During the 1970s, the first interstellar probes were launched, carrying messages specifically designed to be intelligible to extraterrestrial species. The messages were essentially a "message in a bottle" intended for an advanced civilization, should they find the probes someday.

An intriguing idea that needs further testing. ScienceAlert stories are written, fact-checked, and edited by humans, never generated by AI. Don't miss a story, subscribe here.

Excavation of a large stone vessel from the mysterious Laos Plain of Jars has confirmed its use in an ancient funerary tradition.

A man who died in Pompeii during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79 was carrying a medical kit with him, new scans reveal.

Our Solar System is currently passing through the Local Interstellar Cloud, a region of highly diluted gas and dust between the stars. On its path, Earth continuously accumulates iron-60, a rare radioactive isotope of iron produced in stellar explosions. This has now been confirmed by an international research team led by the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) through the analysis of Antarctic ice tens of thousands of years old. From the steady but time-varying influx, the researchers conclude that the radioactive isotope has been stored within the cloud since a long-past stellar explosion.