Space News, March 2026
a day ago
- SETI@Home, launched in 1999, analyzed radio data from Arecibo and ended with 100 unexplained signals; China's FAST telescope is re-observing them since July 2025.
- The Wow! signal (1977) was a 72-second narrowband burst at the hydrogen line; a 2025 study suggests it may be caused by a magnetar outburst hitting a hydrogen cloud, but it's still under peer review.
- The Voyager Golden Record (1977) includes 115 images, sounds, music, and Ann Druyan's brainwaves, curated by Carl Sagan; it cost $18,000 and omitted war and the Beatles due to cost.
- The HUMANS project invites public messages to be sent into space; a nanowafer with messages has already flown to the ISS (2023) and landed on the Moon (2025), with a radio transmission planned for September 2027.
- Voyager 1 is now 16 billion miles from Earth, reaching one light-day away in November 2025; its data rate is 160 bits per second and its nuclear battery is slowly depleting.