Mysterious Object Cruising Through Solar System May Have Emitted a Signal, Scientist Says
In 1977, the Ohio State University’s Big Ear radio telescope received an unusually strong narrowband radio signal, leading to widespread excitement about the possibility of having encountered evidence of life beyond Earth.
At the time, astronomer Jerry Ehman spotted the highly unusual outburst in printed out records, annotating the major radio band fluctuation with the word “Wow!” in red pen, thereby giving it a memorable nickname: the “Wow! Signal.”
The incident has remained a mystery for decades, never spotted again in over 48 years, leaving plenty of questions in its wake. Where did it come from, and why did it only last for 72 seconds?
Now, Harvard astronomer and alien hunter Avi Loeb has a wild new theory about the signal. In a new blog post, he suggested that interstellar object 3I/ATLAS, which is currently cruising through our solar system, could’ve sent off the signal back in 1977 — when it was still 600 times the distance between the Earth and Sun away from us.
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Pope Leo XIV weighed in on U.S. politics, saying Catholic politicians must be judged on the full range of their policy positions and suggesting the country's immigration policy is "inhuman."
— NPR (@npr.org) 2025-10-01T22:04:03.919680Z
Hundreds of feet of coastal bluff in California fell toward the ocean in landslide-stricken town
A wealthy enclave in Southern California that has been threatened for years by worsening landslides faced more land movement this week but suffered minimal damage.
Four backyards in Rancho Palos Verdes were damaged Saturday evening by significant soil movement from the sinking land, but there was no structural damage to homes and no injuries were reported, according to a news update on the city's website. No homes were tagged.
About 300 to 400 linear feet (91 to 122 meters) of a coastal slope sloughed off, falling about 50 to 60 feet (15 to 18 meters) toward the ocean, according to the Los Angeles County Fire Department. The movement’s cause is still under investigation.
James Webb telescope spies a 'farting' dwarf planet with fluorescent gas in the outer solar system
Scientists armed with the immense observing power of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have detected faint traces of fluorescent flatulence leaking out from the dwarf planet Makemake, which lurks in the outer reaches of the solar system. This is only the second time that a gas has been detected on an object this far from Earth, and hints that this wee world is far more active than we once thought.
Makemake is a roughly spherical object measuring around 890 miles (1,430 kilometers) across, which is less than half the diameter of the moon. It is located around 45 times further from the sun than Earth on average, in a region known as the Kuiper Belt — a ring of asteroids, comets and larger icy objects, such as Pluto, beyond the orbit of Neptune. It was discovered in 2005 and has a small moon, dubbed MK2, which is around 110 miles (175 km) across.
Like the dozens of other dwarf planets and dwarf planet candidates within the solar system, Makemake is not considered a true planet because it has not cleared away all the debris from its orbital pathway around the sun. This is the same reason that Pluto lost its full planetary status in 2006.
New study uncovers troubling discovery in over 150 beverage samples — here's what was found
A cup of hot tea is, as the BBC observed, "essentially British" — and a new study covered by Medical Xpress contained a worrisome finding concerning this pillar of UK culture.
Research into the impact of microplastics on human health has been ongoing for two decades, and studies continue to identify novel or easily overlooked exposure routes.
A study published in the September edition of the peer-reviewed journal, Science of the Total Environment, approached microplastics from the latter perspective.
In its abstract, the authors acknowledged that "few studies" focused on microplastic ingestion via the consumption of beverages. However, the authors added that "almost all" presupposed that daily fluid intake was "composed solely of water."
Archaeologists Uncovered a 3,000-Year-Old Hidden Mega-Fortress in the Mountains
When researchers first surveyed the ruins of a Bronze Age fortress in the South Caucasus in 2018, they had no idea they were only seeing the tip of the iceberg.
But after stitching together 11,000 drone images, they discovered that the 3,000-year-old Dmanisis Gora was likely the largest fortress of its kind in the region.
Perched on a fortified promontory between two deep gorges at the boundary of Europe and Asia, the site included inner and outer walls and the remains of ancient stone structures—too large to map on foot, and revealed in full only through aerial technology.
“That was what sparked the idea of using a drone to assess the site from the air,” Nathaniel Erb-Satullo, senior lecturer in architectural science at the Cranfield Forensic Institute, said in a statement. “The drone took nearly 11,000 pictures which were knitted together using advanced software to produce high-resolution digital elevation models and orthophotos—composite pictures that show every point as if you were looking straight down.”
Experts take action after exotic hornets arrive in new region: 'A challenging, complex operation'
The Irish Wildlife Service has safely removed a nest of invasive Asian hornets for the first time.
As the Irish Independent reported, the National Parks and Wildlife Service removed the nest in a safe and controlled manner from a site in the city of Cork, in southwest Ireland. It was the first time a nest of this particular species of hornets had been discovered in the country, raising significant concern about their local impact.
It took wildlife officials some time to locate the nest after they learned of the first confirmed sighting of the hornets in the city. The presence of Asian hornets is a cause for concern because the invasive species poses a risk to both native pollinators and commercial bee hives located in the city.
"Removing the nest today was a challenging, complex operation, conducted by NPWS officers for the first time in Ireland," said Minister of State for Nature, Heritage and Biodiversity Christopher O'Sullivan, per the Independent.
Captain of tanker linked to Russian 'shadow fleet' charged in France
The captain of an oil tanker believed to be part of Russia's "shadow fleet" of vessels used to evade sanctions has been charged by French authorities.
The Chinese national was handed one count of refusing to follow instructions from the French navy and told to attend a court hearing in the northern coastal city of Brest next February.
The Boracay left Russia last month and was off the coast of Denmark when unidentified drones forced the temporary closure of several airports last week.
The tanker was earlier boarded by French soldiers because it was on a list of vessels subject to EU sanctions for carrying Russian oil exports. Russian President Vladimir Putin called France's actions "piracy".
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UPDATE — Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson responds to feds putting a Black man in a chokehold.
“These agents are rogue, unaccountable, and cannot be trusted to keep Chicagoans safe. Thankfully, brave Chicagoans documented these actions and posted them on social media.”
thetriibe.com/2025/10/new-...
— The TRiiBE (@thetriibe.com) 2025-10-02T20:49:18.781Z
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The Trump administration is cancelling $7.6 billion in grants that supported hundreds of clean energy projects in 16 states, all of which voted for Democrat Kamala Harris in last year’s presidential election. https://to.pbs.org/46yg2tz
— PBS News (@pbsnews.org) 2025-10-02T21:01:02.995815319Z
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New polling suggests that Trump’s efforts to falsely claim that Democrats shut down the government because they want to provide “free health care for illegal aliens” are not working.
Nearly half of Americans blame the shutdown on Trump and Republicans in Congress, and for good reason.
— Mother Jones (@motherjones.com) 2025-10-02T17:50:07.384Z
