Paper Roundup

Paper Roundup August 2025: Alpha Centauri Ab, Worm Circuits, AI Chess

Every month, I publish a curated list of scholarship on "big questions" in science — the stuff you'd find sitting on the desk of an old timey natural philosopher whisked to the present.

Elise Cutts

Elise Cutts

— 22 min read
Paper Roundup August 2025: Alpha Centauri Ab, Worm Circuits, AI Chess
Magpies are notorious thieves, but I like to think they see themselves as curators. Art: American Magpie by Robert Havell after John James Audubon (1837) in the National Gallery of Art

How did life begin? What is emergence? Are we alone? Every month, I publish a curated list of the most fascinating, groundbreaking, inflammatory, or otherwise bold new scholarship on "big questions" in science. I like to imagine these are the papers you'd find sitting on the desk of an old timey natural philosopher who'd been whisked to the present.

Send recommendations for next month's roundup to elise@reviewertoo.com. And if this is your kind of weird, why not share it with a friend or post it on Bluesky or wherever else you hang out online?

Highlights

A first picture of a habitable-zone (gas) planet in the closest star system to Earth

Worlds Next Door: A Candidate Giant Planet Imaged in the Habitable Zone of α Centauri A. I. Observations, Orbital and Physical Properties, and Exozodi Upper Limits (The Astrophysical Journal Letters, August 11) by Charles Beichman, Aniket Sanghi, Dimitri Mawet, Pierre Kervella, Kevin Wagner, Billy Quarles, Jack J. Lissauer, Max Sommer, Mark Wyatt, Nicolas Godoy, William O. Balmer, Laurent Pueyo, Jorge Llop-Sayson, Jonathan Aguilar, Rachel Akeson, Ruslan Belikov, Anthony Boccaletti, Elodie Choquet, Edward Fomalont, Thomas Henning, Dean Hines, Renyu Hu, Pierre-Olivier Lagage, Jarron Leisenring, James Mang, Michael Ressler, Eugene Serabyn, Pascal Tremblin, Marie Ygouf, and Mantas Zilinskas

Worlds Next Door: A Candidate Giant Planet Imaged in the Habitable Zone of α Cen A. II. Binary Star Modeling, Planet and Exozodi Search, and Sensitivity Analysis (The Astrophysical Journal Letters, August 11) by Aniket Sanghi, Charles Beichman, Dimitri Mawet, William O. Balmer, Nicolas Godoy, Laurent Pueyo, Anthony Boccaletti, Max Sommer, Alexis Bidot, Elodie Choquet, Pierre Kervella, Pierre-Olivier Lagage, Jarron Leisenring, Jorge Llop-Sayson, Michael Ressler, Kevin Wagner, Mark Wyatt

That smudge of light labeled S1 is, maybe, a gas giant planet orbiting in the habitable zone of Alpha Centauri Ab, one of the closest stars to Earth. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, Aniket Sanghi (Caltech), Chas Beichman (NExScI, NASA/JPL-Caltech), Dimitri Mawet (Caltech), and Joseph DePasquale (STScI)

There could be a gas giant in the habitable zone of Alpha Centauri A, the nearest Sun-like star. And scientists may have just taken a picture of it.

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