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It is generally accepted today that our solar system has undergone a phase during which the orbits of the giant planets became very unstable. In recent years, many studies have identified traces of this event and have provided reasonable…
Descriptions of phenomena, events, or processes made on the basis of problematic paradigms can be unreasonably complex (e.g. epicycles) or simply wrong (e.g. ultraviolet catastrophe). Supercontinent cycles, also called Wilson cycles, are, I…
Earth will become uninhabitable within 2-3 Gyr as a result of the moving boundaries of the habitable zone caused by the increasing luminosity of the Sun. Predictions about the future of habitable conditions on Earth include a decline in…
It has been known for some time that the usual inference drawn from the observed near-flatness of the large-scale Universe - namely the existence of a cosmological "flatness problem", which is then taken as a partial, but key motivation for…
Placing the architecture of the Solar System within the broader context of planetary architectures is one of the primary topics of interest within planetary science. Exoplanet discoveries have revealed a large range of system architectures,…
Many features of the outer solar system are replicated in numerical simulations if the giant planets undergo an orbital instability that ejects one or more ice giants. During this instability, Jupiter and Saturn's orbits diverge, crossing…
Modified gravity has attracted much attention over the last few years and remains a potential candidate for dark energy. In particular, the so-called viable f(R) gravity theories, which are able to both recover General Relativity (GR) and…
The Zoo Hypothesis posits that we have not detected extraterrestrial intelligences (ETIs) because they deliberately prevent us from detecting them. While a valid solution to Fermi's Paradox, it is not particularly amenable to rigorous…
We'll examine plate tectonics on Earth -- its features and forces -- and examine some concepts that may allow astronomers to ask useful questions regarding numeric models that putatively predict tectonic activity. But exo-planetologists…
Solar geoengineering, or deliberate climate modification, has been receiving increased attention in recent years. Given the far-reaching consequences of any potential solar geoengineering deployments, it is prudent to identify inherent…
At a time when humanity has achieved global dominance at a scale that was previously thought impossible, it might also face an existential threat due to the consequences of that overwhelming influence on our common home, the Earth System…
Due to the foreground extinction of the Milky Way, galaxies appear increasingly fainter the closer they lie to the Galactic Equator, creating a "zone of avoidance" of about 25% in the distribution of optically visible galaxies. A…
While humans become more reliant on Earth's space environment, the potential for significant harm from severe space weather continues to grow. As structures from the sun reach Earth's magnetosphere and space environment, they deposit energy…
How good is our universe at making habitable planets? The answer to this depends on which factors are important for life: Does a planet need to be Earth mass? Does it need to be inside the temperate zone? are systems with hot Jupiters…
In a paper by Alberto Caballero, a methodology is stated for estimating the probability of an exoplanet alien civilization having malicious intentions toward the human civilization after being messaged by it and estimating the number of…
The recent discovery of "dark energy" has challenged Einstein's general theory of relativity as a complete model for our macroscopic universe. From a theoretical view, the challenge is even stronger: general relativity clearly does not…
A novel geomechanics concept is presented for studying the behavior of geomaterials and structures by capturing the underlying dynamics as realistically as possible for earthquake excitation applied in time domain. Enormous amount of…
Possible models of modified gravity are being extensively studied now, with most phenomenological motivations coming from puzzles and tensions in cosmology due to a natural desire to better fit the known and newly coming data. At the same…
The number of people able to end Earth's technical civilization has heretofore been small. Emerging dual-use technologies, such as biotechnology, may give similar power to thousands or millions of individuals. To quantitatively investigate…
Strongly correlated Fermi systems are among the most intriguing, best experimentally studied and fundamental systems in physics. These are, however, in defiance of theoretical understanding. The ideas based on the concepts like Kondo…