Above: It sees us, too. The face-on spiral galaxy NGC 1566(60 million light-years away in the constellation Dorado) as captured by the James Webb Space Telescope (and rotated to fit in the header image). Image credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Janice Lee (STScI), Thomas Williams (Oxford), Rupali Chandar (UToledo), Daniela Calzetti (UMass), PHANGS Team
The most recent issue of Free Astronomy Magazine (March-April 2024) is available for your reading and downloading pleasure in English, Italian, Spanish, French, and Arabic at www.astropublishing.com (and facebook).
Another gorgeous and information-dense issue, with the original content for the month from Michele covering the gamut from the ancient philosophy of alien life to the detection of us based on the architecture and engineering of those ancient civilizations.
On the cover: View of Hollywood and Los Angeles from Mulholland Drive, slightly overexposed to show the orange haze that envelops the city at night. Photo by Mike Knell
The highlight of the issue is Michele's article "The Fermi paradox – many solutions, no certainty." This discussion extends his lengthy streak of articles on the topics of exobiology, technosignatures, SETI focus, and simple statistics by including a recent reading list of books published on the topics from which we might all glean insights into what the current state of the fields are as of the early 2020's (historians, or those aliens themselves, can someday revisit our thoughts on the topic and wonder how we managed to be so prescient/way-the-frack-off at this moment in time).
The lowlight of the issue concerns the state of light pollution and the "we can't seem to get there from here" state of our transition to LEDs. "Stars are disappearing faster and faster" is not only technically true due to the observed acceleration of the expansion of the universe, but also true down here on Earth with the continued proliferation of nighttime illumination (I assume this is correct, as we don't get out much at night given the ages of the kids in the house). Not enough of us are fortunate to have a John McMahon in our midst promoting proper lighting and pushing for lighting ordinances. I lament the apparent demise of selene-ny.org (now defunct, but the group and site left its mark as a source of information online – wikipedia, slideshare, sky&tel, The Astronomical League) and can only hope you consider visiting the International Dark-Sky Association website and giving the astronomically-more-friendly lighting fixtures list a once-over before renovating.
