Space & Physics: Conan the Bacterium conquers the solar system

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March 5 — This week's top stories include astonishing new insights into "Conan the Bacterium," a tantalizing link between prime numbers and black holes, a bizarre "half-Möbius" molecule, the search for exomoons and exorings, and much, much more. Enjoy! Thoughts? Questions? Let me know via e-mail (lbillings@sciam.com), X or Bluesky. —Lee Billings, Senior Editor, Physical Sciences

Top Stories

'Conan the Bacterium' could really conquer the solar system, new study suggests New insights into a tiny, tough microbe have huge implications for the search for life beyond Earth Lee Billings

Are prime numbers hiding inside black holes? The strange case for prime numbers at the heart of physics Lyndie Chiou

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IBM scientists unveil the first ever "half-Möbius" molecule, with the help of quantum computing A team at IBM Research has assembled a strange new ring-shaped molecule that bends around like a more complicated Möbius strip Joseph Howlett

NASA scraps 2027 Artemis III moon landing in favor of 2028 mission The announcement that NASA will rejigger Artemis III not to land on the moon in 2027 came after the agency's Artemis II mission encountered problems, delaying its launch Claire Cameron

Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS captured speeding through the solar system by Jupiter-bound spacecraft This mysterious interstellar visitor is on a whirlwind journey through our solar system Jackie Flynn Mogensen

After four years of war, Ukrainian astronomy is battered but unbroken Russia's war has left many of Ukraine's world-class observatories in ruins—but the besieged nation's astronomers already have plans to rebuild and recover Paul M. Sutter

Why mathematicians hate Good Will Hunting This Oscar-winning classic set a surprisingly simple mathematical challenge Manon Bischoff

How far are we from finding exomoons and exorings? Although astronomers have found thousands of exoplanets, the number of confirmed exomoons—and exorings—is still zero. But that may soon change Phil Plait

NASA spots new signs of lightning on Mars Two NASA spacecraft—the MAVEN orbiter and the Perseverance rover—have now seen very different signals suggesting lightning on Mars Meghan Bartels

NASA unveils dazzling new images of the 'Cat's Eye Nebula' The space-based telescopes Hubble and Euclid combined forces to capture the vibrant remains of a dying star in stunning new detail Jackie Flynn Mogensen

The universe is filled with a cacophony of colliding black holes A new catalog of gravitational waves more than doubles the known number of these spacetime ripples Claire Cameron

Eerie brainlike nebula captured in stunning new JWST images Nebula PMR 1 looks uncannily similar to an electrified brain inside a semitransparent skull Claire Cameron

What We're Reading

Loophole found that makes quantum cloning possible | New Scientist Chimpanzees Are Really Into Crystals | The New York Times The U.S. Senate empowers NASA to fully engage in lunar space race | Ars Technica

From the Archive

The Race to Find Alien Moons Astronomers are hunting for the first moon around a planet beyond our solar system Rebecca Boyle

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