Can an Interstellar Probe of Our Own Catch Up to ʻOumuamua?
A UK-based nonprofit organization has proposed a mission to explore the Solar System’s first known interstellar visitor, the strange object called ʻOumuamua, via an ambitious long-range probe that would take decades to reach the enigmatic voyager. The proposal, called “Project Lyra” by the Initiative for Interstellar Studies, involves launching a spacecraft
A Once-In-A-Millennium Event: Tonga Volcanic Eruption Destroys Island
In what is being described as a once-in-a-millennium event, Tonga’s Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano erupted on January 15, obliterating the island and generating a minor, yet deadly, tsunami. Before the eruption, Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai was a seamount with a peak that rose only 120 meters (390 feet) above the surface of the ocean; the small
A Danish Tardigrade Becomes the First Quantum-Entangled Organism
An international team of researchers may have produced the first animal known to have been put into a quantum state while alive, by incorporating a tiny tardigrade into a quantum circuit. In 2017 a quantum research team found that certain photosynthetic bacteria could be entangled with photons in an experiment focusing on
Antarctica’s ‘Doomsday Glacier’ Could Collapse Within the Decade; Boaty McBoatface Investigates
New research from an international team of scientists estimates that Antarctica’s massive Thwaites Glacier is in danger of collapsing in its entirety by the end of the decade. Such an event would hike sea levels around the world by more than two feet (65 centimeters), flooding low-lying coastal regions and
An Unidentified Neurological Illness Is Spreading in Canada’s Atlantic Region
A mysterious progressive neurological illness appears to be spreading in two areas along the east coast of the Canadian province of New Brunswick, according to an anonymous source working with the public health authority in the region. Although the condition, called a “Neurological Syndrome of Unknown Cause” by the provincial government, is
