New NASA research is helping to refine our understanding of candidate planets beyond our solar system that might support life.

“Using a model that more realistically simulates atmospheric conditions, we discovered a new process that controls the habitability of exoplanets and will guide us in identifying candidates for further study,” said Yuka Fujii of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), New York, New York and the Earth-Life Science Institute at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan, lead author of a paper on the research published in the Astrophysical Journal Oct. 17.

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Are AI aliens watching Earth? An immortal machine civilization could already exist and may be BILLIONS of years old, leading expert claims…

Artificial intelligence could already exist elsewhere in the universe and may have been around for billions of years, according to a leading expert.

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#AI The Machine Learning 4 SETI Code Challenge (ML4SETI), created by the SETI Institute and IBM, was completed on July 31st 2017. Nearly 75 participants, with a wide range of backgrounds from industry and academia, worked in teams on the project. The top team achieved a signal classification accuracy of 95%. The code challenge was sponsored by IBM, Nimbix Cloud, Skymind, Galvanize, and The SETI League.

The Machine Learning 4 SETI Code Challenge (ML4SETI), created by the SETI Institute and IBM, was completed on July 31st 2017. Nearly 75 participants, with a wide range of backgrounds from industry and academia, worked in teams on the project. The top team achieved a signal classification accuracy of 95%. The code challenge was sponsored by IBM, Nimbix Cloud, Skymind, Galvanize, and The SETI League.

The ML4SETI project challenged participants to build a machine-learning model to classify different signal types observed in radio-telescope data for the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence (SETI). Seven classes of signals were simulated (and thus, labeled), with which citizen scientists trained their models. We then measured the performance of these models with tests sets in order to determine a winner of the code challenge. The results were remarkably accurate signal classification models. The models from the top teams, using deep learning techniques, attained nearly 95% accuracy in signals from the test set, which included some signals with very low amplitudes. These models may soon be used in daily SETI radio signal research.

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Astronomers believe it’s possible that advanced beings lived in or visited our solar system eons ago — and perhaps left behind certain ‘technosignatures.’

Galaxy Quest, the cult movie beloved by sci-fi fans for its gentle mocking of, well, sci-fi fans, is back on track as a rebooted TV series for Amazon, THR reports. The revival was originally revealed in 2015, but plans were put on hold after the death of original cast-member Alan Rickman, who was to reprise his role in the news series. It’s now on again, with writer/actor/comedian Paul Scheer (The Disaster Artist, Veep) set to write the script.

The original 1999 film was a mild success, grossing $90 million, but has since become a cult classic. Starring Tim Allen, Sigourney Weaver, Alan Rickman and Tony Shalhoub, it follows the cast of a fictional Star Trek-like TV show called Galaxy Quest. After it’s canceled, they make their living via conventions, but are suddenly visited by actual aliens who believe the show is a documentary. The crew subsequently becomes mixed up in a serious galactic conflict and pulls together despite deep-seated resentments, with the help of devoted fans.

By Grabthar’s Hammer, I will write thee. https://t.co/LLuRumTW6u— Paul Scheer (@paulscheer) August 17, 2017

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Credit: Ridddle

In our hunt for Earth-like planets and extraterrestrial life, we’ve found thousands of exoplanets orbiting stars other than our sun. The caveat is that most of these planets have been detected using indirect methods. Similar to how a person can’t look at anything too close to the sun, current telescopes can’t observe potential Earth-like planets because they are too close to the stars they orbit, which are about 10 billion times brighter than the planets that surround them.

A possible solution might be to create an artificial solar eclipse with two precisely positioned spacecraft, according to Simone D’Amico, assistant professor of aeronautics and astronautics at Stanford and director of the Space Rendezvous Laboratory. One craft – known as a starshade – would position itself like the moon in a solar eclipse, blocking out the light of a distant star, so a second spacecraft with a telescope could view the nearby exoplanets from within the shadow cast by the starshade.

“With indirect measurements, you can detect objects near a star and figure out their orbit period and distance from the star,” said D’Amico, whose lab is working on this eclipsing system. “This is all important information, but with direct observation you could characterize the chemical composition of the planet and potentially observe signs of biological activity – life.”

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