Looking to do some mining in space? Need a little Ytterbium on your next flight through the galaxy? Researchers have figured out the best places in the cosmos to find this unusual but useful element.
Ytterbium is a rare Earth element, but also a soft, silvery metal. Its primary uses are in electronics, and it was used to create the most accurate atomic clock ever built. It reacts very readily with oxygen and in that form can be used to create a protective oxide layer over other metals.
It was named after a town in Sweden, Ytterby where the element has been mined since its discovery in 1787. Three other elements are also named after the town, using variations of the village’s name for Terbium, Erbium and Yttrium.
Researchers wanted to know where Ytterbium originated and how it came to be part of our planet. A team led by Lund University in Sweden have used the McDonald Observatory in Texas to hunt for its origins in space.
The McDonald Observatory in Texas.
What they found is that the element really is stardust, as it largely originates from two different types of supernova explosions. Researchers have come to understand that one half comes from heavy stars with short lives, while the other half comes from more regular stars, like the Sun. The latter create Ytterbium in the final stages of their relatively long lives.
“By studying stars formed at different times in the Milky Way, we have been able to investigate how fast the Ytterbium content increased in the galaxy,” said Martin Montelius, astronomy researcher at Lund University at the time of the research, and now at the University of Groningen. “What we have succeeded in doing is adding relatively young stars to the study.”
It has long been speculated that Ytterbium was created in space in, perhaps in supernova explosions and carried across the cosmos through stellar winds into planetary nebulae. There, it accumulated in the space clouds from which new stars – and planets — formed.
The researchers used a super-sensitive spectrometer, called the GRINS, the Immersion Grating INfrared Spectrometer, which is a near-IR spectrograph that can detect infrared light in high resolution. They examined the spectra of about 30 stars in the Sun’s vicinity and found that indeed, the element originates from supernovae, but surprisingly, from two different types of stars.
Their research also provides a new way for studying the evolution of our galaxy, the researchers say. Since the Ytterbium analysis was done using infrared light, it will now be possible to study large areas of the Milky Way that lie behind impenetrable dust clouds. Infrared observatories can peer through the dust in the same way that red light from a sunset can get through the Earth’s atmosphere.
“Our study opens up the possibility of mapping extensive parts of the Milky Way that have previously been unexplored,” said Rebecca Forsberg, doctoral student in astronomy at Lund University. “This means that we will be able to compare the evolutionary history in different parts of the galaxy.”
This video provides a good overview of Ytterbium and its uses:
Lead image caption: Artists concept of SN 2006gy, an extremely energetic supernova that was discovered on September 18, 2006. Credit: NASA/ Chandra Observatory.
Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) are among the top mysteries facing astronomers today. First discovered in 2007 (the famous “Lorimer Burst“), these energetic events consist of huge bursts of radio waves that typically last mere milliseconds. While most events observed to date have been one-off events, astronomers have detected a few FRBs that were repeating in nature. The cause of these bursts remains unknown, with theories ranging from rotating neutron stars and magnetars to extraterrestrials!
Since the first event was detected fifteen years ago, improvements in our instruments and dedicated arrays have led to many more detections! In another milestone, an international team of astronomers recently made high-precision measurements of a repeating FRB located in the spiral galaxy Messier 81 (M81)- the closest FRB observed to date. The team’s findings have helped resolve some questions about this mysterious phenomenon while raising others.
Their findings were described in two papers published in parallel this week in the journals Nature and Nature Astronomy. The studies were led jointly by The team is led jointly by Franz Kirsten, a postdoctoral astronomer with the Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden and ASTRON, and Kenzie Nimmo, a Ph.D. student with ASTRON and the University of Amsterdam.
As they describe in their papers, the team set out to make high-precision measurements of a repeating FRB discovered in January 2020 in the constellation Ursa Major (aka. the Big Dipper). To study the source with the highest possible resolution and sensitivity, the team combined measurements from multiple instruments in the European VLBI Network (EVN) – a network of telescopes located primarily in Europe and Asia specializing in Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI).
These were complemented by measurements taken from other powerful radio telescopes, like the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) in New Mexico. When they analyzed the measurements, they realized the repeating FRB came from the nearby spiral galaxy Messier 81 (M 81). This galaxy is located about 12 million light-years from Earth, making this event the closest FRB detected to date. As Kirsten explained in a recent Chalmers press release:
“We wanted to look for clues to the bursts’ origins. Using many radio telescopes together, we knew we could pinpoint the source’s location [in] the sky with extreme precision. That gives the opportunity to see what the local neighborhood of a fast radio burst looks like.
A magnetar sparkles, hidden among ancient stars (in red) in the outskirts of the spiral galaxy Messier 81 (M 81). ?Credit: ASTRON/Daniëlle Futselaar, artsource.nl
What’s more, the team traced the FRB to the outskirts of the galaxy and realized that it had to be coming from a dense cluster of very old stars (a globular cluster). This was a rather unexpected find, as many FRBs are surrounded by young, massive, short-lived stars and many times the mass of our Sun. These stars end their lives as extremely dense and highly magnetized white dwarves known as magnetars.
“It’s amazing to find fast radio bursts from a globular cluster,” added Kirsten. “This is a place in space where you only find old stars. Further out in the universe, fast radio bursts have been found in places where stars are much younger. This had to be something else.” As noted, astronomers have come to believe that FRBs are the result of young stars undergoing gravitational collapse to become magnetars. This has been born out by a significant body of research in recent years.
However, these latest findings suggest that they may be linked to magnetars that formed when a white dwarf became massive enough to collapse under its own weight – something that has been predicted but never before seen. Team member Jason Hessels, a professor with the University of Amsterdam and ASTRON, explained:
“We expect magnetars to be shiny and new, and definitely not surrounded by old stars. So if what we’re looking at here really is a magnetar, then it can’t have been formed from a young star exploding. There has to be another way.”
A new composite image of the Crab Nebula features X-rays from Chandra (blue and white), optical data from Hubble (purple), and infrared data from Spitzer (pink). Credit: NASA
In globular clusters, many stars exist as binary systems, some of which get close for one star to collect material from the other. This often occurs when one star is no longer in its main sequence and expands to become a Red Giant. The companion will begin to siphon material from the Red Dwarf’s outer layers, eventually leading to a situation known as “accretion-induced collapse.”
“If one of the white dwarfs can catch enough extra mass from its companion, it can turn into an even denser star, known as a neutron star,” said team member Mohit Bhardwaj, a Ph.D. candidate at McGill University and a member of the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME). “That’s a rare occurrence, but in a cluster of ancient stars, it’s the simplest way of making fast radio bursts.”
After zooming in on their measurements to look for additional clues, the astronomers found something else that surprised them. Some of the flashes they observed were shorter in duration than expected, lasting for nanoseconds (one-billionth of a second) rather than milliseconds (one-thousandth). This is similar to what has been observed from a pulsar in the Crab Nebula, a tiny, dense remnant of a supernova explosion that was seen from Earth in 1054 CE. Said Nimmo:
“The flashes flickered in brightness within as little as a few tens of nanoseconds. That tells us that they must be coming from a tiny volume in space, smaller than a soccer pitch and perhaps only tens of meters across. Some of the signals we measured are short and extremely powerful, in just the same way as some signals from the Crab pulsar. That suggests that we are indeed seeing a magnetar, but in a place that magnetars haven’t been found before.”
In the near future, observations of this system and others like it will help astronomers tell if the source is an unusual magnetar, an unusual pulsar, a black hole, a dense star in a close orbit, or something else entirely. Regardless, it is clear that the detection of more FRBs is leading to new and unexpected insights into FRBs and the life cycle of stars.
Scientists say China’s Yutu-2 rover, part of the Chang’E-4 mission, has found several small glass globules on the Moon’s far side. While tiny glass beads have been found previously in lunar samples brought back by the Apollo astronauts, the ones found by Yutu-2 are much bigger and translucent.
The discovery was made by Dr. Zhiyong Xiao, one of the lead scientific team members of the Chang’E-4 mission. They beads were found by looking at panoramic images taken by the rover. Since the rover doesn’t have sampling capabilities and is not a sample return mission like it’s older sibling, the Chang-E-5 mission, there is no compositional data on the glass beads, only observational evidence.
In the paper published in the Science Bulletin, Xiao said taking into account the location where the glass was found – in the South Pole Atkien basin at the lunar farside – and the local context of what is known about that region, they believe the beads are like most likely the result of large impacts to the Moon.
The paper details the discovery of several translucent spherical and dumbbell-shaped glassy globules that range in size, but are as large as 4 centimeters (1.5 inches). They were found on the surface of the Moon, and are transparent to translucent, with some exhibiting a light brownish color.
Two confirmed (upper row) and two possible (bottom row) glass globules found along the route of Yutu-2 (Image taken by the Yutu-2 rover; courtesy of China National Space Administration).
As you can see from the images, the glass beads are quite compelling.
“Transparent and translucent glasses on the Moon are less than 1 mm in diameters, and larger ones are dark and opaque,” the team wrote in their paper. “Hitherto discovered macro-sized glass globules on the Moon (up to 4 cm in diameter) are opaque impact glass.”
In the Apollo samples, tiny glass beads were found across several of the missions, but they were incredibly small, less than 1 millimeter. Studies of those beads indicated they were volcanic in origin, and they have different colors, depending on their chemical makeup. For example, scientists found green beads in lunar soil collected by astronauts on the Apollo 15 mission in 1971, and the famous “orange soil” of Apollo 17 in 1972 was colored by glass beads.
Both volcanic and impact glasses on the Moon are formed by cooling of regolith that has experienced extreme heat. Glass spherules can record important information about the mantle composition and the history of both lunar volcanism and impact cratering.
Orange soil (from volcanic glass beads) is clearly visible in this image from Apollo 17. Credit: NASA
In the case of the Apollo 17 orange glass, analysis back on Earth revealed volcanic glass formed when molten lava from the interior of the Moon erupted, some 3 to 4 billion years ago, spewing up above the airless surface and into the vacuum of space. As the lava became exposed to the vacuum, it separated out into tiny fragments and froze, forming tiny beads of volcanic glass in orange and black colors. Later analysis revealed measurable water content in the beads.
But the glass found by Yutu-2 is different, say the researchers and they conclude that from “their unique morphology and local context suggest they are most likely impact glasses — quenched anorthositic impact melts produced during cratering events — rather than being of volcanic origin or delivered from other planetary bodies.” , the researchers said.
Xiao and his team predict that the glass globules would be abundant across the lunar highlands, providing promising sampling targets for future missions that could reveal the early impact history of the Moon.
Chang’e-4 launched on Dec. 8, 2018, and made a soft landing in the Von Karman Crater in the South Pole-Aitken Basin on the far side of the moon on Jan. 3, 2019. So far, Yutu-2 has traveled more than 1,000 meters.
In their pursuit of understanding cosmic evolution, scientists rely on a two-pronged approach. Using advanced instruments, astronomical surveys attempt to look farther and farther into space (and back in time) to study the earliest periods of the Universe. At the same time, scientists create simulations that attempt to model how the Universe has evolved based on our understanding of physics. When the two match, astrophysicists and cosmologists know they are on the right track!
In recent years, increasingly-detailed simulations have been made using increasingly sophisticated supercomputers, which have yielded increasingly accurate results. Recently, an international team of researchers led by the University of Helsinki conducted the most accurate simulations to date. Known as SIBELIUS-DARK, these simulations accurately predicted the evolution of our corner of the cosmos from the Big Bang to the present day.
Images of the SIBELIUS-DARK simulation. Credit: McAlpine et al. (2021)
This simulation is the first study conducted as part of the “Simulations Beyond the Local Universe” (SIBELIUS) project and was performed using the DiRAC COSmology MAchine (COSMA), a distributed computer network operated by the ICC. The simulation covers a volume of space up to a distance of 600 million light-years from Earth and is represented by over 130 billion simulated ‘particles’, which required thousands of computers several weeks to produce.
The team used known physics to describe how Dark Matter and cosmic gas evolved during the history of the Universe. Specifically, they sought to determine if what we observe today is consistent with the standard model of cosmology – the Cold Dark Matter (CDM) model. For the past few decades, astrophysicists have used this model to explain the properties of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) to the number and spatial distribution of the galaxies we see today.
Previous CDM simulations have typically modeled random patches of the Universe that are similar to what we observe today. By using advanced generative algorithms, these simulations were conditioned to reproduce our specific patch of the Universe. This allowed the team to see if their simulation reproduced the present-day structures in the vicinity of the Milky Way that astronomers have observed for decades.
After meticulously comparing the virtual Universe they created to a series of observational surveys, they found that the simulation matched the locations and properties of structures like the Virgo, Coma, and Perseus galaxy clusters, the “Great Wall,” and the “Local Void.” Most importantly, at the center of the simulation were the two most important and familiar structures to astronomers: the virtual counterparts of the Milky Way and the neighboring Andromeda galaxy.
At the very center of the simulation is the Milky Way galaxy (MW) and our nearest massive neighbour, the Andromeda galaxy (M31). Credit Dr Stuart McAlpine
As co-author Professor Carlos Frenk (the Ogden Professor of Fundamental Physics at the ICC) explained:
“It is immensely exciting to see the familiar structures that we know exist around us emerge from a computer calculation. The simulations simply reveal the consequences of the laws of physics acting on the dark matter and cosmic gas throughout the 13.7 billion years that our universe has been around.
“The fact that we have been able to reproduce these familiar structures provides impressive support for the standard Cold Dark Matter model and tells us that we are on the right track to understand the evolution of the entire Universe.”
Another interesting finding was the prediction that our patch of the Universe has fewer galaxies on average due to a large-scale “matter underdensity.” While this does not contradict the CDM model, it could have consequences for astrophysicists interpreting observed galaxy surveys. “This project is truly ground-breaking,” said co-author Dr. Matthieu Schaller from Leiden University. “These simulations demonstrate that the standard Cold Dark Matter Model can produce all the galaxies we see in our neighborhood. This is a very important test for the model to pass.”
Dr. Stuart McAlpine, a former Ph.D. student at Durham and a current postdoctoral researcher at the University of Helsinki, added: “By simulating our Universe, as we see it, we are one step closer to understanding the nature of our cosmos. This project provides an important bridge between decades of theory and astronomical observations.”
Moving forward, the international team plans to further analyze the simulation in the hopes of providing further stringent tests of the CDM model.
We’ve long known a disaster took place about 66 million years ago, where in a geological instant, 75% of the plants and animals on Earth were wiped out, including all the land-roaming dinosaurs. But here’s a new detail about that event: Even though we can’t pinpoint exactly what year this disaster took place, we now know it happened during the springtime.
Most scientists agree the disaster was an asteroid impact, where an asteroid at least 10 kilometers wide struck the Chicxulub region in the present-day Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico. The impact released 2 million times more energy than the most powerful nuclear bomb ever detonated.
While previous studies looking at the timing of this event have focused on millennial timescales, a new study from Melanie During and colleagues from the University of Sweden focused on pinpointing seasonal information of fossilized fish found in a site in North Dakota, that perished as a result of the devastating impact.
The devastation created layer of ash sandwiched between layers of rock, known as the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K–Pg) boundary, formerly known as the Cretaceous–Tertiary (K-T) boundary, which is found across the world in the geologic record. It includes a layer of iridium, an element common in asteroids but rare on Earth. It was this ‘iridium anomaly’ that first revealed the extinction event as an asteroid strike to geologists more than three decades ago.
Artistic reconstruction by Joschua Knüppe of the Seiche wave surging into the Tanis river, bringing in fishes and everything in its path (dinosaurs, trees) while impact spherules rain down from the sky. Some dinosaurs are still trying to get away but we know they will not get far. Ants try to get back into their nest as the just blooming dianthus in the foreground are already being impacted by the impact spherules. Credit: Joschua Knüppe
Well-preserved fossil bones of filter-feeding sturgeons and paddlefishes found in the Tanis fossil site in North Dakota had impact debris lodged in their gills, but nowhere further down the digestive system, suggesting an almost-instantaneous death occurred when an impact-triggered seiche –continental water shaken by the impact — caused a sudden upriver surge.
The researchers found distinct growth patterns in the fossils that provided record of seasonal change, of when the fish had reproduced and had developing offspring. In the northern hemisphere, this would have been in the spring.
A paddlefish from Tanis. On the right, the rostrum (paddle) is missing and on the left everything behind the shoulder fin is missing. Credit: European Synchrotron Radiation Facility
“We postulate that the timing of the Chicxulub impact in boreal spring and austral autumn was a major influence on selective biotic survival across the Cretaceous–Palaeogene boundary,” the authors wrote in their paper, published in Nature.
The timing of the collision, at least for the Northern Hemisphere, would have come at a particularly sensitive stage in the biological life cycles of many plants and animals.
“I think spring puts a large group of the late Cretaceous biota (animal and plant life) in a very vulnerable spot because they were out and about looking for food, tending to offspring and trying to build up resources after the harsh winter,” Melanie During said at a news briefing.
By contrast, the researchers said that ecosystems in the Southern Hemisphere, where it was fall when the asteroid collided with Earth, appear to have bounced back nearly twice as fast as those in the Northern Hemisphere.
Three-dimensional rendering of the subopercular and gills in a with trapped impact spherules (yellow). Credit: During et al, Nature.
Even though these fossils were found 3,000 kilometers (1,864 miles) away from the impact crater, the details of the dig show the large fish – which are up to a meter (3 feet) long — died dramatically shortly after the asteroid strike. They were buried alive by sediment displaced as a massive body of water unleashed by the asteroid strike moved upstream.
Impact spherules — small bits of molten rock ejected from the crater went high into the atmosphere or even to space where they crystallized into a glass-like material — were found lodged in the fishes’ gills.
“These impact spherules got ejected into space, …and rained back down on Earth,” During said. “This deposit literally looks like a car crash frozen in place. It looks like the most violent thing I have ever seen, preserved in pristine condition.”
This new study coincides with previous studies from as early as 1991 which showed fossils in the same condition, which suggested is happened in June, along with another study from December of 2021, which also concluded the extinction event happened in spring.
Lead image caption:Melanie During excavating a paddlefish in the Tanis deposit. Credit: Jackson Leibach, via Nature.
What is humanity? Do our minds set us apart from the rest of nature and from the rest of Earth? Or does Earth have a collective mind of its own, and we’re simply part of that mind? On the literal face of it, that last question might sound ridiculous.
But a new thought experiment explores it more deeply, and while there’s no firm conclusion about humanity and a planetary mind, just thinking about it invites minds to reconsider their relationship with nature.
Overcoming our challenges requires a better understanding of ourselves and nature, and the same is true for any other civilizations that make it past the Great Filter.
Humanity is pretty proud of itself sometimes. We’ve built a more-or-less global civilization, we’ve wiped out deadly diseases, and we’ve travelled to the Moon. We’re so smart we’re taking steps to protect Earth from the type of calamitous impact that wiped out Earth’s previous tenants, the dinosaurs. But that’s just one perspective.
Another perspective says that we’re still primitive. That billions of us are in the grip of ancient superstitions. That nuclear war haunts us like a spectre. That tribalism still drives us to do horrible animalistic things to one another. That we’re not wise enough to manage our own technological advancement.
Both perspectives are equally valid. All that can really be said is that we’re not as primitive as we used to be, but we’re nowhere near as mature as we need to be if we hope to persist beyond the Great Filter.
The Juno spacecraft took this image of Earth during a gravity assist flyby of our planet in 2013. The fact that we can make a spacecraft take a picture of our home planet is a sign of intelligence. But how intelligent are we really? Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Kevin M. Gill.
Can we come up with a way to explain what stage we’re at in our development? The authors of a new article think they can. And they think we can only do that if we take into account Earth’s planetary history, the collective mind, and the state of our technology.
This trio of scientists wrote the new article in the International Journal of Astrobiology. It’s titled “Intelligence as a planetary scale process.” The authors are Adam Frank from the University of Rochester, David Grinspoon from the Planetary Science Institute, and Sara Walker from Arizona State University. The article is a thought experiment based on our scientific understanding of Earth alongside questions about how life has altered and continues to alter the planet.
Humans tend to think of intelligence as a property belonging to individuals. But it’s also a property belonging to collectives. Social insects use their collective intelligence to make decisions. The authors take the idea of intelligence even further: from individual intelligence to collective intelligence, to planetary intelligence. “Here, we broaden the idea of intelligence as a collective property and extend it to the planetary scale,” the authors write. “We consider the ways in which the appearance of technological intelligence may represent a kind of planetary-scale transition, and thus might be seen not as something which happens on a planet but to a planet, much as some models propose the origin of life itself was a planetary phenomenon.”
We’ve divided Earth’s life forms into species. We recognize that evolution drove the development of all these species. But are we missing something in our urge to classify? Is it more correct to view life as planetary rather than as individual species? After all, species didn’t suddenly appear; each one appeared in an ongoing chain of evolution. (Except for the original species, whose origins remain clouded in mystery.) And all species are linked together in the biosphere. It’s often pointed out that Earth is a bacterial world and the rest of us are only here because of bacteria.
It’s worthwhile to recall the work of Vladimir Vernadsky. Vernadsky was an important founder of biogeochemistry. Wikipedia defines biogeochemistry as “… the scientific discipline that involves the study of the chemical, physical, geological, and biological processes and reactions that govern the composition of the natural environment (including the biosphere, the cryosphere, the hydrosphere, the pedosphere, the atmosphere, and the lithosphere).
Vernadsky saw that the biosphere system is strongly linked to the Earth’s non-living systems. It’s difficult to understand the biosphere without looking at how it’s linked with other systems like the atmosphere. The linkage allows the biosphere to shape Earth’s other “spheres.”
Vernadsky wrote: “Activated by radiation, the matter of the biosphere collects and redistributes solar energy and converts it ultimately into free energy capable of doing work on Earth. A new character is imparted to the planet by this powerful cosmic force. The radiations that pour upon the Earth cause the biosphere to take on properties unknown to lifeless planetary surfaces, and thus transform the face of the Earth.”
In their article, the authors point out how organisms changed Earth’s biosphere. When the ability to photosynthesize appeared in lifeforms, individual lifeforms used it to great benefit. But collectively, they oxygenated Earth’s atmosphere in the Great Oxygenation Event (GOE.) The photosynthesizers opened a pathway for their own continuation and for more complex life to develop. It not only changed the course of evolution, but it also changed the very geology and geochemistry of the planet. The authors liken the collective activity of photosynthetic organisms to collective intelligence.
This figure from the article illustrates multi-level networks as a property of planetary-scale operation of intelligence. Each layer of the coupled planetary systems constitutes its own network of chemical and physical interactions. Specific nodes in each layer represent links connecting the layers. Thus, the geosphere contains chemical/physical networks associated with processes such as atmospheric circulation, evaporation, condensation and weathering. These are modified by the biosphere via additional networks of processes such as microbial chemical processing and leaf transpiration. The technosphere adds an additional layer of networked processes such as industrial-scale agriculture, manufacturing byproducts and energy generation. Image Credit: Frank et al. 2022.
“Making sense of how a planet’s intelligence might be defined and understood helps shine a little light on humanity’s future on this planet—or lack thereof,” they write. “If we ever hope to survive as a species, we must use our intelligence for the greater good of the planet,” said Adam Frank.
That won’t come as a shock to Universe Today readers.
The authors point out how collective activity changes the planet. They base their experiment partly on the Gaia hypothesis, which says that the Earth’s non-biological systems—geochemistry, plate tectonics, the atmosphere, the oceans—interact with living systems to maintain the entire planet in a habitable state. Without the “collective intelligence” of the biological world, the Earth wouldn’t be habitable.
The authors use an example from forests to illustrate the point.
Earth’s great forests couldn’t exist without the network of mycorrhizal fungi that live below ground. Tree roots interact with the network and the network moves nutrients around in the forest. The fungi get carbon in return. Without this network, the trees couldn’t survive, and no great forests would emerge.
Mycorrhizal fungi are in a symbiotic relationship with plants. The relationship is usually mutualistic, the fungus providing the plant with water and minerals from the soil and the plants providing the fungus with photosynthesis products. Parasitic organisms are also part of the network. Image Credit: By Charlotte Roy, Salsero35, Nefronus – Adapted from https://ift.tt/ZRoGmeL, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://ift.tt/1XM9fFm
As schoolchildren, we learn that plants produce the oxygen we need to breathe. Without photosynthetic organisms, we couldn’t survive. So the collective activity of the plant world (and algae, etc.) changes the planet to a place hospitable for humanity and other complex life. But now in our short time on Earth, we’ve developed technology, which is the most powerful expression of our collective planetary intelligence. What does that mean for Earth?
The authors talk about four stages of Earth’s development and how we can understand the idea of collective planetary intelligence as those stages evolve.
“Planets evolve through immature and mature stages, and planetary intelligence is indicative of when you get to a mature planet.”
Adam Frank, co-author, “Intelligence as a planetary scale process.”
The first stage is an immature biosphere. Billions of years ago the Earth was an immature biosphere. The only lifeform was bacteria, which couldn’t exert much force on Earth’s planetary systems. Because of this, there was no important global feedback between life and the planet. There was no collective intelligence.
The second stage was a mature biosphere. This was about 2.5 billion to 540 million years ago. Photosynthesis appeared and then plants. Photosynthesis oxygenated Earth’s atmosphere and an ozone layer developed. Life was making the Earth more stable and hospitable for itself. This is the collective planetary intelligence the authors are talking about.
Earth’s immature biosphere and mature biosphere stages. The mature biosphere stage was only possible once photosynthetic organisms created feedback with Earth’s non-biological processes, oxygenating the atmosphere and creating an ozone layer. Image Credit: University of Rochester illustration / Michael Osadciw
The third stage is where we’re at now, according to the authors. We live in an immature technosphere of our own creation. Our communication, transportation, electrical, and governmental networks are increasingly linked into a technosphere. A quick scan of headlines in consumer tech media shows how we can get a little excited about what we’ve created as a species (Meta, anyone?) But it’s wise not to get too excited. Why?
Because our technosphere is not linked with natural systems. Our immature technosphere largely ignores its impact on the Earth’s atmosphere, oceans, and the biosphere in general. We extract fossil fuels and push carbon into the atmosphere in an unregulated way. The danger is that this technological immaturity will force the Earth’s systems into a state that imperils the technosphere itself. The immature technosphere is working against itself and the biosphere that supports it.
The fourth stage represents a workable future. It’s the mature technosphere, and in a mature technosphere, our technological intelligence benefits the Earth. For example, renewable energy sources like solar energy will displace fossil fuels and help the climate regulate itself and maintain its habitability. Technological agriculture will strengthen the Earth’s soil systems rather than degrade them. We’ll use our technology to build cities that co-exist with natural systems rather than dominating them. But there are a lot of unknowns.
Earth’s immature technosphere and mature technosphere stages. The mature technosphere stage will be possible when we use our technology to maintain Earth’s life-supporting systems rather than to degrade them. Image Credit: University of Rochester illustration / Michael Osadciw
“Planets evolve through immature and mature stages, and planetary intelligence is indicative of when you get to a mature planet,” Frank says in a press release. “The million-dollar question is figuring out what planetary intelligence looks like and means for us in practice because we don’t know how to move to a mature technosphere yet.”
In a mature technosphere, systems would interact in mutually beneficial ways, like the trees and the mycorrhizal network in forests. A network of feedback loops both technological and natural would work intelligently to maintain habitability. This would be an entirely new arrangement, and the complexity would allow new capabilities to emerge. The emerging capabilities are one hallmark of a mature technosphere. Another is self-maintenance.
This figure from the article is a schematic representation of the evolution of coupled planetary systems in terms of degrees of planetary intelligence. The authors propose five possible properties required for a world to show cognitive activity operating across planetary scales (i.e. planetary intelligence). These are: (1) emergence, (2) dynamics of networks, (3) networks of semantic information, (4) appearance of complex adaptive systems, (5) autopoiesis. Different degrees of these properties appear as a world evolves from abiotic (geosphere) to biotic (biosphere) to technologic (technosphere). Image Credit: Frank et al. 2022.
“The biosphere figured out how to host life by itself billions of years ago by creating systems for moving around nitrogen and transporting carbon,” Frank says. “Now we have to figure out how to have the same kind of self-maintaining characteristics with the technosphere.”
There are some signs that we’re groping towards a mature technosphere, but they’re mostly crisis-driven. In 1987, we banned the ozone-harming class of chemicals called chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) after scientists found a hole in the ozone layer. Acid rain is caused by sulphur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide and we’ve developed international agreements to limit them after scientists found that acid rain damages soil, trees, fish and other aquatic animals. DDT was used to kill pests and malarial mosquitoes but many countries banned their use when scientists found that it persisted in the environment and led to population declines in birds of prey, among other biosphere-harming effects.
This figure from the article shows timescales for interventions at different proposed levels of planetary intelligence. For so-called ‘mature biospheres’, feedbacks or interventions occur across a range of timescales from decades (DMS ((dimethyl sulphide) ocean temperature regulation) to millions of years for CH4 climate regulation. For ‘immature technospheres’ where the feedbacks or interventions are inadvertent, timescales occur on decades to century timescales. For ‘mature technospheres’ interventions are intentional and designed to maintain the sustainability of both the biosphere and the technosphere as a coupled system. Ozone replenishment and climate mitigation would occur on decades to century timescales while intentional changes in stellar evolution (if possible) would define the longest timescales at tens to hundreds of millions of years. Image Credit: Frank et al. 2022.
So there’s been some progress towards planetary intelligence. But those successes are mostly corrections to previous bad behaviour. Can we be more proactive?
We might be starting to. We’re developing systems to detect, catalogue, and deflect dangerous asteroids that pose a collision hazard with Earth. If we can do that, we can protect the entire biosphere from calamity, along with our own civilization. NASA and the ESA are working on planetary defence, and NASA launched a technology demonstration mission in 2021. If we can use technology to protect the entire planet, that must constitute a step toward a mature technosphere.
Some of these efforts are heartening, but we have a long ways to go, and this thought experiment can help us think more clearly about it. “We don’t have planetary intelligence or a mature technosphere yet,” Frank said. “But the whole purpose of this research is to point out where we should be headed.”
Are the development of planetary intelligence and a mature technosphere hallmarks of civilizations that make it past a “Great Filter?” Maybe. That idea dovetails with Frank’s other work in the search for alien technosignatures on distant exoplanets.
“We’re saying the only technological civilizations we may ever see—the ones we should expect to see—are the ones that didn’t kill themselves, meaning they must have reached the stage of a true planetary intelligence,” he says. “That’s the power of this line of inquiry: it unites what we need to know to survive the climate crisis with what might happen on any planet where life and intelligence evolve.”
For we lifeforms on Earth at this time, Anthropogenic Global Warming is the biggest threat to a sustainable biosphere. While we can debate what it is about our species that drives us to want more stuff, consume more stuff and create more pollution, the debate about AGW itself is over. It’s happening and we’re causing it.
There are some glimmers of planetary intelligence flickering on the horizon. But we’ve got a long way to go yet. Will we become intelligent enough to make it past the climatic Great Filter?
For years, NASA has been gearing up for its long-awaited return to the Moon with the Artemis Program. Beginning in 2025, this program will send the first astronauts (“the first woman and first person of color”) to the Moon since the end of the Apollo Era. Beyond that, NASA plans to establish the necessary infrastructure to allow for a “sustained program of lunar exploration,” such as the Lunar Gateway and the Artemis Base Camp.
Beyond these facilities, several elements are essential to ensuring a long-term human presence on the Moon. These include shelter from the elements, food, air, water, and of course, power. To address this last element, NASA has teamed up with HeroX – the leading crowdsourcing platform – to launch the NASA Watts on the Moon Challenge. This competition is entering Phase II and will award an additional $4.5 million for innovative concepts that supply power to future lunar missions.
Illustration of NASA astronauts on the lunar South Pole. Credit: NASA
For this challenge, NASA is not seeking proposals for power generation but innovative engineering approaches for integrating power transmission and energy storage into lunar missions. Specifically, these solutions will need to support astronauts, hardware, and systems in the conditions prevalent in the South-Pole Aitken Basin. This permanently shadowed, cratered region is located around the Moon’s southern polar region and has large deposits of ice water.
In addition to NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), the China National Space Agency (CNSA), and Roscosmos are all eying this region as a site for future bases. While these craters present numerous advantages (such as the availability of ice water), they also present several hazards. These environments are not subject to the extreme variations that occur around the equator, where temperatures range from -173 to 117 °C (-279 to 243 °F).
On the other hand, polar craters are permanently shadowed, and temperatures are perennially freezing, averaging -269 °C (-452 °F). Current proposals for lunar bases include placing solar arrays around the crater’s rim, but these are still limited by the extended periods of darkness and light around the poles – which last for 706 hours (or 29d 12h 44m 03s) at a time. As such, NASA and other space agencies are looking for options to provide power during extended periods of darkness.
The first phase of the competition ran from September 2020 to May 2021 and focused on theoretical approaches to energy management, distribution, and storage solutions. In the end, seven competitors were awarded a total of $500,000 in prize money for their approaches, which showed considerable promise. As a result, NASA and HeroX have launched Phase 2 to allow the winners to develop and demonstrate their proposals in simulated lunar conditions.
Habitats grouped together on the rim of a lunar crater, known as the Lunar Village. Credit: ESA
This phase of the competition will consist of three levels that will award up to 17 prizes in total. The specified requirements remain the same from Phase I, where teams chose one or more activities (collecting regolith, water production, and oxygen production) and offered solutions for energy distribution, management, and/or storage. For Phase Two, NASA has identified two specific areas that are need of improvement:
Power Transmission: that can deliver power from a remote generation source to critical mission operation loads where (1) power loads are frequently or permanently immersed in extreme cold and (2) there are large variations in average power loads versus peak power loads. NASA has significant interest in both wired and wireless transmission, and the Challenge seeks to incentivize and demonstrate both types of solutions.
Energy Storage: that can (1) power mission operation loads when intermittent power generation is not available and (2) survive and operate in extreme cold environments.
For this phase, NASA is looking for solutions that can be designed, built, and then tested in a simulated lunar environment with conditions mirroring the real thing (freezing cold, near-vacuum, and permanently shadowed). NASA also seeks solutions that can proceed toward flight readiness and future operation on the surface after the challenge is complete. It is also essential that these proposals work with ideas for power generation, which NASA is pursuing through many programs.
This includes the Fission Surface Power (FSP) system, a lightweight ten kilowatt (kW) nuclear reactor that emerged from the Kilopower project – which yielded the Kilopower Reactor Using Stirling Tech (KRUSTY) demonstrator. There’s also the novel “Light Bender” system that would use solar collectors and telescope optics to capture and distribute sunlight in shadowed craters on the Moon.
As always, the challenge is expected to advance similar technologies and have public and commercial applications here on Earth. As such, it is hoped that proposals for this competition could be adapted for power distribution and storage here at home. The competition is open to all residents in the U.S., individuals or teams, that are 18 years of age or older. Organizations must be incorporated in and maintain a primary place of business in the U.S. (some restrictions apply).
For more information, or to enroll in the challenge, visit HeroX.
