New Spaceship Speed in Conway’s Game of Life by Alexy Nigin.
From the post:
In this article, I assume that you have basic familiarity with Conway’s Game of Life. If this is not the case, you can try reading an explanatory article but you will still struggle to understand much of the following content.
The day before yesterday ConwayLife.com forums saw a new member named zdr. When we the lifenthusiasts meet a newcomer, we expect to see things like “brand new” 30-cell 700-gen methuselah and then have to explain why it is not notable. However, what zdr showed us made our jaws drop.
It was a 28-cell c/10 orthogonal spaceship:
… (emphasis in the original)
The mentioned introduction isn’t sufficient to digest the material in this post.
There is a wealth of material available on cellular automata (the Game of Life is one).
LifeWiki is one and Complex Cellular Automata is another. While not exhaustive of all there is to know about cellular automata, familiarity with take some time and skill.
Still, I offer this as encouragement that fundamental discoveries remain to be made.
But if and only if you reject conventional wisdom that prevents you from looking.