Avi Loeb

4 days ago | avi-loeb.medium.com | Avi Loeb

In a recent interview, I was presented with a hypothetical dilemma of choosing between only two options: communicate science or do science. Which option would I choose? I promptly responded: “do science.” I get pleasure from finding things out, in the words of Richard Feynman. Communicating my scientific work to others is the icing on the cake.

5 days ago | avi-loeb.medium.com | Avi Loeb

Imagine a distant Earth-twin exoplanet on which a global nuclear war erupts. How far can we detect the explosions associated with this extraterrestrial war? Our imagination is often tied to down-to-Earth experiences. To calibrate what we might expect from the war zone of an Earth-twin, let us consider a plausible scenario for our own planet.

6 days ago | avi-loeb.medium.com | Avi Loeb

At the opening of a public “Sing for Science” event organized by WBUR in Boston, Massachusetts yesterday, the brilliant singer Josh Ritter sang his beautiful song titled: “Truth is a Dimension Both Invisible and Binding,” with the words: “… And I turned it toward an unassuming patch of dusty sky That was really fifty million stars a billion lightyears wide And then all at once it felt as if time had been suspended And a vision poured into me like a bottle’d been upended I was filled with...

1 week ago | avi-loeb.medium.com | Avi Loeb

On my way to Florida for a podcast interview with the visionary Matt Beall, I received an email from the Founder and CEO of LifeShip, Ben Haldeman, who wrote:“Dear Avi,Hope you’re doing great! I wanted to share some exciting news. LifeShip is heading to an asteroid! Is there something that makes sense to send to an asteroid together? We do have a short time before manufacturing the storage archives and delivering our payload in July. This mission is unique.

1 week ago | thedebrief.org | Avi Loeb

Almost every galaxy hosts a supermassive black hole at its center. When galaxies merge, the two black holes spiral in closer to each other and eventually merge through gravitational wave emission. Within a few billion years, this process will be featured close to home as our own Milky Way will collide with its nearest massive neighbor, the Andromeda galaxy. If the two black holes have different masses, the emission of gravitational waves is asymmetric, causing the merger product to recoil.