Related papers: On the Likelihood of Observing Extragalactic Civil…
Earth-like planets are expected to provide the greatest opportunity for the detection of life beyond the Solar System. However our planet cannot be considered a fair sample, especially if intelligent life exists elsewhere. Just as a…
Over the last 20 years, supernovae have become a key tool to constrain the expansion history of the Universe through the construction of Hubble diagrams, using luminosity distances to supernovae belonging to the "Ia" subtype. This technique…
Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) provided the first strong evidence that the expansion of the universe is accelerating. With SN samples now more than ten times larger than those used for the original discovery and joined by other cosmological…
As observers of the universe we are physical systems within it. If the universe is very large in space and/or time, the probability becomes significant that the data on which we base predictions is replicated at other locations in…
Recent observations suggest that the ratio of the total density to the critical density of the universe, $\Omega_0$, is likely to be very close to one, with a significant proportion of this energy being in the form of a dark component with…
The assumption that a complete description of an early state of the universe does not privilege any position or direction in space leads to a unified account of probability in cosmology, macroscopic physics, and quantum mechanics. Such a…
The search for technosignatures from the Galaxy or the nearby universe raises two main questions: What are the possible characteristics of technosignatures? and How can future searches be optimized to enhance the probability of detection?…
The limitations of current technology do not allow one to foresee the expansion of the humankind beyond our planet for at least a few decades. Furthermore, the laws of physics, as for as they are known, preclude any form of traveling beyond…
A new universal constant of expansion has been discovered with amazing predictive power once its density-time relations have been deciphered. The new constant is kappa, the product of the gravitational constant, and the average total…
We combine the Cosmic Lens All-Sky Survey (CLASS) with new Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) data on the local velocity dispersion distribution function of E/S0 galaxies, $\phi(\sigma)$, to derive lens statistics constraints on…
Cosmic inflation provides a window to the highest energy densities accessible in nature, far beyond those achievable in any realistic terrestrial experiment. Theoretical insights into the inflationary era and its observational probes may…
We derived 90% confidence limits (CL) on the interstellar number density ($\rho_{IS}^{CL}$) of interstellar objects (ISO; comets and asteroids) as a function of the slope of their size-frequency distribution and limiting absolute magnitude.…
The fundamental laws and constants of our universe seem to be finely tuned for life. The various multiverse hypotheses are popular explanations for the fine tuning. This paper reviews the four main suggestions on inference in the presence…
We present the results of realistic end-to-end simulations of observations of nearby stars with the proposed global astrometry mission GAIA, recently recommended within the context of ESA's Horizon 2000 Plus long-term scientific program. We…
In the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI), the highly incomplete sampling of the technosignature search space is often considered as a plausible explanation for the persistent lack of detections over six decades of searches. If…
It is unclear how frequently life and intelligence arise on planets. I consider a Bayesian prior for the probability P(ETI) that intelligence evolves at a suitable site, with weight distributed evenly over ln(1 - ln P(ETI)). This log log…
We present a fully self-consistent simulation of a synthetic survey of the furthermost cosmic explosions. The appearance of the first generation of stars (Population III) in the Universe represents a critical point during cosmic evolution,…
Under the assumption that they are standard(isable) candles, the lightcurves of Type Ia supernovae have been analyzed in the framework of the standard Friedmann-Lema\^itre-Robertson-Walker cosmology to conclude that the expansion rate of…
A new component of the Universe which leads to an accelerated cosmic expansion is found from the measurements of distances to high-redshift type Ia supernovae. We describe the method and the results obtained from the observations of distant…
Extraterrestrial technology may exist in the Solar System without our knowledge. This is because the vastness of space, combined with our limited searches to date, implies that any remote unpiloted exploratory probes of extraterrestrial…