We May Receive Alien Communication Sooner than Expected

Weekend Edition

This weekend’s stories include Milky Way's black hole may have made a huge X-ray flare 205 years ago, and much more.

Astronomers detect the closest example yet of a black hole devouring a star--The event was spotted in infrared data — also a first — suggesting further searches in this band could turn up more such bursts, reports Jennifer Chu at the MIT News Office.

How Dormant Bacteria Come Back To Life, reports Keith Cowing for AStrobiology. com --"Solving a riddle that has confounded biologists since bacterial spores — inert, sleeping bacteria — were first described more than 150 years ago, researchers at Harvard Medical School have discovered a new kind of cellular sensor that allows spores to detect the presence of nutrients in their environment and quickly spring back to life."

The most powerful black holes in the universe may finally have an explanation, reports Robert Lea for Live Science. "Quasars, the most extreme phenomena in the universe, are triggered when galactic collisions deliver gas to feeding black holes, new research suggests."

Earth may receive alien communication sooner than expected – study--Scientists worked out how long past messages would take to arrive at different stars, and how long it would take a response to arrive, reports The Jerusalem Post.

New image reveals violent events near a supermassive black hole, reports Will Dunham for Reuters. "This is what astronomers and astrophysicists have been wanting to see for more than half a century," explains Research Scientist Kazunori Akiyama. "This is the dawn of an exciting new era."

Our galaxy’s black hole may have made a huge X-ray flare 205 years ago--The supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way may have blasted out a powerful burst of X-rays two centuries ago, possibly due to eating a star, reports Leah Crane for New Scientist.

Scientists have once again found mysterious holes in the deep sea--"Twenty years ago, the Norwegian research ship ‘G.O. Sars’ came upon rows of holes on the seabed in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Now, strangely enough, German scientists have found the same thing in the Pacific Ocean. Anne Helene Tandberg from Bergen was on the last expedition, reports Bård Amundsen for Science Norway.

The search for 100,000 new species in Earth’s oceans, reports CNN. "The vast bodies of water cover more than 70% of our planet and include mysterious regions like the 'twilight zone,' where an extraordinary number of species thrive beyond the reach of sunlight — and few researchers have ventured."

NASA Chief Still Confident SpaceX's Starship Can Land Astronauts on the Moon in 2025. Starship's explosion last week is "not a big downer," according to NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, who expects SpaceX to fly its megarocket again in two months, reports Passant Rabie for Gizmodo.

‘Everything is going to be turned upside down’: Michio Kaku on the new world of quantum computing, reports The Spectator.