Space & Physics: Microsoft’s quantum chip is a physics flop

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June 4— This week, our top stories include a potential discovery of a paradigm-shifting primordial black hole, a major setback for Blue Origin and NASA’s return to the moon, and physicists’ skeptical reception of Microsoft’s latest quantum computer chip. Plus much more, as always. Enjoy! Thoughts? Questions? Let me know via e-mail (lbillings@sciam.com), X or Bluesky. —Lee Billings, Senior Editor, Physical Sciences

Top Stories

Is this a moon-sized primordial black hole adrift in the Milky Way? A blip of light in the outer reaches of the Milky Way might be a bizarre black hole born at the beginning of time itself—and the long-sought solution to the mystery of dark matter. Astronomers are calling it “Phoebe” Jonathan O'Callaghan

Search for alien technology on interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS comes up empty Even though astronomers didn’t detect alien tech signals from a rare interstellar visitor, the results are worthwhile, they say Jackie Flynn Mogensen

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NASA’s Mars mission MAVEN is lost forever MAVEN was the first successful mission designed to study the atmosphere of Mars. It also became a vital node of NASA’s communications network at the Red Planet Meghan Bartels

China launches rival rocket to SpaceX Falcon 9 for the first time China apparently didn’t issue any airspace or maritime notices ahead of the maiden launch of this rocket on Monday Claire Cameron

Microsoft’s new quantum computer chip has a fundamental problem Microsoft’s announcement of a new quantum computing breakthrough with its Majorana 2 chip continues a trend of bold claims followed by scant evidence Joseph Howlett

Questioning everything Where did stars, and light itself, come from? Is there a hidden sector of particles and forces called “dark energy” affecting the cosmos? Josh Fischman

These exotic particles could break physics ‘Penguin’ decays from CERN’s latest Large Hadron Collider experiment hint at weird new physics Elizabeth Gibney, Nature magazine

NASA’s Hubble captures gorgeous new photo of a spiral galaxy as it wanders through the Virgo Cluster Messier 88 is an active galaxy with a central supermassive black hole that is gobbling up gas and dust Adam Kovac

Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket explodes in massive fireball, imperiling NASA moon missions The latest flight of the New Glenn rocket was meant to prepare Blue Origin for a series of NASA-funded lunar voyages. Instead it ended before it began Lee Billings

What’s the biggest galaxy in the universe? Deep surveys of the sky have turned up galaxies vastly larger than our own. Are there even bigger ones yet to be seen? Phil Plait

What We're Reading

SpaceX valued at just $780 billion by Morningstar, less than half its IPO target | Yahoo! Finance The Steady Hand at SpaceX Is Not Elon Musk | The New York Times CERN’s new chief on the gamble that could fix our picture of reality | New Scientist

From the Archive

Is Dark Matter Made of Black Holes? A hidden population of black holes born less than one second after the big bang could solve the mystery of dark matter Juan García-Bellido, Sébastien Clesse

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