Mission to Europa

This is great news! The Europa Clipper is set to launch in 2025.

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CHIME and Fast Radio Bursts

The enigma of Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) is getting close to being solved. As radio telescopes continue to evolve very quickly such as the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME), getting more precise locations of FRBs is close. FRB121102 was one of the first identified sources. You can see the animation of multiple bursts from FRB 121102 here.

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Breakthrough Listen Optical

Breakthrough Listen is one of the most recent SETI efforts by to scan for signals across the optical, radio and near-infrared spectra. It is the largest program in history to search for extraterrestrial civilizations among 1 million of the closest stars (see Gajjar et al. 2019 for an excellent overview and Isaacson et al. 2017 for some suggested candidates). The Very Energetic Radiation Imaging Telescope Array System (VERITAS) at the Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory in Amado, Arizona has just announced the search for optical signals using 4 12-meter optical telescopes.

Optical SETI is difficult due to multiple factors of distance, ISM and atmospheric absorption, parent starlight, etc. It is a bit of a needle in a haystack to find just the right amount of energy, pulse duration and optical frequency which calls for very high sensitivity in detection. I'll write more about this but 20 years ago Howard et al. (2000) wrote some good preliminary work.

Note: I'm all in support of more funding for SETI-like efforts but not overly pleased that Facebook is on the board.

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