The comet 3I/ATLAS is taking a long holiday journey this year. It’s visiting from another solar system altogether. Those interstellar origins have the Internet rumor mill questioning whether 3I/ATLAS came from aliens. Co-hosts Emily Kwong and Regina G. Barber dive into that, plus what it and other interstellar comets can tell us about planets beyond our solar system.
Read more of NPR’s coverage of 3I/ATLAS. Also, if you liked this episode, check out our episodes on:
- the physics in the film Interstellar
- why Pluto is still helpful for learning how our solar system formed
Interested in more space science? Email us your question at shortwave@npr.org.
Listen to every episode of Short Wave sponsor-free and support our work at NPR by signing up for Short Wave+ at plus.npr.org/shortwave.
Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices
NPR Privacy Policy
Плейлист
Short Wave
Written by Jo Lambert, ‘Hold The Hope’ is now being used as suicide prevention training material by the UK’s National Health Service Mental Health Trust. Emily Kwong speaks with Rhitu Chatterjee about...
Dogs are man’s best friend. And it’s no secret that we at Short Wave love cats (Regina has four)! Both of these iconic pets have been domesticated – evolved and adapted to live alongside humans – for...
You may have heard of Ozempic, and other GLP-1 drugs. They’re everywhere. And they typically involve weekly injections — which can have a sticker price of over a thousand dollars a month. And insuranc...
In November, the U.S. stopped production of the humble penny after 232 years in circulation. On today’s show, Darian Woods and Wailin Wong from NPR's daily economics podcast The Indicator unpack the f...
Many countries are frustrated with U.N. climate conferences. While some countries urgently want to transition away from fossil fuels — the main driver of global warming — others are blocking that lang...
Humankind has the technology to go to space. Space architect Ariel Ekblaw says the bottleneck now is real estate: getting larger volumes of space stations in orbit. Her company is working on the equiv...
This year, quantum science and computing came up a lot. There have been broad claims that quantum science and engineering could one day help cure diseases, design new materials, optimize supply chains...
Want to be a top notch candidate for hosting alien life? Then there's a few key requirements you should be aware of: Ideally, you're a large object like a moon or a planet; scientists suspect you also...
In the 1970’s TV show called Six Million Dollar Man, a test pilot is in a horrible accident. The show’s famous line goes, “We can rebuild him. We have the technology.” Now, in the 2025 book, Replaceab...
More than 100 million people in the U.S. have some allergy each year. That’s about every 1 in 3 adults. For many, the fix is a bandaid: over-the-counter allergy medications. But there’s another treatm...
Thirty years ago, park rangers reintroduced grey wolves into Yellowstone National Park. They wanted to restore the ecosystem and get the elk population, which had decimated the plant community, in che...
An estimated 5-10% of the U.S. population experiences a disorder with their TMJ, the joint that connects their jaw to their skull. The good news? Relief is possible. The secret? Go see your dentist. T...
Electricity bills are on track to rise an average of 8 percent nationwide by 2030 according to a June analysis from Carnegie Mellon University and North Carolina State University. The culprits? Data c...
The comet 3I/ATLAS is taking a long holiday journey this year. It’s visiting from another solar system altogether. Those interstellar origins have the Internet rumor mill questioning whether 3I/ATLAS...
Prediabetes is common in the U.S. — around 1 in 3 people have it. And many people may not know they have it. But last year, the FDA approved the first over-the-counter continuous glucose monitor. Sinc...
How far back in evolutionary history does kissing go? Through phylogenetic analysis, an international team of scientists found that kissing was likely present in the ancestor of all apes – which lived...
Many people are gearing up for holiday conversation with loved ones who may disagree with them -- on everything from politics to religion and lifestyle choices. These conversations can get personal an...
Their whole life, producer Hannah Chinn has known about the Big One: a massive earthquake forecasted to hit the West Coast. Scientists say it’ll destroy buildings, collapse bridges, flood coastal town...
One in every eight households in the U.S. isn’t always sure where the next meal will come from. Limited food access can spell hunger – and that can affect the body and mind. So can cheaper, less nutri...
Dreams of flying? Nightmares of teeth falling out? Falling off a cliff? As a sleep scientist at the University of Montreal, Michelle Carr has pretty much heard it all. In Michelle’s new book Nightmare...
Emily Kwong is pretty sure she lacks an inner monologue, while the inner monologue of producer Rachel Carlson won’t stop chatting. But how well can a person know their inner self? And what does scienc...
What's your favorite apple? Maybe it's the crowd-pleasing Honeycrisp, the tart Granny Smith or the infamous Red Delicious. Either way, before that apple made it to your local grocery store or orchard...
Scientists have found the first compelling evidence that cognitive training can boost levels of a brain chemical that typically declines as people age. The results of this 10-week study back earlier a...
This week, we’re sharing a special episode from TED Tech exploring Gen Z slang words like "unalive," "skibidi" and "rizz." Where do these words come from — and how do they get popular so fast? Linguis...
It’s another news roundup! This time, we cover how, using data analytics – and ironically, some AI – a team at Cornell University has mapped the environmental impact of AI by state. They determined th...
David Ewing Duncan has spent the last 25 years being poked and prodded in the name of science. He’s signed up for hundreds of tests because, as a journalist, he writes about emerging health breakthrou...
Cosmic dust can tell scientists about how ice covered Earth during the last ice age. This dust is leftover debris from asteroids and comets colliding in space and this dust constantly rains down on ou...
Recently, health influencers on Instagram and TikTok have been vocal about the side effects of hormonal birth control. Check out the most popular videos on the subject, and you’ll hear horror stories...
Scientists know why leaves turn yellow in the fall: Chlorophyll breaks down, revealing the yellow pigment that was there all along. But red? Red is a different story altogether. Leaves have to make a...
Around 250 million years ago, one of Earth’s largest known volcanic events set off The Great Dying: the planet’s worst mass extinction event. The eruptions spewed large amounts of greenhouse gases int...