Researchers Made a New Message for Extraterrestrials

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March 31, 2022

Dear Reader, This week, we're shouting into the void—or planning to, anyway. Our lead story covers a new attempt to craft a cosmic message to extraterrestrial civilizations, and details why such transmissions make some scientists uneasy. Elsewhere, we have stories on a record-breaking stellar discovery from the Hubble Space Telescope, bizarre "space circles" spied by sharp-eyed radio astronomers, a new approach to energy-efficient computing and more. And finally, be sure to check out the second season premiere of our "Lost Women in Science" podcast, which this time around spotlights the remarkable life and work of Klára von Neumann.

Lee Billings, Senior Editor, Space & Physics @LeeBillings

Extraterrestrial Life Researchers Made a New Message for Extraterrestrials An updated communication could be beamed out for space alien listeners in hopes of making first contact By Daniel Oberhaus

Cosmology Hubble Space Telescope Spots Most Distant Star Ever Seen Called Earendel, the star is nearly 13 billion light-years from Earth By Charles Q. Choi,SPACE.com

Computing Lost Women of Science Podcast, Season 2: Episode One - The Grasshopper Before she entered a world of secrecy, computers and nuclear weapons, who was Klára von Neumann? By Katie Hafner,The Lost Women of Science Initiative

Computing 'Momentum Computing' Pushes Technology's Thermodynamic Limits Overheating is a major problem for today's computers, but those of tomorrow might stay cool by circumventing a canonical boundary on information processing By Philip Ball

Astrophysics Astronomers See a Bizarre Space Circle in Unprecedented Detail Researchers have sighted only a handful of these odd radio circles, and are trying to pin down what causes them By Jacinta Bowler,Nature magazine

Mathematics Virtuoso Mathematician Who Reshaped Topology Wins Abel Prize Dennis Sullivan's work has advanced the study of shapes, and he developed tools that have helped to solve many mathematical problems By Davide Castelvecchi,Nature magazine

Astronomy 5,000 Exoplanets! NASA Confirms a Cosmic Milestone Three decades after it began, the exoplanet revolution shows no sign of slowing down By Elizabeth Howell,SPACE.com

Quantum Physics Humans and the Quantum Experience By Andrea Gawrylewski

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QUOTE OF THE DAY "People have problems on Earth. On orbit, we are one crew. I think ISS is a symbol of the friendship and cooperation, like symbol of the future exploration of space." Anton Shkaplerov, Russian cosmonaut

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FROM THE ARCHIVE We Should Message Extraterrestrial Civilizations, Not Just Listen for Them Doing so could help us mature as a species By Jerome H. Barkow | March 2020

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