NEWSSCIENCE science.org 4 FEBRUARY 2022 • VOL 375 ISSUE 6580 479MAP: K. FRANKLIN/
SCIENCE
1 cubic kilometer of polar ice outfitted with
light sensors to detect neutrino impacts—
could pick up. Neither kind of outburst is
certain, however. Some predict a whimper
rather than a bang. “We really don’t know
what to expect,” Ransom says.
The only certain signal is gravitational
waves, but the ponderous colliding masses
would emit them at too low a frequency to
be picked up by detectors such as the Laser
Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Obser-
vatory, which is tuned to smaller mergers.
They should, however, leave an imprint on
spacetime itself, a sort of relaxation of dis-
tance and time dubbed gravitational wave
memory, which could be detected over
many years by monitoring the metronomic
pulses of spinning stellar remnants known
as pulsars. “It’s a very tricky signal to mea-
sure,” Ransom says, “but that would be de-
finitive, a total smoking gun” of merging
supermassive black holes.
But Ransom is braced for disappoint-
ment. He points out that the team is basing
its prediction on just a handful of observed
cycles. Theorist Daniel D’Orazio of the Niels
Bohr Institute in Copenhagen, Denmark,
says some aspects of the AGN’s light curve
also raise doubts. For example, he says,
the ZTF archives show SDSSJ1430+
lacked a periodic oscillation in the years
before Jiang’s team discovered it; its dim,
steady emission then looked more like a
standard AGN with a single supermassive
black hole. “Why has [the oscillation] just
turned on now?” D’Orazio asks. “I’m not
sure how that steady emission fits with bi-
nary emission models.”
Observations in the coming months
should show whether the oscillation con-
tinues to shorten. The team had to halt
its observing in August 2021 when Earth’s
orbit put the distant galaxy too close to
the Sun for telescopes to observe it safely.
Observations restarted in November, but
since then technical glitches have idled
both ZTF and Swift.
Andrew Fabian of the University of Cam-
bridge is among the astronomers who will
be chasing the will o’ the wisp, having ap-
plied for time on NASA’s Neutron star
Interior Composition Explorer, an x-ray tele-
scope attached to the International Space
Station. “If this is true, then it’s important
to get as many observations as possible now
to see what it’s doing,” he says. Fabian says
the chance of such a merger taking place so
close to Earth in any given year is one in
10,000. He’s skeptical that one is imminent,
but says it’s worth monitoring for a few
months to see whether the claim holds up.
“Rare events do happen,” he says. jWith additional reporting by Ling Xin in Beijing.I
ndonesia has yet to start building its new
capital, Nusantara, but a slick website
shows what the country has in mind. A
video shows people strolling on board-
walks through lush greenery, housing
perched on the shores of an idyllic lake,
stunningly modernistic buildings, elevated
mass transit lines, and bicycles on tree-lined
boulevards. Dominating the city is a cluster of
monumental buildings, including a presiden-
tial palace in the shape of the mythical bird-
like Garuda, Indonesia’s national emblem.
The new capital, whose construction on
Borneo’s east coast was approved by Indone-
sia’s parliament on 18 January, will replace
overcrowded and increasingly flood-prone
Jakarta, on Java. Planners are envisioning
an environmental utopia for Nusantara,
which means “archipelago.” All residents will
be within a 10-minute walk of green recre-
ational spaces. Every high rise will utilize
100% eco-friendly construction and be en-
ergy efficient. Of trips taken within the city,
80% will be by public transport or on foot or
bicycle. Nusantara presents an opportunity
“to build a model city that is respectful of the
environment,” says Sibarani Sofian, an urban
designer with Urban+, the firm that won the
competition for a basic design for the city’s
governmental core. But others see shadows
in this utopian vision.
“The big question, of course, is how and
if they’ll achieve these ambitions,” says KianGoh, who studies urban planning at the
University of California, Los Angeles. “Plan-
ning scholars are by and large skeptical of
plans for smart or sustainable cities ‘from
scratch,’” she says. And spillover effects
across Borneo, including deforestation,
“are likely to be far greater than the direct
impacts within the city boundaries, un-
less carefully managed,” says ecologist Alex
Lechner of Monash University, Indonesia.
Indonesian President Joko Widodo pro-
posed the new capital in April 2019 and
later that year picked the site in East Ka-
limantan province. He wanted to move the
capital closer to the nation’s geographic
center and spur economic growth in the
archipelago’s east, while easing Jakarta’s
burden. Sprawling over nearly 6300 square
kilometers (km^2 ), the Jakarta metropoli-
tan area is Southeast Asia’s most populous
conurbation, home to more than 31 million
people. Haphazard growth has led to noto-
rious traffic jams and pollution.
The old capital is also sinking. Many
residents rely on wells that are pumping
underground aquifers dry, leading to
ground subsidence of more than 10 centi-
meters annually along the northern rim of
the city, on the shores of Jakarta Bay—even
as sea levels rise because of climate warm-
ing. The area, home to poor and working
classes, floods annually. A 2020 flood killed
more than 60 and displaced more than
60,000. Without heroic efforts to limit the
sinking, 25% of the capital area will beIndonesia’s utopian new capital
may not be as green as it looks
Moving the government to Borneo could speed deforestation
ENVIRONMENTBy Dennis Normile0 1000
kmINDONESIABorneoJavaJakartaEast
KalimantanNusantaraBRUNEI
M A L AYS I AStarting from scratch
Indonesia will move its seat of government—and an estimated 4.8 million civil servants—from Jakarta to
Nusantara, a brand new city on Borneo’s east coast that is closer to the country’s geographical center.