Scientists have detected a giant cyclone swirling around the north pole of Uranus using radio telescopes like the Very Large Array (VLA). The cyclone is similar to the polar cyclones observed by the Cassini mission at Saturn. With this discovery, cyclones or anti-cyclones have now been identified at the poles on every planet in our solar system that has an atmosphere. Uranus's north pole is now in springtime, and astronomers hope to see even more changes in its atmosphere as it continues into summer.
The SETI Institute, the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, and the Breakthrough Listen Initiative have teamed up for a new project called COSMIC, which uses the National Science Foundation’s Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) to search for signals from other galactic civilizations. The VLA is collecting data that scientists will analyze for the type of emissions that only artificial transmitters make, signals that would betray the existence of a technically accomplished society. The new processing system for SETI is dubbed “COSMIC” – the Commensal Open-Source Multimode Interferometer Cluster – and is spearheaded by the SETI Institute, in collaboration with the National Radio Astronomy Observatory and the Breakthrough Listen Initiative.
