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Carl Sagan predicted life on Venus in 1967. We may be close to proving him right

Millions of space nerds reacted with joy Monday to a study showing the atmosphere of Venus contains phosphine, a chemical byproduct of biological life. But none would have been more thrilled or less surprised by the discovery than the late, great Carl Sagan — who said this day might come more than 50 years ago.

Now best remembered as the presenter of the most-viewed-ever PBS series Cosmos, the author of the book behind the movie Contact, and the guy who put gold disks of Earth music on NASA’s Voyager missions, Sagan actually got his start studying our closest two planets. He became an astronomer after being inspired as a kid by Edgar Rice Burroughs’ space fantasies, set on Mars and Venus.


‘Cosmos’ presenter Carl Sagan was one of the world’s top experts on Venus, and he saw first what scientists have just announced: possible life on Venus.

Life Possibly Found on Venus | The State of Science

This week, astronomers have detected phosphine on Venus- an element that is often associated with living processes here on Earth. As such, in this video, we will talk about how strong of evidence this is for life on Venus and what this means for humanity.

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Possible signs of alien life discovered on Venus

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Physicist: The Entire Universe Might Be a Neural Network

I’ve felt this might be true for many years. There’s obviously nothing inherently biological about neural networks. It could even explain the development of intelligent life when so many things work against that development — the universe is driven to try to create intelligence — a form of “intelligent design.”


We live inside a neural network, he says, not a simulation — “but we might never know the difference.”

Elon Musk Says Settlers Will Likely Die on Mars. He’s Right

Earlier this week, Elon Musk said there’s a “good chance” settlers in the first Mars missions will die. And while that’s easy to imagine, he and others are working hard to plan and minimize the risk of death by hardship or accident. In fact, the goal is to have people comfortably die on Mars after a long life of work and play that, we hope, looks at least a little like life on Earth.

🌌 You love our badass universe. So do we. Let’s explore it together.

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