How Scientists Could Tell the World if They Find Alien Life

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November 11, 2021

Dear Reader, This week, messaging is on our minds. Specifically, how astrobiologists might seek to control the message if—or, more optimistically, when—they finally find and announce evidence for life beyond Earth. Our lead story details a new proposed framework for gauging and communicating just how high public confidence should be for any given discovery claim, whether from a robotic rover on Mars or a space telescope gazing at a faraway exoplanet. Elsewhere, we have stories on a glut of gravitational-wave detections, the polar irrelevance of daylight savings time, a new podcast series focused on "the lost women of science" and more. Enjoy!

Lee Billings, Senior Editor, Space & Physics @LeeBillings

Extraterrestrial Life How Scientists Could Tell the World if They Find Alien Life Sparked by major advances in their field, astrobiologists are grappling with how best to discuss possible breakthrough discoveries with the public By Jonathan O'Callaghan

Climate Change Time Has No Meaning at the North Pole The utter lack of time zones, daylight and people creates a bizarre world By Katie Weeman

Astrophysicists Unveil Glut of Gravitational-Wave Detections The latest bounty of 35 events features oddball black holes and a miniature neutron star By Davide Castelvecchi,Nature magazine

Hunt for Alien Life Tops Next-Gen Wish List for U.S. Astronomy A major report outlining the highest priorities and recommendations for U.S. astronomy has finally been released, revealing the shape of things to come By Lee Billings

Can Digital Replica of Earth Save the World from Climate Disaster? A new virtual model of our planet could help resolve lingering climatic uncertainties By Tereza Pultarova,SPACE.com

Can Sterile Neutrinos Exist? Physicists have wondered if neutrino particles come in a mysterious fourth variety. Now new experimental findings complicate the question By Clara Moskowitz

Listen to This New Podcast: The Lost Women of Science A new podcast is on a mission to retrieve unsung female scientists from oblivion. By Katie Hafner,The Lost Women of Science Initiative

At Long Last, the James Webb Space Telescope Is Ready for Launch The long-delayed successor to the Hubble Space Telescope is set to take flight in December By Clara Moskowitz,Chris Gunn

FROM THE STORE Mars: A New Era of Exploration Was there ever life on Mars? Could life exist there? The latest of nearly 50 missions, NASA's Mars Perseverance Rover is the opening shot of an ambitious plan to find answers. In this eBook, we look at the Red Planet: what we've learned from past rovers, the challenges of space travel and searching for life, proposals for how to make Mars livable and how Perseverance could change everything we know for decades to come.

QUOTE OF THE DAY "The potential for us to actually have some sort of interesting life detection event on another world is becoming greater. We want to get ahead of that." Heather Graham, researcher at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

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FROM THE ARCHIVE Hidden Neutrino Particles May Be a Link to the Dark Sector An experiment aims to find a rumored new type of neutrino that could be a portal to the universe's dark matter By William Charles Louis,Richard G. Van de Water | July 2020

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