Category: 7. Science

  • Chemical evolution imprints in the rare isotopes of nearby M dwarfs

    Chemical evolution imprints in the rare isotopes of nearby M dwarfs

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  • Watch SpaceX launch Earth-observation satellite for Luxembourg and 7 other satellites today

    Watch SpaceX launch Earth-observation satellite for Luxembourg and 7 other satellites today

    Watch live! SpaceX launches military recon satellite for NATO defense and 7 others – YouTube


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    SpaceX plans to launch a new Earth-observation satellite along with several smaller spacecraft from California on Tuesday (Aug. 26), and you can watch it live.

    A Falcon 9 rocket carrying Luxembourg’s National Advanced Optical System (NAOS) spacecraft is scheduled to lift off during a 27-minute window that opens at 2:53 p.m. EDT (1853 GMT or 11:53 a.m. PDT local) from Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base.

    SpaceX is planning to webcast the mission beginning about 15 minutes prior to launch. You can watch it here at Space.com, courtesy of SpaceX, or directly via the company’s website or its account on the X social media network.

    Artist’s rendering of OHB Italia’s NAOS (National Advanced Optical System) Earth-observation satellite, which was built for Luxembourg. (Image credit: OHB Italia)

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  • Irish astronomers aided ‘remarkable discovery’ of new planet

    Irish astronomers aided ‘remarkable discovery’ of new planet

    The unexpected detection of a new planet has been hailed as a “remarkable discovery” by Irish astronomers who were involved in its identification.

    The newly spotted planet, named WISPIT 2b, is estimated to be about five million years old and most likely a gas giant of similar size to Jupiter.

    It was detected by an international team, co-led by researchers at University of Galway, at an early stage of formation around a young star which shares similarities with our own Sun.

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

    WISPIT 2b is about 430 light years away.

    While not visible to the naked eye, curious stargazers may be interested to know it is lurking in the direction of the constellation Aquila, the eagle.

    The groundbreaking 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.

    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.

    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 the 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 further detected in visible light by a team from the University of Arizona using a specially designed instrument, with those findings indicating that the planet is still actively accreting gas as it is forming its atmosphere.

    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.

    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 the University of Galway.

    The research findings were co-authored by Dr Ginski and three physics graduate students who are specialising in astrophysics at the University of Galway.

    Ms van Capelleveen said: “Discovering this planet was an amazing experience – we were incredibly lucky.”

    Chloe Lawlor, a PhD student in physics with a specialisation in astrophysics at the 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, an MSc student at University of Galway, said he “could hardly believe it was a real detection” when he first saw the image of the “remarkable discovery”.

    “It’s a big one – that’s sure to spark discussion within the research community and advance our understanding of planet formation.”

    Dan McLachlan, also an MSc student at the institution, said: “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.”

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  • Study Shows Iron Supply Across Pacific History

    Study Shows Iron Supply Across Pacific History


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    A new study published by researchers at the University of Hawai‘i (UH) at Mānoa sheds light on the critical role of iron in Earth’s climate history, revealing how its sources in the South Pacific Ocean have shifted over the past 93 million years. This groundbreaking research, based on the analysis of deep-sea sediment cores, provides crucial insights into the interplay between iron, marine life, and atmospheric carbon dioxide levels.

    Iron is a vital nutrient for marine life and plays a significant role in regulating atmospheric carbon dioxide by influencing the growth of phytoplankton, which absorb carbon dioxide. Although the importance of iron today is well-established, researchers have a limited understanding of how past iron availability may have shaped the marine ecosystem.

    To investigate the long-term history of oceanic iron, the researchers meticulously analyzed iron isotopes in three deep-sea sediment cores from the South Pacific, far removed from continental influences.

    “Over the past 93 million years, we found that five primary sources of iron have influenced the South Pacific Ocean: dust, iron from far off ocean sources, two distinct hydrothermal sources, and a volcanic ash,” explained Logan Tegler, the lead author and oceanography postdoctoral researcher in the UH Mānoa School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology. “These sources shifted over time as the sites gradually migrated away from mid-ocean ridges.”

    The study revealed an evolution in iron supply: initially, hydrothermal sources were the dominant source, but dust gradually took over, becoming the primary contributor around 30 million years ago. 

    Iron’s influence on the ecosystem, carbon removal

    “Understanding this historical context helps us comprehend how iron has shaped ecosystems,” said Tegler. “It also raises questions about how the iron cycle might have favored certain microbes over others—an ecosystem with persistently low iron could favor microbes adapted to survive under iron-limited conditions, such as diatoms.”

    In many regions of the Pacific Ocean, iron availability limits the growth of phytoplankton, thereby limiting the amount of carbon dioxide removed from the atmosphere. 

    “Modern dust deposition in the South Pacific is extremely low,” said Tegler. “However, our findings surprisingly suggest that the South Pacific is currently receiving more dust than it has at any point in the last 90 million years, which is remarkable given its current reputation as an iron poor region!”

    This study sheds light on iron cycling across the broader Pacific basin and enhances understanding of how essential nutrients like iron shape ocean ecosystems and climate over millions of years. 

    “As human activities increase iron input to the oceans through industrial emissions and biomass burning, understanding past perturbations of the iron cycle is crucial for predicting and mitigating adverse effects,” added Tegler. 

    ​

    Reference: Tegler LA, Horner TJ, Nielsen SG, et al. Evolution of the South Pacific’s Iron Cycle Over the Cenozoic. Paleoceanogr Paleoclimatol. 2025. doi: 10.1029/2025PA005149


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  • Black Hole Triggers Rare Supernova in Massive Star

    Black Hole Triggers Rare Supernova in Massive Star

    Astronomers have witnessed a new kind of supernova caused by a massive star caught in a deadly gravitational dance with a black hole. The event, occurring about 700 million light-years from Earth, provides unprecedented insight into how binary systems can dictate the fate of stars.

    The star, at least ten times the mass of our sun, and its black hole companion — of similar mass — were gravitationally bound in a binary system. Over time, the black hole’s immense gravity distorted the star, siphoning off material and stretching it from its spherical shape, ultimately triggering a supernova explosion.

    “We caught a massive star locked in a fatal tango with a black hole,” said astrophysicist Alexander Gagliano of MIT’s Institute for AI and Fundamental Interactions, lead author of the study published in the Astrophysical Journal. “After shedding mass for years in a death spiral with the black hole, the star met its finale by exploding. It released more energy in a single second than the sun produces across its entire lifetime.”

    The mechanism behind this supernova remains uncertain. Researchers are exploring whether the black hole’s gravitational distortion caused instability that led to the star’s collapse, or if the black hole tore the star apart before it exploded. “The star has been pulled and morphed by the black hole in complex ways,” added co-author Ashley Villar of Harvard University.

    This binary system originally consisted of two massive stars orbiting one another. When one star exhausted its life cycle, it exploded in a supernova, leaving behind a black hole. Later, the second star, now in close proximity to the black hole, underwent the newly observed type of supernova.

    Detection of the event was enabled by an AI algorithm, designed to spot unusual cosmic explosions in real time. This early warning allowed astronomers to carry out comprehensive observations using multiple ground- and space-based telescopes. Four years of prior data showed bright emissions from the star, likely caused by the black hole consuming its outer hydrogen layer and exposing deeper helium layers.

    The aftermath of the supernova revealed further bright emissions as the black hole devoured the remaining stellar debris, growing even more massive and powerful.

    “Our takeaway is that the fates of stars are profoundly influenced by their companions,” Gagliano said. “This event gives us an exciting window into how dramatically black holes can impact the deaths of massive stars.”

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  • The First Webb Telescope Observations of 3I/ATLAS | by Avi Loeb | Aug, 2025

    The First Webb Telescope Observations of 3I/ATLAS | by Avi Loeb | Aug, 2025

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    Spectrally integrated flux maps for 3I/ATLAS observed by the NIRSpec instrument on the Webb telescope. Panel (a) shows the scattered sunlight around 3I/ATLAS on a scale of a few thousand kilometers (smaller by a factor of a hundred than the size of the CO2 plume detected by SPHEREx) at a wavelength of 1.2 micrometers, plotted on a logarithmic scale to highlight the coma shape. Panel (b) shows a map of carbon dioxide (CO2) at a wavelength of 4.3 micrometers. Panel © shows water (H2O) at 2.7 micrometers. Panel (d) shows CO at 4.7 micrometers. Inset plots in the upper right corner of the panels show the continuum-subtracted spectra, spatially averaged. The lower left corner of Panel (a) shows the sky-projected direction from 3I/ATLAS to the Sun (S) and its velocity (v) vector. (Credit: M. A. Cordiner et al. 2025)

    A few seconds before my flight to Copenhagen lifted off the ground at Boston’s Logan airport, I received an email with the paper reporting the first Webb telescope data from August 6, 2025 on 3I/ATLAS (accessible here). The 15 minutes of wait for the onboard WiFi connectivity to show up felt like eternity. But the wait was worth it. The stunning Webb data from a 6.5-meter infrared telescope with unprecedented spectral sensitivity was worth the wait.

    In short, the Webb data confirms the existence of a carbon dioxide (CO2) gas plume around 3I/ATLAS with significantly lower levels of water (H2O) and carbon monoxide (CO), as reported a few days earlier by the SPHEREx space observatory team (in a paper accessible here). Whereas the Webb telescope has much better spectral and spatial resolution, SPHEREx mapped the spherically symmetric CO2 plume a hundred times farther from 3I/ATLAS and demonstrated that it extends beyond 348,000 kilometers.

    3I/ATLAS does not feature a cometary tail that extends beyond the width of its coma, as was already evident from the higher resolution image taken by the Hubble Space Telescope (reported here). That this tail is not seen suggests that 3I/ATLAS does not shed a lot of dust particles with a size comparable to the wavelength of sunlight, ~0.5 micrometer, and that the reflected sunlight originates from the surface of 3I/ATLAS. This implies a diameter of up to 46 kilometers for an albedo of 5% according to the SPHEREx data.

    Infrared spectroscopy of 3I/ATLAS at a heliocentric distance of 3.32 Earth-Sun separations was taken with the NIRSpec instrument onboard the Webb telescope. The spectral images at wavelengths in the range of 0.6–5.3 micrometers reveal a prominent carbon dioxide (CO2) dominated coma, with enhanced outgassing in the direction of the Sun, as well as the presence of much less water vapor (H2O), carbon monoxide (CO), water ice and dust. The derived ratio of CO2 to H2O output by number of molecules is 8, among the highest ever observed. The data implies an intrinsically CO2-rich nucleus. The low abundance of H2O vapor is surprising at the object’s distance from the Sun.

    The spectrum of 3I/ATLAS shows a prominent CO2 gas emission feature along with weak H2O and CO emission features and a prominent water ice absorption feature.

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    Webb telescope spectrum of 3I/ATLAS using the NIRSpec prism, spatially integrated and plotted with a logarithmic flux scale. Prominent spectral features are labeled. (Credit: M. A. Cordiner et al. 2025)

    The inferred mass loss rates from 3I/ATLAS are 130 kilograms per second for CO2, 6.6 kilograms per second for H2O and 14 kilograms per second of CO. The H2O mass loss rate is only 5% of the CO2 output. This is 16 times more extreme than expected for a typical comet at the same distance from the Sun.

    If the optically-thin dust plume makes a small contribution to the total reddened spectrum, the flux detected by SPHEREx at a wavelength of 1 micrometer from 3I/ATLAS suggests a nucleus with a diameter of 46 kilometers (as reported here). This implies that the mass of the nucleus of 3I/ATLAS is a million times larger than that of the previous interstellar comet 2I/Borisov. This huge gap in mass is surprising since we should have discovered numerous objects of the size of 2I/Borisov before discovering a 46-kilometer interstellar object. Moreover, as I noted in my first paper on 3I/ATLAS (accessible here), the amount of rocky material per unit volume in interstellar space is smaller by a factor of ten thousand than the value needed to deliver into the inner Solar system one giant rock of this size over the decade-long survey conducted by the ATLAS telescope.

    The Webb image at a wavelength of 1.2 micrometer shows no cometary tail behind 3I/ATLAS. The glow around 3I/ATLAS could originate from the reflection of sunlight by fragments of CO2 ice that 3I/ATLAS sheds rather than dust. These icy fragments evaporate in the sunlight and create the extended spherically symmetric CO2 cloud around 3I/ATLAS.

    The CO2 mass loss amounts to the ablation of a millimeter thick layer from the surface of a 46-kilometer object over a period of a few years. In other words, a relatively thin outer layer is sufficient to maintain the observed cloud of CO2 gas around 3I/ATLAS. What lies under this outer skin remains unknown.

    The high CO2 to H2O ratio is puzzling. There is only one previous comet with a similarly extreme CO2 to H2O ratio, named C/2016 R2, but its image shows a clear cometary tail that does not look anything like the plume around 3I/ATLAS. The Webb team conjectures that the anomalous composition of the gas plume surrounding 3I/ATLAS might be the result of high reflectance or reduced heat penetration through its surface. Increasing the albedo from 5% to the maximum value of 100% for a mirror, reduces the estimated diameter from 46 to 10 kilometers based on the SPHEREx data. This still poses an untenable demand on rocky material in interstellar space.

    A way to resolve the discrepancy between the mass reservoir of rocks in interstellar space and the unexpected discovery of a large object, is that 3I/ATLAS was not drawn from a population of rocks on random trajectories but instead — its trajectory was designed to target the inner Solar system. This possibility is consistent with the alignment of this retrograde trajectory with the orbital plane of the planets around the Sun, a coincidence of 1 part in 500 for a random occurrence (as discussed here).

    Just before I left for my trip, a humoristic news article appeared with the title “Asteroid the size of 59 Avi Loebs to pass Earth on Wednesday, Aug. 27 — NASA.” To put 3I/ATLAS in perspective, a human produces about 1 kilogram of CO2 per day. The mass loss rate from 3I/ATLAS of 130 kilogram per second amounts to the CO2 output of about 10 million people. A space platform which measures 46 kilometers in diameter could potentially host the needed population of biological passengers if they are packed as densely as humans are on Manhattan Island.

    In the Uber drive towards the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen, I was glad to see a new preprint this morning advocating the search for technological signatures from interstellar objects (accessible here). Some of the authors of this paper criticized my advocacy to consider such signatures over the past month, but when a reporter with a filming crew asked me yesterday about my response — I told her that I avoid mud wrestling because it gets everyone dirty. Instead, I prefer to play chess … and apparently, this approach appears to be paying off. As Oscar Wilde noted: “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.”

    ABOUT THE AUTHOR

    Press enter or click to view image in full size

    (Image Credit: Chris Michel, National Academy of Sciences, 2023)

    Avi Loeb is the head of the Galileo Project, founding director of Harvard University’s — Black Hole Initiative, director of the Institute for Theory and Computation at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and the former chair of the astronomy department at Harvard University (2011–2020). He is a former member of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology and a former chair of the Board on Physics and Astronomy of the National Academies. He is the bestselling author of “Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth” and a co-author of the textbook “Life in the Cosmos”, both published in 2021. The paperback edition of his new book, titled “Interstellar”, was published in August 2024.

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  • Human dexterity and brains evolved hand in hand

    Human dexterity and brains evolved hand in hand

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  • Primates with longer thumbs tend to have bigger brains, research finds | Evolution

    Primates with longer thumbs tend to have bigger brains, research finds | Evolution

    Big hands might mean big feet, but it seems long thumbs are linked to large brains – at least in primates.

    Researchers say the results suggest the brain co-evolved with manual dexterity in such mammals.

    “We imagine an evolutionary scenario in which a primate or human has become more intelligent, and with that comes the ability to think about action planning, think about what you are doing with your hands, and realise that actually you are more efficient at doing it one way or another,” said Dr Joanna Baker, lead author of the research from the University of Reading.

    “And those that have longer thumbs or more ability to manipulate the objects in the way that the mind can see were likely to be more successful.”

    Large brains and manual dexterity are both thought to have played an important role in human evolution, with opposable thumbs a key feature that enabled a greater ability to grip and manipulate items – including tools.

    However, with some other primates having partly opposable thumbs, questions have remained over whether other changes in the hand – such as thumb length – could also be important in the evolution of tool use.

    “In general terms, you can say that the longer the thumb you have, the more motion you have to pick up and control small objects,” said Baker.

    To explore the issue Baker and colleagues studied the estimated brain mass and thumb length of 94 primate species, from five of our ancient hominin relatives to lemurs.

    The results, published in the journal Communications Biology, reveal humans and most other hominins have thumbs that are significantly longer than would be predicted based on the hand proportions of primates as a while. However, further analysis revealed an intriguing pattern.

    “When you have longer thumbs relative to your overall hand, that tends to come in conjunction with overall increased brain size,” said Baker.

    Indeed, once the size of our brains are considered, humans and their close relatives are no longer outliers among primates.

    “We’re not saying we don’t have exceptionally long thumbs. We do. And we’re not saying we don’t have exceptionally large brains. We do. But given the relationship between the two, that’s happening across all primates,” said Baker. “So if you have a longer thumb, you have a larger brain, regardless of what species you are.”

    Only the early hominin A sediba broke the trend, with a thumb that was longer than expected, even after accounting for brain size – something Baker said is probably related to a life lived in the trees and on the ground.

    Further analysis revealed that it is the neocortex, a brain region involved in cognition, sensation and planning of actions, that is larger in primates with longer thumbs.

    “The fact that it isn’t one of the other very important parts of the brain associated with motor control [such as the cerebellum] was really surprising,” said Baker.

    However, the study does not support the idea that thumb lengths alone can be used to identify tool use, with the relationship to brain size constant across all primates, regardless of whether they used tools.

    “Whilst not completely surprising, we did expect that there might be some marked shift in hominins that we just didn’t see,” said Baker.

    Dr Fotios Alexandros Karakostis, a group leader and senior researcher in biological anthropology at the University of Tübingen who was not involved in the work, said the study suggested that hand and brain adaptations probably co-evolved.

    But Karakostis said the study also noted that thumb length and brain size alone could not fully explain or represent human-like manual dexterity or the evolution of our brains.

    “A fuller understanding will require integrating other key hand anatomical traits, biomechanical model simulations, and further experimental research on the specific neural mechanisms linked to manual dexterity and human-like tool use,” he said.

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  • Chinese scientists achieve first in deep-brain multicolour imaging

    Chinese scientists achieve first in deep-brain multicolour imaging


    Chinese scientists have become the first in the world to successfully perform high-resolution, multicolour deep-brain imaging in freely moving mice. The breakthrough was achieved using a newly developed, ultra-light miniature two-photon microscope and is set to significantly advance neuroscience research.


    According to
    Xinhua News Agency, a partner of TV BRICS, the study offers a new approach to observing the intricate activity of neurons and synapses in real time, addressing a long-standing challenge in brain science.


    The breakthrough was led by Professor Cheng Heping at Peking University, building on earlier work from 2017. A key innovation was the development of a new ultra-broadband hollow-core fibre, created in collaboration with Beijing Information Science and Technology University. Unlike previous versions, this fibre transmits ultrafast laser pulses across multiple wavelengths, enabling multicolour imaging for the first time.


    Weighing only 2.6 grams, the microscope was mounted on mice with Alzheimer’s disease. It simultaneously captured red, green, and blue signals representing neuronal activity, mitochondrial function, and plaque deposits. The team observed early abnormalities near plaques, offering fresh insight into the disease’s progression. 


    Professor Cheng said the innovation opens new possibilities for studying brain networks, disease mechanisms, drug testing, and brain-computer interface development.


    Photo: magicmine /
    iStock

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  • Scientists find mysterious 250 million-year-old fossils that roamed the Earth before the ‘Great Dying’ extinction; to open doors to new discoveries |

    Scientists find mysterious 250 million-year-old fossils that roamed the Earth before the ‘Great Dying’ extinction; to open doors to new discoveries |

    The Permian period, stretching from around 299 to 252 million years ago, was a time of extraordinary ecological richness, a time when early forests blanketed the Earth and many reptile-like and amphibian creatures roamed its area.Yet, this chapter of life on our planet came to a devastating close with the most catastrophic mass extinction in Earth’s history, popularly known as the Great Dying, wiping out nearly 70% of land species and an even greater proportion of marine life.

    However, a new research can give new details about the Permian ecosystem…

    Archaeologists and paleontologists have long looked to the Karoo Basin in South Africa as the primary window into life before and after the Permian mass extinction. But over the past 17 years, a team led by the University of Washington and the Field Museum has undertaken extensive excavations in southern Africa, including the parts of Ruhuhu Basin in Tanzania and the Luangwa and Mid‑Zambezi basins in Zambia, to expand the information about what is already known and this research was published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.Christian Sidor, a UW biology professor and paleontology curator, describes the importance of these discoveries, “This mass extinction was nothing short of a cataclysm for life on Earth, and changed the course of evolution,” he said. “But we lack a comprehensive view of which species survived, which didn’t, and why. The fossils we have collected in Tanzania and Zambia will give us a more global perspective on this unprecedented period in our planet’s natural history.”In August 2025, a collection of 14 peer‑reviewed studies was published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, showcasing newly discovered fossils, including saber‑toothed gorgonopsians, burrowing dicynodonts, and salamander‑like amphibians, found in these southern basins. These rich, beautifully preserved specimens help the scientists to make species-level comparisons to those previously found in the Karoo, offering unprecedented detail about the late Permian ecosystem.The project’s success comes from more than a decade of fieldwork, going across regions, navigating remote terrain, and collaborating with local authorities. The sheer quantity and quality of fossils recovered have opened new doors for understanding life in southern Pangea before the Great Dying.

    This can also help in drawing comparisons

    Beyond revealing the diversity of Permian life, the research enables fascinating comparisons between regions of Pangea. Sidor explains, “We can now compare two different geographic regions of Pangea and see what was going on both before and after the end‑Permian mass extinction,” he says. “We can really start to ask questions about who survived and who didn’t.”

    Seymouria baylorensis - cast of fossil Early Permian period

    Seymouria baylorensis – cast of fossil Early Permian period

    Other studies reveal that tetrapod faunas fragmented regionally after the Great Dying, transitioning from a uniform community in the late Permian to more localized, provincial ecosystems during the Triassic, a change that may have paved the way for new groups like archosaurs to flourish.These new fossil discoveries in Zambia and Tanzania provide a richer, more geographically balanced view of one of Earth’s most consequential evolutionary moments.


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