Space & Physics: All These Animals Exploit the Laws of Physics

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July 18–This week, we explore how Jupiter got its Great Red Spot—the likely answer might surprise you. Also, physics whizzes of the animal kingdom, a new mission to an infamous near-Earth asteroid, an equation forecasting the end of all the universe's stars, and much more. --Lee Billings, Senior Editor, Space and Physics

Top Stories

These Animals are Physics Whizzes How falling cats, slithering snakes, burrowing prairie dogs and more exploit the laws of physics Tom Siegfried; Knowable Magazine

See Why Everyone Gets the Monty Hall Puzzle Wrong How to finally wrap your mind around the uniquely counterintuitive Monty Hall dilemma Allison Parshall

Europe Announces New Mission to Infamous Asteroid Apophis ESA's Ramses spacecraft will scout out Apophis before and after the asteroid's super-close flyby of Earth in 2029 Meghan Bartels

This Equation Shows That the Universe Will Run out of Stars The cosmos is dark. The Lilly-Madau diagram reveals that it will become much darker still Florian Freistetter

Why We Can't Rule Out Alien Spaceships in Earth's Atmosphere (Yet) We can and should look harder for evidence of alien visitors to our solar system Jacob Wilde, expert writer

Boiling Macaroni in Space? You'll Need a Weirdly Shaped Pot Astronauts still survive on freeze-dried meals. Could better food, aided by cooking gadgets designed to be used in microgravity, help them to thrive? Andrew Chapman

After Falcon 9 Rocket Anomaly, SpaceX Seeks Rapid Return to Flight SpaceX has filed a request with the Federal Aviation Administration to determine whether the company can resume launches of its recently grounded workhorse rocket Elizabeth Howell; SPACE.com

Name a Quasi-Moon with Radiolab Radiolab host Latif Nasser found and named a mysterious quasi-moon of Venus. Now you can help name one of Earth's quasi-moons. Rachel Feltman; Fonda Mwangi

Stars Hint at an Unusual Black Hole Lurking in Our Galaxy Images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope point to an elusive intermediate-size black hole in the star cluster Omega Centauri Davide Castelvecchi; Nature magazine

Astronauts Can Drink More Recycled Pee Than Ever, and You Can Still Catch the Plague It's been 55 years since the Apollo 11 mission, innovative ​​"stillsuits" designed to recycle astronaut pee could enhance spacewalks, and a surprising case of the plague has occurred in Colorado. Rachel Feltman; Anaissa Ruiz Tejada; Fonda Mwangi

ChatGPT Isn't 'Hallucinating'—It's Bullshitting! It's important that we use accurate terminology when discussing how AI chatbots make up information Joe Slater, expert writer; James Humphries, expert writer; Michael Townsen Hicks, expert writer

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