Category: 7. Science

Detected at an early stage of formation around a young analog of our own Sun, the planet is estimated to be about 5 million years-old and most likely a gas giant of similar size to Jupiter.

The study, which was led by Leiden University, University of Galway and University of Arizona, has been published in the international journal Astrophysical Journal Letters.

The ground-breaking discovery was made using one of the world’s most advanced observatories — the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT) in the Atacama Desert in Chile.

To coincide with the research being published, the European Southern Observatory — the world’s foremost international astronomy organization — has released a stunning image of the discovery as their picture of the week. View images here.

The new planet has been named WISPIT 2b.

Dr Christian Ginski, lecturer at the School of Natural Sciences, University of Galway and second author of the study, said: “We used these really short snapshot observations of many young stars — only a few minutes per object — to determine if we could see a little dot of light next to them that is caused by a planet. However, in the case of this star, we instead detected a completely unexpected and exceptionally beautiful multi-ringed dust disk.

“When we saw this multi-ringed disk for the first time, we knew we had to try and see if we could detect a planet within it, so we quickly asked for follow-up observations.”

It is only the second time a confirmed planet has been detected at this early evolutionary stage around a young version of our Sun. The first one was discovered in 2018, by a research team also involving Dr Ginski.

WISPIT 2b is also the first unambiguous planet detection in a multi-ringed disk, making it the ideal laboratory to study planet-disk interaction and subsequent evolution.

The planet was captured in near infrared light – the type of view that someone would see when using night-vision goggles — as it is still glowing and hot after its initial formation phase.

The team at Leiden University and University of Galway captured a spectacular clear image of the young proto-planet embedded in a disk gap. They also confirmed that the planet is orbiting its host star.

The planet was also detected in visible light by a team from the University of Arizona using a specially designed instrument. This detection at a specific wavelength or color of light indicates that the planet is still actively accreting gas as it is forming its atmosphere.

WISPIT 2b was detected as part of a five-year observational research project during which the international team sought to establish whether wide orbit gas giant planets are more common around younger or older stars. This led to the unexpected discovery of the new planet.

Dust and gas rich disks around young stars are the birth cradles of planets. They can look quite spectacular with many different structures such as rings and spiral arms, which researchers believe are related to planets forming within them. The disk around WISPIT 2b has a radius of 380 astronomical units — about 380 times the distance between Earth and the Sun.

Dr Ginski added:”Capturing an image of these forming planets has proven extremely challenging and it gives us a real chance to understand why the many thousands of older exoplanet systems out there look so diverse and so different from our own solar system. I think many of our colleagues who study planet formation will take a close look at this system in the years to come.”

The study was led by an early career PhD student, Richelle van Capelleveen from Leiden University and co-led by a graduate student team at University of Galway.

The research findings were co-authored by Dr Ginski and three Physics graduates students who are specializing in Astrophysics at University of Galway.

A companion study by the University of Arizona was led by Professor Laird Close, where observations were triggered based on the information shared about the new disk by the University of Galway and Leiden University team.

Richelle van Capelleveen said: “Discovering this planet was an amazing experience — we were incredibly lucky. WISPIT 2, a young version of our Sun, is located in a little-studied group of young stars, and we did not expect to find such a spectacular system. This system will likely be a benchmark for years to come.”

Dr Ginski said: “We were so fortunate to have these incredible young researchers on the case. This is the next generation of astrophysicists who I am sure will make more breakthrough discoveries in the years to come.”

Chloe Lawlor, PhD student in Physics with a specialization in Astrophysics at University of Galway, said: “I feel incredibly fortunate to be involved in such an exciting and potentially career defining discovery. WISPIT 2b, with its position within its birth disk, is a beautiful example of a planet that can be used to explore current planet formation models. I am certain this will become a landmark paper, owing particularly to the work of Richelle van Capelleveen and her exceptional team.”

Jake Byrne, MSc student in Physics with a specialization in Astrophysics at University of Galway, said: “The planet is a remarkable discovery. I could hardly believe it was a real detection when Dr Ginski first showed me the image. It’s a big one — that’s sure to spark discussion within the research community and advance our understanding of planet formation. Contributing to something this impactful, and doing so alongside international collaborators, is exactly the kind of opportunity early-career researchers like Chloe, Dan and I dream of.”

Dan McLachlan, MSc student in Physics with a specialization in Astrophysics at University of Galway, said: “In my experience so far working in astronomy, sometimes you can get so focused on a small task and you forget about the big picture, and when you zoom out and take in the magnitude of what you are working on it shocks you. This was one such project (an exoplanet direct detection!) and it was such a mind-blowing thing to be a part of. I feel so well treated by the University of Galway Physics department and especially my supervisor Dr Christian Ginski to have provided me with the opportunity to be part of such an exciting project.”

Abstract submission is now open for IAU symposium #404: Advancing the Search for Technosignatures, which will take place 2-6 March 2026 online everywhere. Submit your abstract using the link below. Abstracts are due by 17 October 2025.

IAUS 404: “Advancing the Search for Technosignatures” – Abstract Submission

The search for extraterrestrial life involves an effort to understand a broad range of plausible biosignatures that could arise in extraterrestrial environments. Technology is one possible consequence of planetary-scale life, which could generate “technosignatures” that could be abundant, long-lived, highly detectable, and unambiguous compared to other biosignatures.

This online symposium seeks to advance the search for technosignatures by inviting contributions on any theoretical, instrumental, observational, or data analysis ideas for characterizing and detecting technosignatures.

The goal of this symposium is to foster discussion on ways to advance the search for technosignatures by leveraging existing missions and data archives. You can visit the website for the meeting to sign up for updates and see a list of confirmed invited speakers: https://iaus404.bmsis.org/

Astrobiology

Excess heat from AI data centres could be repurposed in innovative ways to help tackle global warming. That’s the conclusion of a study by researchers at the Advanced Research Projects Agency in the US. Among the candidate uses for that heat, two stood out for their economic and environmental value: carbon capture by direct air capture (DAC) and evaporative water purification.

As demand for artificial intelligence grows, the energy used by the many data centres powering it is predicted to hit 150GW by 2030, almost all of which becomes heat that is ultimately wasted. ‘Data centres are like the world’s biggest toasters, but we’re not making any toast,’ says Carlos Díaz-Marín, who led the modelling study alongside Zachary Berquist.

Both DAC and evaporative water purification require large amounts of thermal energy. Díaz-Marín and Berquist propose that under the right conditions, waste heat from data centres could drive these processes. Their modelling shows that such carbon dioxide capture and water production could more than offset the carbon dioxide emissions and water use associated with AI.’ Even if you run these data centres on natural gas, coupling them with DAC can still make them carbon negative,’ says Berquist.

Although their results seem encouraging, several roadblocks remain before data centres can be effectively paired with DAC. For example, typical sorbent materials for capturing carbon dioxide require temperatures of around 80°C to regenerate, while state-of-the-art sorbents only require around 60°C – right on the limit of what waste data centre heat can provide. ‘With this modelling, we want to emphasise the value of developing sorbents that operate at lower temperatures,’ says Díaz-Marín.

‘Currently, DAC is still at a very small scale of deployment at around 0.01Mt CO₂/year. Nevertheless, I find it very important and valuable that all possible uses for data centre waste heat are explored,’ comments Sanna Syri, an expert on climate change mitigation from Aalto University in Finland. She also says that while the modelling presented in this study is interesting, it is highly dependent on location, policy incentives and technological developments.

Further research is needed to turn Díaz-Marín and Berquist’s proposals into a reality, but the pair is optimistic about the future of data centres. ‘The things we can get from AI are going to be positive, but currently its environmental impact is negative. There is an opportunity to make both sides positive,’ says Berquist. ‘How nice would it be if you’re using ChatGPT and you’re reducing global warming with everything you ask it?’ adds Díaz-Marín.

Kaleigh Harrison

New research shows that poplar trees adjust their wood chemistry depending on where they grow—a discovery with major implications for biofuels and paper production. Scientists from the University of Missouri, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and the University of Georgia studied more than 400 Populus trichocarpa samples across the Pacific Northwest. They found that trees in warmer southern climates naturally produce wood with higher syringyl-to-guaiacyl (S/G) ratios in their lignin.

Why does this matter? S/G ratios affect how easily wood can be broken down during processing. Higher ratios mean wood requires less energy and fewer chemicals to convert into biofuel or paper. This natural variation could help industries match feedstocks to the most efficient processing technologies, lowering costs and boosting yields.

The team also uncovered genetic clues. Mutations in enzymes such as laccases—more common in trees from warmer regions—appear to shape these lignin differences. This suggests that climate has influenced the evolution of traits with real industrial advantages, paving the way for more targeted, location-based sourcing of biomass.

C-Lignin Discovery Opens New Avenues for Renewable Material Development

In a surprising finding, researchers also detected small amounts of C-lignin, a rare type of lignin typically seen in seed coats like those of vanilla. C-lignin has a uniform structure that breaks down far more cleanly than conventional lignins. If scientists can boost C-lignin levels in poplars or crops like soybeans, it could make biomass processing cheaper, cleaner, and more efficient.

The study further revealed that lignin regulation is more complex than previously understood. Using 3D enzyme modeling, researchers showed that important mutations often occur outside traditional active sites, pointing to a broader genetic network influencing wood chemistry.

Together, these findings highlight new opportunities to engineer plants that are better suited for renewable energy and materials production—advancing both science and industry.

In 2012, physicists showed that this paradox is tightly linked to the nature of the event horizon. They’d known since the 1970s that black holes emit radiation, and that this radiation probably somehow carries the scrambled information about the stuff that fell into the hole. Now they imagined what would happen if an astronaut who was about to cross the horizon of an ancient black hole communicated with someone far away — an observer who had gathered the radiation emitted by the black hole over its lifetime. The result of the thought experiment was puzzling: The astronaut and the faraway observer would end up with two copies of the same information, one recovered over the black hole’s long lifetime and the other from close by. The extra copy is a problem, again spoiling the careful accounting of probabilities that quantum mechanics relies on. Some physicists concluded that something strange must happen just outside the horizon to disrupt the astronaut’s information gathering. 

Short Hair, Long Hair

Attempts to address the information paradox usually add extra detail outside the event horizon, referred to as quantum hair. The researchers who came up with the thought experiment about the astronauts in 2012 suggested that a shell of extremely high-energy particles called a firewall might lie just outside the horizon, breaking the connection between the two observers. Alternatively, the physicist Samir Mathur argues that black holes don’t have a horizon at all. Instead, he says that they are “fuzzballs” — each one a quantum combination, or superposition, of many different configurations of space-time, making the black hole’s edges fuzzy.

Other ideas include “gravastars” that resemble black holes but are surrounded by shells of exotic matter, and so-called regular black holes — reimagined versions of the objects that lack the infinitely dense points in their centers known as singularities.

This zoo of proposals all introduce new effects outside the horizon that should change how a vibrating black hole emits gravitational waves.

The proposed effects generally lie very close to the horizon, perhaps only within 10⁻³³ centimeters — the so-called Planck length. Such close-cropped quantum hair would not be directly observable as a change in the signals from black hole collisions, but it might be visible in other ways. For example, unusual aftereffects called echoes, generated as gravitational waves bounce off a firewall or other structure near the horizon, might appear after an initial signal.

Searches for echoes have so far come up empty. These failed searches don’t rule out the possibility of quantum hair, however, since it’s unclear which kinds of quantum hair should give rise to echoes and which won’t, or how exactly the echoes would appear.

Meanwhile, physicists can also look for “longer” hair — more obvious deviations from Einstein’s theory. There’s less theoretical reason to expect this, but on the other hand, the highly curved space-times near black holes are a new environment for astronomers, and they can’t be sure what they might find. Perhaps space-time curves differently under these conditions than general relativity predicts.

“I think it’s a worthwhile exercise to go and test that,” said Niayesh Afshordi, an astrophysicist at the University of Waterloo in Canada.

Math Meets Data

Since the first detection of colliding black holes by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, or LIGO, in 2015, physicists have been trying to use this data to test Einstein’s theory. The project accelerated after additional observatories — Virgo in Europe and KAGRA in Japan — came online. But a substantial mathematical challenge stood in the way: The black holes that collide are always rotating, which greatly complicates calculations. The mathematician Roy Kerr calculated back in 1963 how rotating black holes behave in the framework of Einstein’s equations. But what if that framework is wrong?

A group of physicists at KU Leuven cracked the problem in 2023. They developed a technique for understanding how fast-spinning black holes would behave if Einstein’s theory were modified.

Then, at a conference later that year, a graduate student in the Leuven group, Simon Maenaut, met Gregorio Carullo, a postdoctoral researcher in Copenhagen at the time who was an expert in analyzing gravitational wave signals. They realized that they could test the Leuven group’s theories against Carullo’s data, and they wasted no time. “We sort of jumped on a free desk and started coding together,” said Carullo, who is now at the University of Birmingham.

Chemistry that cools clouds

The first star-forming gas clouds, called protostellar clouds, were warm—roughly room temperature. Warm gas has internal pressure that pushes outward against the inward force of gravity trying to collapse the cloud. A hot air balloon stays inflated by the same principle. If the flame heating the air at the base of the balloon stops, the air inside cools, and the balloon begins to collapse.

Only the most massive protostellar clouds with the most gravity could overcome the thermal pressure and eventually collapse. In this scenario, the first stars were all massive.

The only way to form the lower-mass stars we see today is for the protostellar clouds to cool. Gas in space cools by radiation, which transforms thermal energy into light that carries the energy out of the cloud. Hydrogen and helium atoms are not efficient radiators below several thousand degrees, but molecular hydrogen, H₂, is great at cooling gas at low temperatures.

When energized, H₂ emits infrared light, which cools the gas and lowers the internal pressure. That process would make gravitational collapse more likely in lower-mass clouds.

For decades, astronomers have reasoned that a low abundance of H₂ early on resulted in hotter clouds whose internal pressure would be too hot to easily collapse into stars. They concluded that only clouds with enormous masses, and therefore higher gravity, would collapse, leaving more massive stars.

Helium hydride

In a July 2025 journal article, physicist Florian Grussie and collaborators at the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics demonstrated that the first molecule to form in the universe, helium hydride, HeH⁺, could have been more abundant in the early universe than previously thought. They used a computer model and conducted a laboratory experiment to verify this result.

The worm, named Paralvinella hessleri, is the only animal to inhabit the hottest part of deep sea hydrothermal vents in the west Pacific, where hot, mineral-rich water spews from the seafloor. These fluids can contain high levels of sulfide, as well as arsenic, which builds up in the tissues of P. hessleri, sometimes making up more than 1% of the worm’s body weight.

Li and his team investigated how P. hessleri can tolerate the high levels of arsenic and sulfide in the vent fluids. They used advanced microscopy, and DNA, protein and chemical analyses to identify a previously unknown detoxification process. The worm accumulates particles of arsenic in its skin cells, which then react with sulfide from the hydrothermal vent fluids to form small clumps of a yellow mineral called orpiment.

The study provides new insights into the novel detoxification strategy that P. hessleri uses for “fighting poison with poison,” which enables it to live in an extremely toxic environment. Previous studies have found that related worms living in other parts of the world, as well as some snail species in the west Pacific, also accumulate high levels of arsenic, and may use this same strategy.

Coauthor Dr. Hao Wang adds, “This was my first deep-sea expedition, and I was stunned by what I saw on the ROV monitor — the bright yellow Paralvinella hessleri worms were unlike anything I had ever seen, standing out vividly against the white biofilm and dark hydrothermal vent landscape. It was hard to believe that any animal could survive, let alone thrive, in such an extreme and toxic environment.”

Dr. Wang says, “What makes this finding even more fascinating is that orpiment — the same toxic, golden mineral produced by this worm — was once prized by medieval and Renaissance painters. It’s a curious convergence of biology and art history, unfolding in the depths of the ocean.”

The authors note, “We were puzzled for a long time by the nature of the yellow intracellular granules, which had a vibrant color and nearly perfect spherical shape. It took us a combination of microscopy, spectroscopy, and Raman analysis to identify them as orpiment minerals — a surprising finding.”

The authors conclude, “We hope that this ‘fighting poison with poison’ model will encourage scientists to rethink how marine invertebrates interact with and possibly harness toxic elements in their environment.”

Funding: This work was supported by grants from Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 42476133 to H.W.), Science and Technology Innovation Project of Laoshan Laboratory (Project Number No. LSKJ202203104 to H.W.), National Key RandD Program of China (Project Number 2018YFC0310702 to H.W.), Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 42030407 to C.Li), and the NSFC Innovative Group Grant (No. 42221005 to M.X.W.). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

Warning: This story contains details of violence that may be disturbing to some readers. You can find resources and help for survivors at the U.S. Department of Justice website.

More than 40 percent of respondents to a new survey experienced a sexual assault or sexual harassment during recent Antarctic research expeditions, according to the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF).