from a mystery human ancestor that lived at least 300,000 years ago in China, shows an unusual combination of features that may suggest early humans interbred with Homo erectus, a new study reveals.

"It's a mosaic of … traits never seen before — almost as if the evolutionary clock were ticking at different speeds in different parts of the body," study co-author María Martinón-Torres, a paleoanthropologist at the Spanish National Research Center for Human Evolution (CENIEH), said in a statement.

In a study published in the September issue of the Journal of Human Evolution, researchers studied a handful of teeth from the Hualongdong archaeological site in South China and found that they had a mixture of ancient and modern traits.”

Source:

Kristina Killgrove 2025 300,000-year-old teeth from China may be evidence that humans and Homo erectus interbred, according to new study | Live Science August 5

NASA finds multi-billion-year-old 'coral' on Mars

 

Image courtesy of NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Joel Kontinen

NASA says it has found a multi-billion year old coral on Mars, but life on created on earth, not on Mars.

“NASA's Curiosity rover has sent back intriguing images of what looks like a piece of coral on Mars.

The strange object is in fact a small, light-colored, wind-eroded rock, which the rover found inside the Red Planet's Gale Crater on July 24 — but it looks remarkably similar to the reef-building creatures found in Earth's oceans.

A black and white picture taken with Curiosity's Remote Micro Imager — a high-resolution, telescopic camera that is mounted on the rover — and shared by NASA in a statement on Aug. 4 shows the approximately 1-inch-wide (2.5 centimeters) rock with its intricate branches.

"Curiosity has found many rocks like this one, which were formed by ancient water combined with billions of years of sandblasting by the wind," NASA representatives wrote in the statement.

Coral-shaped rocks on Mars started forming billions of years ago, when the Red Planet still had water, according to the statement. Just like water on Earth, this water was full of dissolved minerals. It percolated through small cracks in Martian rocks, gradually depositing minerals and forming solid "veins" inside the rocks.

These veins form the strange branches of the coral-shaped object that we see in Curiosity's picture today, after millions of years of erosion by sand-laden winds wore away the rock.

Other examples of unusual rocks found on Mars include "Paposo" — a strangely-shaped rock measuring about 2 inches (5 cm) across that Curiosity also discovered on July 24 — and a tiny, flower-shaped object, which the rover photographed in Gale Crater in 2022.

Curiosity landed on Mars in 2012, touching down in the Gale Crater — a meteor impact crater on the boundary between the Red Planet's cratered southern highlands and its smooth northern plains. The rover's mission, led by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, is to scan the Martian surface for any signs that it was habitable at any point in the distant past.

So far, Curiosity has traversed roughly 22 miles (35 kilometers) of the 96-mile-wide (154 km) crater. Its path is meandering and slow, because it has to stop to drill into rocks, collect samples and gather data.

The rover's explorations have uncovered abundant evidence that the potential for life once existed on Mars, including long carbon chains from 3.7 billion-year-old rocks and signs that Mars once had a carbon cycle.”

The dates in this story are false.

Source:

Sascha Pare 2025 NASA finds multi-billion-year-old 'coral' on Mars | Live Science 7 August

 

Ancient tools on Sulawesi may be clue to origins of 'hobbit' hominins

 

Imaage courtesy of Budianto Hakim et al.

Joel 

The Indonesian island of Sulawesi was a likely stepping stone for ancient hominins to reach nearby Flores, the home of the mysterious Homo floresiensis

Who were the hobbits, the small humans found in Indonesia? Their remains are found on the island of Flores, and some say that they were suffering from a condition called microcephaly, a neurological disorder that still causes some individuals to have an abnormally small head.

”Seven stone tools found on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi are the earliest evidence ever discovered of ancient humans making a sea crossing, dating back up to 1.4 million years.

They may provide clues to how a tiny human species, nicknamed “hobbits”, ended up on the nearby island of Flores.

The first of the artefacts was found embedded in a sandstone outcrop at a site called Calio by Budianto Hakim at the National Research and Innovation Agency in Indonesia in 2019, and a full excavation uncovered six more tools in the same outcrop.”

Source: 

James Woodford 2025 Ancient tools on Sulawesi may be clue to origins of 'hobbit' hominins | New Scientist 6 August

 

 

 

Giant meat-eating dinosaur skulls reveal ‘bone-crushing’ bite

 

Illustration of Tyrannosaurus rex 

Image courtesy of Roger Harris/Getty Images/Science Photo Library

Joel Kontinen

Differences in the skulls of carnivorous dinosaurs suggest some dinosaurs ripped flesh while others crushed bones.

A closer look at the skulls of gigantic dinosaurs reveals some preferred to shred their prey, while others attacked with bone-crushing.

Andre Rowe and Emily Rayfield at the University of Bristol in the UK looked at the skulls of 18 species of theropods from across the Mesozoic Era. This diverse group of dinosaurs, which includes T. Rex, Giganotosaurus and Spinosaurus, walked on their hind legs and had large heads and big, sharp teeth.

Source: 

Meagan Mulcair Giant meat-eating dinosaur skulls reveal ‘bone-crushing’ bite | New Scientist 4 August 

 

What would it feel like to be on a planet spinning out of control?

“The faster the planet, the fiercer the storms…”

elementix / Alamy Stock Photo

Joel Kontinen

Exoplanets are strange. They are not meant for life. But God has made the Earth in check so that life can continue on Earth.

"In the past month, Earth experienced some of its shortest days on record. The planet spun quickly enough to shave 1.4 milliseconds off of its usual 24-hour day. These natural accelerations in Earth’s spin are, of course, hard to notice. But if you’re anything like me, the feeling that our world is spinning out of control – metaphorically, at least – might not be unfamiliar.

The straightforward effects of the sun rising and setting ever-more frequently are easy to imagine. How many of us already feel as if there’s not enough time in the day? In Circular Motion, the characters are increasingly overworked, struggling to keep up with the demands of everyday life while their days keep shortening on them. Because their productivity relies on a high-speed global transport system that is itself the cause of the planet’s acceleration in the book, their rushing only makes the problem worse.”

By Alex Foster 2025 Alex Foster on his new novel, which imagines what it would feel like to be on a planet spinning out of control | New Scientist 1 August 

The secret to what makes colours pop on dazzling songbirds

 

Image courtesy of Daniel Field

Joel Kontinen

Why are songbirds so colorful?

Hidden layers of colour in the plumage of tanagers and some other songbirds explain what makes them so eye-catching.

Brightly coloured songbirds called tanagers are so eye-catching because they have a hidden layer of black or white beneath their dazzling plumage.

Painters often prime a canvas with a layer of white to enhance the colours they will eventually layer on, as well as to make it smoother and stronger. But it seems this is a mechanism that birds were using long before humans picked up paintbrushes.

Rosalyn Price-Waldman at Princeton University and her colleagues have found that when songbirds in the tanager genus Tangara have bright red or yellow plumage, they usually have white layers hidden underneath. When they have blue plumage, they have black layers beneath.

To investigate why, they removed 72 feathers from taxidermied tanager specimens in the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County’s collection.

By taking pictures of the feathers on different backgrounds, the team measured how their reflectance or absorption of light changed, finding that the underlayers make the top layers look more colourful.

Source: 

Chris Simms 2025 The secret to what makes colours pop on dazzling songbirds | New Scientist 23 July

 

Critics of de-extinction research hit by mystery smear campaign

 

Vincent Lynch (left) and Nic Rawlence have been targeted by negative articles. Image courtesy of Berlin Communications/Ken Miller

Joel Kontinen

What do evolutionists say about their theory? Some think that it is not true.

"Several researchers who have been critical of Colossal Biosciences’ plans to revive extinct animals say they have been targeted by online articles trying to discredit them

Academics who have questioned the validity of efforts to “de-extinct” animals like the woolly mammoth and the dire wolf have complained of an apparent campaign to discredit them. They believe the attacks are intended to deter criticism of de-extinction projects, a controversial research area attracting considerable attention from the media and investors.

Biotech company Colossal Biosciences has, over several years, announced efforts to recreate animals including the woolly mammoth, thylacine, dire wolf and giant moa bird. All these are extinct, but the company aims to modify the genomes of related creatures still living today to bring them back. Many scientists have said this can only lead to animals with partially modified genomes, not true recreations."

 But can they really recreate those animals?

Source:

Matthew Sparkes 2025 Critics of de-extinction research hit by mystery smear campaign | New Scientist 31 July

Is gravity a new type of force that arises from cosmic entropy?

 

Image courtesy of Vadim Sadovski/Shutterstock

Joel Kontnen

Some scientist say that a new type of force comes from cosmic entropy. But it isn’t true. The thought is based on the Big Bang.

“Decades ago, a renegade physicist suggested that gravity isn't so much a force as just a byproduct of the universe's tendency to get more disordered. Now this idea might finally be testable

There are some things in life that just sort of happen. Desks get covered in dust and scraps of paper. Clothes get dirty and the laundry basket fills up. Weeds slowly creep across an untended flowerbed. Things, in other words, tend to get messier unless we step in and tidy up.

Now here’s an idea: what if gravity itself works like that? It would certainly be a different way of looking at the force that keeps our feet on the ground and conducts the twirling dance of the planets. Most physicists see it as one of the four forces of nature, about as fundamental as you can get. But back in 2010, physicist Erik Verlinde suggested that it wasn’t a force at all, but simply a byproduct of the universe’s natural inclination to become more disordered. “For me, gravity doesn’t exist,” he told reporters at the time.”

Source:

Jon Cartwright 2025 Is gravity a new type of force that arises from cosmic entropy? | New Scientist 29 July 

Peculiar galaxy seems to contain surprisingly pristine stars

Abell 2744, the galaxy cluster where AMORE6 was spotted. Image courtesy of NASA, ESA, Jennifer Lotz, Matt Mountain, Anton M. Koekemoer, HFF Team (STScI)

Joel Kontinen

Can galaxies form in a beginning?

Stars uncontaminated by heavier elements are thought to have formed very early in the universe, but a galaxy much later in cosmic history might let us see them for the first time.

A galaxy marooned in an empty region of the universe appears to be unexpectedly full of primordial stars. This could give astronomers their first glimpse of a kind of stellar object thought to have formed shortly after the universe’s first moments and which has never been directly observed.

Despite being able to peer back to near the beginning of the universe with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), astronomers have struggled to definitively find evidence of the first stars. Known as population III stars, these are giant balls of mostly hydrogen that would have formed in the early universe. Being the first stars, they would have almost none of the heavier elements that are produced when stars die and explode.

By Alex Wilkins 2025 Peculiar galaxy seems to contain surprisingly pristine stars | New Scientist 25 July 

Interstellar invader Comet is packed with water ice that could be older than Earth

 

Image credit: Robert Lea (created with Canva))

Joel Kontinen 

Can the comet 3I/ATLAS be older than earth? It is packed with water that could be older than Earth some scientists say. The comet about 7 billion years old, which would make it older than the solar system itself.

"It could represent some of the oldest and most pristine water ever observed, formed in another planetary system and preserved throughout its interstellar journey.

Some scientists estimate there could be as many as 1 million interstellar visitors in the solar system at any one time. It's thought that many of these could lurk in the Oort cloud, a shell of comets located at the very edge of the solar system. The study of 3I/ATLAS and other interstellar interlopers could reveal what conditions are like in other planetary systems.”

The timing of the solar system is false.

Source:

Robert Lea 2025 Interstellar invader Comet 3I/ATLAS is packed with water ice that could be older than Earth | Space  23 July

Tiny elusive gecko rediscovered on one of the Galapagos islands

 

Image courtesy of Rory Stansbury/Island Conservation

Joel Kontinen

Leaf-toed geckos were thought to be locally extinct on Rabida Island, but the diminutive reptiles have re-emerged after a campaign to eliminate invasive rats.

Can geckos grow small? Researchers have found a gecko that is only 8 centimetres long on the Galapagos islands, They though that rats have eaten them.

Tiny gecko has been rediscovered on Rábida Island in the Galápagos, where it was believed to have been wiped out by invasive rats.

The leaf-toed gecko (Phyllodactylus maresi), whose adults are just 8 centimetres long, was previously only known to have existed on Rábida from 5000-year-old fossil records. But teams collected live specimens during expeditions in 2019 and 2021, which have now been officially confirmed as this species.

Source: 

Graeme Green 2025 Tiny elusive gecko rediscovered on one of the Galapagos islands | New Scientist 22 July

Immortal stars could live forever by 'eating' dark matter

 

At the centre of the Milky Way, stars look younger than they should. Image courtesy of NASA, Caltech, Susan Stolovy (SSC, Caltech)

Joel Kontinen

Some evolutionists say that immortal stars eat up dark matter to go on living forever, but dark matter is never found. 'Impossible' particle that hit Earth according to some evolutionists may have been dark matter.

“Stars close to the centre of our galaxy may be nearly immortal because they gobble up dark matter for energy.

More than two decades ago, astronomers noticed something odd about the stars near the centre of the Milky Way. First, the light they emit suggests they are younger than expected based on their mass, a problem dubbed the “paradox of youth”. Second, older stars are unusually scarce in this region, an issue called the “conundrum of old age”.”

Source:

Karmela Padavic-Callaghan  2025 Immortal stars could live forever by 'eating' dark matter | New Scientist 21 July 

 

Laws of quantum physics may rule out a universe that came before ours

 

Image courtesy of Vadim Sadovski/Shutterstock

Joel Kontinen

Instead of the Big Bang, some physicists have suggested tha t our universe may have come from a big bounce following another universe contracting – but quantum theory could rule this out.

Did our solar system had a beginning that was before  God created it at the beginning, Some evolutionists think so, but others are not so sure.

Could our universe be expanding and shrinking back into a tiny point, reliving a kind of big bang over and over again? Probably not, according to a mathematical analysis that argues that the laws of physic forbid such a cyclic universe.

A key moment in the life of a cyclic universe is the big bounce, an alternative to the big bang as the beginning of the known universe. The big bang starts with a singularity – matter and energy packed into a point so dense that gravity becomes strong enough to elude the laws of physics as we understand them – followed by an endless outwards expansion. But if the universe began with a big bounce, we could look beyond what we think of as the beginning and see another universe contracting to form an incredibly dense point, but not necessarily a singularity, before bouncing back out into the expanding universe we live in today.

Source:

Karmela Padavic-Callaghan 2025 Laws of quantum physics may rule out a universe that came before ours | New Scientist 18 July   

Neanderthal groups had their own local food culture

 

An illustration of a Neanderthals, they group preparing food Image courtesy of Luis Montanya/Marta Montanya/Science Photo Library

Joel Kontinen

A comparison of cut marks on bones reveals that Neanderthal groups living fairly close to each other had their own distinct ways of butchering animals

What did Neanderthals eat? They were not to only called species that cooked their food, long before Homo Sapiens were active, they cooked their food using spices.

Neanderthals may have had traditional ways of preparing food that were particular to each group. Discoveries from two caves in what is now northern Israel suggest that the residents there butchered the same kinds of prey in their own distinctive ways.

Modern humans, or Homo sapiens, weren’t the first hominins to prepare and cook food. There is evidence that Neanderthals, for example, which inhabited Europe and Asia until about 40,000 years ago, used flint knives to butcher what they caught, cooked a wide range of animals and spiced up their menu with wild herbs.

Source:

By Chris Simms 2025 Neanderthal groups had their own local food culture | New Scientist 17 July 

 

Interstellar visitor 3I/ATLAS could be the oldest comet ever seen — and could grow a spectacular tail later this year

 

Image courtesy of ATLAS/University of Hawaii/NASA

Joel Kontinen

According to evolutionists, one of the comets is now in our system. It could grow a spectacular tail soon. It is 3 billions years older than the solar system. 3I/ATLAS is one of the distant comets seen by man.

“The object was already exciting to astronomers as only the third space object seen entering the solar system from beyond its limits, the other two being Oumuamua seen in 2017 and 2I/Borisov detected in 2019.

However, new research has shown this potentially "water ice-rich" visitor could be even more extraordinary than initially believed. 3I/ATLAS could be around 3 billion years older than our 4.5 billion-year-old solar system and thus any comet ever before observed.”

Source:

Harry Baker 2025 3I/ATLAS: Everything you need to know about the new 'interstellar visitor' shooting through the solar system | Live Science July 10

 

Water might be even more important for alien life than we thought

 

Image courtesy of PandorumBS/Alamy

Joel Kontinen

Without enough liquid water on the surface, a planet's atmosphere can become choked with carbon dioxide, raising temperatures to a level beyond what is survivable for all known life

Is water important for life on exoplanets? According to Genesis, it is important also in space in which God created the planets.

Alien worlds found in the “habitable zone” of their star may still not be right for life

PandorumBS/Alamy

The number of planets capable of hosting alien life may be smaller than we thought, thanks to a new understanding of how water levels drive a planet’s climate. Below a certain level, carbon dioxide in the atmosphere can grow too much and make a planet unbearably hot, which could also explain why Venus is as inhospitable as it appears today.

All life that we know of needs liquid water, which is why astronomers are keen to find planets in the “habitable zone” around their star region where temperatures are conducive for liquid water to exist. But now Haskelle White-Gianella at the University of Washington and her colleagues have found that source;

Source:

Alex Wilkins 2025 Water might be even more important for alien life than we thought | New Scientist 15 July

James Webb telescope reveals dizzying galaxies in the Bullet Cluster

 

Image courtesy of A. Smith, N. Madhusudhan (University of Cambridge

Joel Kontinen 

The universe is wonderful.  It speaks of the one who made it. The James Webb space telescope has just pictures a cluster that is some 3.7 million light years from us, in the constellation Carina.

However, it does not mention how dark matter is distributed.

“Galaxy clusters act as a magnifying lens, shining light on the faintest and most distant objects — a phenomenon known as gravitational lensing. On the rarest of occasions, galaxy clusters collide, creating an even more massive lens. The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) recently provided extremely detailed observations of such a lens, the Bullet Cluster.

Located about 3.7 billion light-years from Earth in the constellation Carina, the Bullet Cluster is the aftermath of the collision between two galaxy clusters that is estimated to have begun approximately 150 million years ago. Each of the two galaxy clusters can be distinguished within the blue regions, yet they are bound by gravity and together form a single entity — the Bullet Cluster.

While gravitational lensing brings distant, faint objects into light, the extent of lensing can reveal the mass distribution within the massive foreground galaxy cluster. Mysterious dark matter makes up a huge chunk of galaxy clusters, but is difficult to spot because it does not reflect, absorb or emit light. So, astronomers sometimes study light from stars that are within the galaxy cluster but are not part of any galaxies. These stars are called intracluster stars and are floating because they are stripped from their galaxies during collisions. By analyzing the light from these stars, researchers can trace the distribution of dark matter, as these stars are gravitationally bound to the cluster's dark matter.

The latest data from JWST, combined with data from the Chandra X-ray Observatory, allowed astronomers to create an accurate map of mass — both visible and dark matter — within the Bullet Cluster. The light from intracluster stars pinned down the location of invisible matter, and the X-rays confirmed the location of hot gas. Based on these observations, astronomers could "replay" the collision. This revealed that hot gas (in bright pink) was pulled out of the galaxy clusters and left behind in the central region, while the dark matter (in blue) associated with individual galaxy clusters stayed.”

Source:

Shreejaya Karantha 2025 Did the James Webb telescope really find evidence of alien life? Here's the truth about exoplanet K2-18b. | Live Science July 6

Bizarre 'failed star' the size of Jupiter is 2,000 degrees hotter than the sun

 

Image courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech

Joel Kontinen

This Jupiter-size object is 80 times hotter than the sun

Our solar system is really special, compared to other systems. Take for instance the exoplanet that will give not life to the little green men.

“Some stars get hot, hotter than the sun. A newly discovered star system is breaking records — and helping scientists unravel the mysteries of an extreme type of planet known as hot Jupiters. In a paper published Aug. 14 in the journal Nature Astronomy, researchers describe how the system could help further our understanding of worlds beyond our solar system.

A newly discovered star system is breaking records — and helping scientists unravel the mysteries of an extreme type of planet known as hot Jupiters. In a paper published Aug. 14 in the journal Nature Astronomy, researchers describe how the system could help further our understanding of worlds beyond our solar system.”

 Source:

Joanna Thompson 2023 Bizarre 'failed star' the size of Jupiter is 2,000 degrees hotter than the sun | Live Science August 18