Three big stories we're following

Image from the NY Post.


Well, one big story and two pretty interesting ones.

And by "we," I mean the editorial desks here at ESE.

Which pretty much means just me. Anyway, here's what I've found fascinating lately.

The first story comes from the realm of transportation. Hyundai announced at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas that the organization is developing a walking car. You read that correctly. Why would anyone ever require such a vehicle? Besides the fact that it would look really cool? Additionally, if "cool" is a deciding factor, wouldn't you much rather have one that flies?

If you can't have flight, then the walking car would still allow you to travel where other cars cannot. Floodwaters? No big deal anymore...not such a bad feature as sea levels rise. Streets strewn with concrete rubble? No problem...again, not such a bad feature as who knows where the hell our current situation is taking us. Plus, Hyundai claims this car will even be able to walk up stairs should you need it to. We'll see where this goes.

Reminds of when my friend George once bought a jeep and he developed a new philosophy of curbs: "F--k 'em."

Our next story is about NASA's new TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) satellite already being hard at work. TESS was launched last April with the mission of taking over for the Kepler space telescope which ran out of fuel in October, 2018. Like Kepler, TESS will search for exoplanets, but with greater ability to measure an exoplanet's mass and the composition of its atmosphere. TESS has already found three exoplanets orbiting a small star about 53 light years away from us. We should be able to study this newfound solar system in greater detail than ever before.

I don't know. While the promise of gaining a greater understanding of exoplanets is most tantalizing, I can't help but feel bad for Kepler. It's out there, 100 million miles from Earth. It's final commands were sent months ago, now it hears nothing more. It found us thousands of exoplanets, but will now forever drift in silence, because it's out of gas and a new and improved model has been found.

Might be a metaphor in that for the American worker.

The biggest story is, well, pretty big.

We have detected repeated radio signals coming from space. The point of origin is a galaxy 1.5 billion light years away, but this is still most encouraging. The radio bursts repeated six times and from the same location. They were "flung out with the same amount of energy the sun takes 12 months to produce," as it says at the link.

This is the second time that repeated radio bursts have been found coming from deep space, leading astronomers to suspect that such repeating radio bursts may be a bit more plentiful than initially thought. Before we get our hopes up about aliens, it would be prudent to check ourselves. These signals could be the product of dying stars, or strange astronomical phenomena we don't yet know.

And yet...

And yet...

It's the "signal from an alien civilization" scenario that is the most enticing, isn't it? This is especially because the fact that they are repeating from a fixed location is rather suspicious. Have we somehow overheard someone else's conversation? Also possible, could it be another civilization similar to our own, one transmitting a signal into the void that asks the question, "Is anyone out there?"

Oh boy, do I want that to be true. To finally have, in my lifetime no less, scientific confirmation that there are alien civilizations...well, I'd be busting. I don't think my college would be very happy about it as I doubt I'd teach classes for a week or more. I'd be continually glued to the news, soaking in all the information I could. I'd pitch myself as pundit. Why not? I'm no less informed than many the cable news channels go to for perspectives. You would get daily, nay, hourly updates from ESE as the biggest story ever unfolded. 

What would this mean to society? What would this mean for science fiction? Would it grow more or less relevant in the face of science fiction becoming fact? I would opt for "more relevant," for if a signal were confirmed, there would only be greater speculation about alien life as we would still likely know precious few details.

This all sounds a blog post in and of itself. More to come and well...let's keep hoping.


Follow me on Twitter: @Jntweets