Scientists Suddenly Can’t Explain How Stellar Winds Spread the Seeds of Life Throughout the Cosmos

 

New observations from scientists at Sweden’s Chalmers University of Technology have cast doubt on the long-held idea that light from dying stars propels ‘seeds of life’ molecules like oxygen and carbon throughout the cosmos.

The new study, which found that the propulsive power of starlight and stardust emitted by red giant stars was insufficient to allow the seeds of life molecules to escape their host star’s gravitational pull, has resulted in a new astronomical mystery for scientists to solve.

“We thought we had a good idea of how the process worked,” explained Chalmers astronomer Theo Khouri, the joint leader of the study detailing the newly discovered mystery. “It turns out we were wrong. For us as scientists, that’s the most exciting result.”

Seeds of Life Findings Create All New Stardust Mystery

Although researchers have yet to find irrefutable evidence of life beyond Earth, most agree that the seeds of life molecules needed for Earth’s biological life to exist and thrive were born in the heart of stars. For the last several decades, most scientists have been relatively confident that these molecules and other critical life-supporting elements have been propelled by stellar winds aboard grains of dust into the depths of the cosmos, where they could seed the formation of new planets, and, potentially, life.

Described as the “cooler cousins” of the Sun, red giants lose massive amounts of material through the phenomenon of stellar winds. Although likely critical for the theoretical spread of life throughout the cosmos, the team said the exact mechanism that drives these winds “has remained uncertain.”

To better understand the process, the Chalmers scientists focused on a red giant star, R Doradus, only 180 light-years away in the constellation Dorado. Although the cosmically close dying star once had a relatively similar mass to the Sun, R Doradus now loses about one-third of Earth’s mass every decade.

The research team said this process is characteristic of asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars, which “lose their outer layers to interstellar space,” via stellar winds made of gas and dust. When our sun reaches the end of its life, billions of years from now, it is expected to turn into this category of dying stars.

“R Doradus is a favourite target of ours – it’s bright, nearby, and typical of the most common type of red giant,” Khouri explained.

World’s ‘Best’ Telescopes Shed Light on Stellar Winds

The first step in the process involved measuring starlight reflected by tiny grains of stardust surrounding R Doradus. Due to the minute amount of light that the team was hoping to detect, they were granted access to the Spectro-Polarimetric High-contrast Exoplanet Research (SPHERE) instrument mounted on the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Very Large Telescope VLT) in Chile.

“Using the world’s best telescopes, we can now make detailed observations of the closest giant stars,” Khouri said.

After successfully analyzing polarized light at different wavelengths, the team made several discoveries. For example, SPHERE detected light signatures consistent with dust grains surrounding the star. The Chalmers team said the data also revealed the size and composition of the grains were “consistent with common forms of stardust,” including silicates and alumina.

Next, the researchers combined the real-life telescope data with computer simulations designed to model the interaction between stardust and starlight. Study co-author Thiébaut Schirmer said these comparisons represented the first stringent tests intended to confirm whether grains of dust that include seeds of life molecules “can feel a strong enough push from the star’s light.”

Results Show Light is Not Enough, but Opens “Exciting Alternatives” to Explore

After comparing the data, the team said the push from starlight was “not enough” to push the stardust grains into interstellar space. That’s because most of the grains surrounding R Doradus were only about one ten-thousandth of a millimeter across. The research team said this made the grains “too small for starlight alone” to propel them into interstellar space.

“Dust is definitely present, and it is illuminated by the star,” Schirmer explained. “But it simply doesn’t provide enough force to explain what we see.”

While the new findings seem to contradict the traditional explanation, the team said their research points to “more complex processes” behind the phenomenon. Study co-author and Chalmers professor Wouter Vlemmings agreed, noting that even though the simplest explanation appears incorrect, their findings have uncovered “exciting alternatives to explore” moving forward.

One possible explanation for the dispersal of such molecules involves images of enormous convective bubbles rising and falling over R Doradus’ surface, previously captured by the same team. Vlemmings suggested that it’s possible these stellar pulsations could enhance the push of starlight enough to drive the seeds of life into interstellar space. The scientist also suggested that something unexpected, such as dramatic episodes of stardust formation, might combine with the other phenomena, which “could all help explain how these winds are launched” into the cosmos.

The study “An empirical view of the extended atmosphere and inner envelope of the asymptotic giant branch star R Doradus” was published in Astronomy and Astrophysics.

NASA completes cosmic map of the Big Seed's sprouting

NASA’s SPHEREx Observatory Completes First Cosmic Map Like No Other

Those measurements will offer insights into an event that took place in the first billionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second after the big bang seed. In this moment, called inflation, the universe expanded by a trillion-trillionfold. Nothing like it has occurred in the universe since, and scientists want to understand it better. The SPHEREx mission’s approach is one way to help in that effort. 

Launched in March, NASA’s SPHEREx space telescope has completed its first infrared map of the entire sky in 102 colors. While not visible to the human eye, these 102 infrared wavelengths of light are prevalent in the cosmos, and observing the entire sky this way enables scientists to answer big questions, including how a dramatic event that occurred in the first billionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second after the big bang influenced the 3D distribution of hundreds of millions of galaxies in our universe. In addition, scientists will use the data to study how galaxies have changed over the universe’s nearly 14-billion-year history and learn about the distribution of key ingredients for life in our own galaxy.  

“It’s incredible how much information SPHEREx has collected in just six months — information that will be especially valuable when used alongside our other missions’ data to better understand our universe,” said Shawn Domagal-Goldman, director of the Astrophysics Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “We essentially have 102 new maps of the entire sky, each one in a different wavelength and containing unique information about the objects it sees. I think every astronomer is going to find something of value here, as NASA’s missions enable the world to answer fundamental questions about how the universe got its start, and how it changed to eventually create a home for us in it.” 

Circling Earth about 14½ times a day, SPHEREx (which stands for Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization, and Ices Explorer) travels from north to south, passing over the poles. Each day it takes about 3,600 images along one circular strip of the sky, and as the days pass and the planet moves around the Sun, SPHEREx’s field of view shifts as well. After six months, the observatory has looked out into space in every direction, capturing the entire sky in 360 degrees. 

Managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, the mission began mapping the sky in May and completed its first all-sky mosaic in December. It will complete three additional all-sky scans during its two-year primary mission, and merging those maps together will increase the sensitivity of the measurements. The entire dataset is freely available to scientists and the public.  

“SPHEREx is a mid-sized astrophysics mission delivering big science,” said JPL Director Dave Gallagher. “It’s a phenomenal example of how we turn bold ideas into reality, and in doing so, unlock enormous potential for discovery.”  

Superpowered telescope 

Each of the 102 colors detected by SPHEREx represents a wavelength of infrared light, and each wavelength provides unique information about the galaxies, stars, planet-forming regions, and other cosmic features therein. For example, dense clouds of dust in our galaxy where stars and planets form radiate brightly in certain wavelengths but emit no light (and are therefore totally invisible) in others. The process of separating the light from a source into its component wavelengths is called spectroscopy.  

And while a handful of previous missions has also mapped the entire sky, such as NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, none have done so in nearly as many colors as SPHEREx. By contrast, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope can do spectroscopy with significantly more wavelengths of light than SPHEREx, but with a field of view thousands of times smaller. The combination of colors and such a wide field of view is why SPHEREx is so powerful. 

“The superpower of SPHEREx is that it captures the whole sky in 102 colors about every six months. That’s an amazing amount of information to gather in a short amount of time,” said Beth Fabinsky, the SPHEREx project manager at JPL. “I think this makes us the mantis shrimp of telescopes, because we have an amazing multicolor visual detection system and we can also see a very wide swath of our surroundings.” 

To accomplish this feat, SPHEREx uses six detectors, each paired with a specially designed filter that contains a gradient of 17 colors. That means every image taken with those six detectors contains 102 colors (six times 17). It also means that every all-sky map that SPHEREx produces is really 102 maps, each in a different color.  

The observatory will use those colors to measure the distance to hundreds of millions of galaxies. Though the positions of most of those galaxies have already been mapped in two dimensions by other observatories, SPHEREx’s map will be in 3D, enabling scientists to measure subtle variations in the way galaxies are clustered and distributed across the universe.  

Those measurements will offer insights into an event that took place in the first billionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second after the big bang. In this moment, called inflation, the universe expanded by a trillion-trillionfold. Nothing like it has occurred in the universe since, and scientists want to understand it better. The SPHEREx mission’s approach is one way to help in that effort.

Quantum clues to consciousness: New research suggests the brain may harness the zero-point field

 

The resonant interaction of the brain with the omnipresent zero-point field (ZPF) gives rise to synchronized brain activity exhibiting the key features of self-organized criticality. These activity patterns are characteristic of conscious states. Credit: Joachim Keppler

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What if your conscious experiences were not just the chatter of neurons, but were connected to the hum of the universe? In a paper published in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, the research presents new evidence indicating that conscious states may arise from the brain's capacity to resonate with the quantum vacuum—the zero-point field that permeates all of space.

More specifically, it is argued that macroscopic quantum effects are at play inside our heads. This insight results from a synthesis of brain architectural and neurophysiological findings supplemented with quantitative model calculations. The novel synthesis suggests that the brain's basic functional building blocks, cortical microcolumns, couple directly to the zero-point field, igniting the complex dynamics characteristic of conscious processes.

Self-organized criticality in the brain

Neuroscientists have long observed that conscious states are linked to synchronized brain activity in the beta and gamma ranges. These patterns display the hallmarks of self-organized criticality, a delicate balance where the brain operates in the vicinity of a critical point of a phase transition.

In this regime, sensory inputs can trigger large neuronal avalanches that are thought to underlie conscious perception. When consciousness fades, such as under anesthesia, this critical balance disappears. The big question has been: What keeps the brain tuned to this critical state?

Resonance in microcolumns

The answer lies in quantum electrodynamics (QED), the fundamental theory of electromagnetism. In this theory, the vacuum is not empty but filled with a fluctuating ocean of energy known as the electromagnetic zero-point field (ZPF). QED-based model calculations demonstrate that specific frequencies (modes) of the ZPF can resonate with glutamate, the brain's most abundant neurotransmitter. The resonant interaction takes place in microcolumns, cortical units made up of about 100 neurons bathed in a glutamate pool.

It is precisely this interaction that turns out to be crucial for self-organized criticality. On the one hand, resonant glutamate-ZPF coupling results in the formation of coherence domains where a large number of molecules vibrate in unison. These domains are protected by energy gaps, making quantum coherence surprisingly stable in the warm, noisy brain.

On the other hand, the coupling leads to the excitation of specific ZPF modes and the generation of intracolumnar microwave fields that modulate ion channels, fine-tune neuronal firing rates, and maintain the excitatory-inhibitory balance essential for critical dynamics.

Conscious awareness arises from resonant brain-ZPF coupling

The implications are profound. If the model proves to be correct, consciousness arises not merely from electrochemical signaling but from a bottom-up orchestration involving the brain's resonant coupling to the ZPF. In this view, awareness is tied to the selective excitation of ZPF modes, reflected in the brain's critical dynamics.

During periods of unconsciousness, a pronounced deviation from critical dynamics is observed, implying that the coupling of the brain to the ZPF is disrupted and the ZPF, the hidden orchestrator of brain activity, is disengaged.

Experimental horizons and outlook

The model opens up intriguing avenues for empirical testing. By smart, systematic manipulations of conditions in the cerebral cortex, researchers can explore whether the brain harnesses the ZPF and whether consciousness truly depends on resonant brain-ZPF interaction. Such experiments could break new ground in neuroscience and shed light on long-standing metaphysical questions about the nature of awareness.

In conclusion, the model adds a fresh dimension to the search for a theory of consciousness, one that unites neuroscience with foundational physics. For centuries, consciousness has been humanity's deepest mystery. Is it purely emergent from neural networks, or does it connect to something more fundamental? These new findings suggest that the ubiquitous ZPF holds the key to the understanding of consciousness.