Listen to the Astonishing 'Chirp' of Two Black Holes Merging

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June 01, 2023

Happy June, everyone! If you’re feeling lazy at the unofficial start of summer, rest assured: this week’s lead story is something you don’t even have to read. Instead, it’s a video we’ve made to help explain the science and technology behind the “chirps” that are already emerging from the world’s best gravitational-wave detectors after they came back online last week from a lengthy hiatus. So grab a cold drink, sit back, and relax while you watch! Elsewhere this week, we have stories about NASA’s new hurricane-tracking “mini” satellites, the uncertain future of fusion energy, the potentially “artificial” nature of putative alien civilizations, and more. Enjoy!

Lee Billings, Senior Editor, Space & Physics

Black Holes Listen to the Astonishing 'Chirp' of Two Black Holes Merging Some of the most violent cosmic collisions occur silently in the vacuum of space, but with the right instrumental ears, we can still hear it happen. Here's how. By Dan Garisto,Jason Drakeford,Lee Billings,Jeffery DelViscio

Extraterrestrial Life Most Aliens May Be Artificial Intelligence, Not Life as We Know It Human intelligence may be just a brief phase before machines take over. That may answer where the aliens are hiding By Martin Rees,Mario Livio

Planetary Science A Meteorite Fell in Their Bedroom. Here's What Happened Next Earlier this month a meteorite crashed through the roof of a New Jersey home. The residents are still pondering the fate of their gift from the skies By Michael D. Lemonick

Quantum Physics The Universe Began with a Bang, Not a Bounce, New Studies Find New research pokes holes in the idea that the cosmos expanded and then contracted before beginning again By James Riordon

Weather NASA Mini Satellites Will Help Track Hurricanes Miniature satellites called CubeSats will collect meteorologic data that NASA hopes will help explain how and why some tropical storms intensify as they approach land By Daniel Cusick,E&E News

Energy What Is the Future of Fusion Energy? Nuclear fusion won’t arrive in time to fix climate change, but it could be essential for our future energy needs By Philip Ball

Astronomy Scientists Solve Star Spin Mystery Magnetic fields help to explain why some stars are spinning more slowly than astronomers thought they should By Clara Moskowitz,Lucy Reading-Ikkanda

Particle Physics Physicists Make Matter out of Light to Find Quantum Singularities Experiments that imitate solid materials with light waves reveal the quantum basis of exotic physical effects By Charles D. Brown II

QUOTE OF THE DAY "By any definition of 'thinking,' the capacity and intensity of organic, human-type brains will eventually be utterly swamped by the cerebrations of artificial intelligence. We may be near the end of Darwinian evolution, whereas the evolution of technological intelligent beings is only at its infancy." The astronomers Martin Rees and Mario Livio, on the possibility that most advanced alien civilizations could have long ago transcended their biological origins

FROM THE ARCHIVE Cosmic Inflation Theory Faces Challenges The latest astrophysical measurements, combined with theoretical problems, cast doubt on the long-cherished inflationary theory of the early cosmos and suggest we need new ideas By Anna Ijjas,Paul J. Steinhardt,Abraham Loeb | February 2017

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