Every time I mention a Brian Aldiss novel, I have to be careful to check the original title against the one published in the US. The terrific novel Non-Stop (1958) became Starship in the States, rather reducing the suspense of decoding its strange setting. Hothouse (1962) became The Long Afternoon of Earth when abridged in the US following serialization in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. I much prefer the poetic US title with its air of brooding fin de siècle decline as Aldiss imagines our deep, deep future. Imagine an Earth orbiting a Sun far hotter than it is today, a world where our planet is now tidally locked to that Sun, which Aldiss describes as “paralyzing half the heaven.” The planet is choked with vegetation so dense and rapidly evolving that humans are on the edge of extinction, living within a continent-spanning tree. The memory of reading all this always stays with me when I think about distant futures, which by most accounts involve an ever-hotter Sun and the...

I want to return to Mars this morning because an emerging idea on how to terraform it is in the news. The idea is to block infrared radiation from escaping into space by releasing engineered dust particles about half as long as the wavelength of this radiation, which is centered around wavelengths of 22 and 10 μm, into the atmosphere. Block those escape routes and the possibility of warming Mars in a far more efficient way than has previously been suggested emerges. The paper on this work even suggests a SETI implication (!), but more about that in a moment. Grad student Samaneh Ansari (Northwestern University) is lead author of the paper, working with among others Ramses Ramirez (University of Central Florida), whose investigations into planetary habitability and the nature of the habitable zone have appeared frequently in these pages (see, for example, Revising the Classical ‘Habitable Zone’). The engineered ‘nanorods’ at the heart of the concept could raise the surface temperature...

Mars was a lively destination in early science fiction because of its proximity. When H. G. Wells needed a danger from outer space, The War of the Worlds naturally looked toward Mars, as a place close to Earth and one with the ability to provoke curiosity. Closely studied at opposition in 1877, Mars provoked in Giovanni Schiaparelli the prospect of a network of canals, surely feeding a civilization that might still be alive. No wonder new technologies turned toward the Red Planet as they became available to move beyond visible light and even attempt to make contact with its inhabitants. All this comes to mind this morning because of an intriguing story sent along by my friend Al Jackson, whose work on interstellar propulsion is well known in these pages, as is his deep involvement with the Apollo program. Al had never heard of the incident described in the story. It occurred in 1924, when at another Martian opposition (an orbital alignment bringing Earth and Mars as close as they’ll...

Until we learn whether or not life exists on other planets, we extrapolate on the basis of our single living world. Just how long it took life to develop is a vital question, with implications that extend to other planetary systems. In today's essay, Alex Tolley brings his formidable background in the biological sciences to bear on the matter of Earth's first living things, which may well have emerged far earlier than was once thought. In particular, what was the last universal common ancestor -- LUCA -- from which bacteria, archaea, and eukarya subsequently diverged? Without the evidence future landers and space telescopes will give us, we remain ignorant of so fundamental a question as whether life itself -- not to mention intelligence -- is a rarity in the cosmos. But we're piecing together a framework that reveals Earth's surprising ability to spring into early life. by Alex Tolley Once upon a time, the history of life on Earth seemed so much simpler. Darwin had shown how natural...

A favorite editor of mine long ago told me never to begin an article with a question, but do I ever listen to her? Sometimes. Today’s lead question, then, is this: Can we expand communications over interstellar distances to include quantum methods? A 2020 paper by Arjun Berera (University of Edinburgh) makes the case for quantum coherence over distances that have only recently been suggested for communications: …We have been able to deduce that quantum teleportation and more generally quantum coherence can be sustained in space out to vast interstellar distances within the Galaxy. The main sources of decoherence in the Earth based experiments, atmospheric turbulence and other environmental effects like fog, rain, smoke, are not present in space. This leaves only the elementary particle interactions between the transmitted photons and particles present in the interstellar medium. Quantum coherence is an important matter; it refers to the integrity of the quantum state involved, and is...

When Arthur C. Clarke tells me that something is terrifying, he’s got my attention. After all, since boyhood I’ve not only had my imagination greatly expanded by Clarke’s work but have learned a great deal about scientific methodology and detachment. So where does terror fit in? Clarke is said to have used the term in a famous quote: “Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.” But let’s ponder this: Would we prefer to live in a universe with other intelligent beings, or one in which we are alone? Are they really equally terrifying? Curiosity favors the former, as does innate human sociability. But the actual situation may be far more stark, which is why David Kipping deploys the Clarke quote in a new paper probing the probabilities. Working with the University of Sydney’s Geraint Lewis, Kipping (Columbia University) has applied a thought experiment first conceived by Edwin Jaynes to dig into the matter. Jaynes (1922-1998)...

Overpopulation has spawned so many dystopian futures in science fiction that it would be a lengthy though interesting exercise to collect them all. Among novels, my preference for John Brunner’s Stand on Zanzibar goes back to my utter absorption in its world when first published in book form in 1968. Kornbluth’s “The Marching Morons” (1951) fits in here, and so does J.G. Ballard’s Billenium (1969), and of course Harry Harrison’s Make Room! Make Room! from 1966, which emerged in much changed form in the film Soylent Green in 1973. You might want to check Science Fiction and Other Suspect Ruminations for a detailed list, and for that matter on much else in the realm of vintage science fiction as perceived by the pseudonymous Joachim Boaz (be careful, you might spend more time in this site than you had planned). In any case, so strongly has the idea of a clogged, choking Earth been fixed in the popular imagination that I still see references to going off-planet as a way of relieving...