Space & Physics: Interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS comes into view

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November 20 — This week, NASA finally reveals its latest images of a weird interstellar comet, AI makes a breakthrough in searches for ancient (or alien) life, an update on the troubled quest to return samples from Mars, SciAm's latest deep dive into deep time, and much, much more. Also, a scheduling note: Due to the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday, we'll be skipping next week's newsletter. Enjoy your festivities, everyone! Thoughts? Questions? Let me know via e-mail (lbillings@sciam.com), Twitter or Bluesky. —Lee Billings, Senior Editor, Physical Sciences

Top Stories

NASA's Latest Images Bring Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS Into View NASA spacecraft across the inner solar system captured new views of Comet 3I/ATLAS—the third known interstellar object Meghan Bartels

AI Uncovers Oldest-Ever Molecular Evidence of Photosynthesis A machine-learning breakthrough could lift the veil on Earth's early history—and supercharge the search for alien life Lee Billings

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Scientists Measure the Temperature of the Universe Just after the Big Bang Quark-gluon plasma, a bizarre state of matter that mimics the early cosmos, is the hottest thing ever made on Earth Clara Moskowitz

This Mars-Bound Spacecraft Will Test Jared Isaacman's Vision for NASA NASA's presumptive next leader wants to outsource more of the space agency's interplanetary science. The newly launched ESCAPADE mission to Mars offers a sanity check for those plans Morgan McFall-Johnsen

After Last Week's Spectacular Auroras, What's Next for the Sun? The sun's current 11-year activity cycle has already peaked—but extreme outbursts from our star may still be in store Meghan Bartels

Mars Sample That May Contain Evidence of Life Might Never Come Home NASA spent years and billions of dollars collecting Martian samples to bring home. Now they might be stranded Jonathan O'Callaghan

The Unlikely Story of an E-mail Time Machine Twenty years ago Forbes.com sent hundreds of thousands of messages to the future. Here's what happened next David M. Ewalt

Does the Universe Keep Secrets? Inside the Black Hole Information Paradox Black holes and quantum mechanics present a paradox about the preservation of information Clara Moskowitz

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We Had a Name for 'Galaxies' before We Knew They Existed Centuries before other galaxies were known to exist, astronomers called them "spiral nebulas." Today the defunct term still sparks confusion Phil Plait

JWST May Have Seen the First Stars in the Universe Although these findings from JWST are yet to be confirmed, they mark the closest astronomers have come to locating the universe's most ancient stars Humberto Basilio

Meet the Weird and Wonderful Life-forms That Can Survive in Space The moss Physcomitrium patens joins tardigrades and thale-cress as a species that has survived in space Andrea Tamayo

What We're Reading

What is the chance your plane will be hit by space debris? | MIT Technology Review After last week's stunning landing, here's what comes next for Blue Origin | Ars Technica Artemis astronauts find lunar analog in meteorite impact crater | Supercluster

From the Archive

Life Evolves. Can Attempts to Create 'Artificial Life' Evolve, Too? Do efforts to create life—by cooking up imitations in computers, robots and molecules—point toward a universal definition of biology? Shi En Kim

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