Root Privileges

Tag: Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics

  • Looking for life? Look for pollution.

    —

    by

    VM
    in

    Four-thousand years on Earth and we’ve a lot of dirt to show for it. Why would an advanced alien civilization be any different? That’s the motivation that three astrophysicists from Harvard University have used to determine that powerful telescopes could look for signs of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) in alien atmospheres as signs of alien civilization. “If the civilization reaches…

  • Our universe, the poor man’s accelerator

    —

    by

    VM
    in

    That cosmic inflation may have happened at a higher-than-anticipated energy means physicists have access to the young universe through astronomical data.