The textbook picture of how planets form – serene, flat discs of cosmic dust – has just received a significant cosmic twist. New research, published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, is set to reshape this long-held view. An international team of scientists, wielding the formidable power of the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), has found compelling evidence that many protoplanetary discs, the very birthplaces of planets, are in fact subtly warped.
These slight bends and twists in the disc plane, often just a few degrees, bear a striking resemblance to the subtle tilts observed among the planets in our own Solar System. This discovery suggests the initial conditions for planetary systems might be far less orderly than previously thought, with profound implications for how planets grow and settle into their final orbits.
Dr Andrew Winter, the lead author of the study from Queen Mary University of London where he is Royal Society University Research Fellow in astronomy, said: “Our results suggest that protoplanetary discs are slightly warped. This would be quite a change in how we understand these objects and has many consequences for how planets form. Particularly interesting is that the couple of degree warping is similar to the differences in inclination between our own Solar System planets.”
Dr Myriam Benisty, director of the Planet and Star Formation Department at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy said,”exoALMA has revealed large scale structures in the planet forming discs that were completely unexpected. The warp-like structures challenge the idea of orderly planet formation and pose a fascinating challenge for the future.
To uncover these subtle twists, the team meticulously analysed Doppler shifts – tiny changes in the radio waves emitted by carbon monoxide (CO) molecules swirling within the discs. These shifts act like a cosmic speedometer, revealing the gas’s exact motion. As part of a major ALMA program called exoALMA, researchers used this flagship observatory to map the gas’s velocity across each disc in unprecedented detail. By carefully modelling these intricate patterns, they were able to detect when different regions of a disc were slightly tilted, thus revealing the warps.
“These modest misalignments may be a common outcome of star and planet formation,” Dr Winter added, noting the intriguing parallel with our own Solar System. The research not only provides a fresh perspective on the mechanics of planet formation but also raises new questions about why these discs are warped – a mystery the team is eager to unravel.
Is it the gravitational pull of unseen companion stars, or perhaps the chaotic dance of gas and dust that twists these stellar cradles? The findings show that these subtle disc warps, often tilting by as little as half a degree to two degrees, can naturally explain many of the prominent large-scale patterns observed in the gas’s motion across the discs. They even suggest these warps could be responsible for creating intriguing spiral patterns and slight temperature variations within these cosmic nurseries.
If these warps are a key driver of how gas moves within the disc, it profoundly changes our understanding of critical processes like turbulence and how material is exchanged – ultimately dictating how planets form and settle into their final orbits. Intriguingly, the nature of these warps appears to be connected to how much material the young star is actively drawing in towards its center. This hints at a dynamic link between the disc’s innermost regions, where the star is fed, and its outer, planet-forming areas.
This discovery offers a thrilling glimpse into the complex and often surprising realities of planet formation, fundamentally changing our cosmic blueprint and opening new avenues for understanding the diverse worlds beyond our Sun.
This research was conducted by the ‘exoALMA’ collaboration that is an international collaboration of institutions including the Max-Planck Institute for Astronomy (MPIA), University of Florida, Leiden Observatory (Leiden University), European Southern Observatory, Università degli Studi di Milano, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, Univ. Grenoble Alpes, Universidad de Chile, University of St. Andrews, Université Côte d’Azur, The University of Georgia, Monash University, University of Leeds, National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, University of Cambridge, Ibaraki University, Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy & Astrophysics, The Graduate University for Advanced Studies (SOKENDAI), Wesleyan University, and The Pennsylvania State University.
SpaceX’s Starship performing a final burn before splashdown in the Indian Ocean on its August 26 flight. The discoloration is white insulation from deliberately removed tiles and oxidation from a metallic test tile. (credit: SpaceX)
by Jeff Foust Tuesday, September 2, 2025
SpaceX has had, in many respects, a remarkable year so far. The company has performed more than 100 launches of its Falcon 9 rocket, putting the company on a pace to end the year with at least 150 launches, well above a record set last year. The company has been the single biggest customer of those launches, putting more than 1,900 Starlink satellites into orbit that provide services to more than seven million customers worldwide.
The failures prompted speculation of design flaws imperiling the program.
One program, though, has been weighing down the company: Starship. The company’s first three test flights of the vehicle this year—in January, March, and May—all suffered mission-ending failures. The first two encountered problems during Starship’s ascent that caused the vehicle to reenter and break apart over the Caribbean, while the third completed its ascent but lost attitude control while in space, leading to an uncontrolled reentry over the Indian Ocean (see “Starship setbacks and strategies”, The Space Review, June 9, 2025.)
Then, in June, another Starship upper stage was destroyed during preparations for a static-fire test, an issue that the company traced to a faulty composite-overwrapped pressure vessel (COPV) that burst below its rated pressure. One industry observer, speaking on background, noted that the company appeared to be regressing: after demonstrating last year it could fly Starship to pinpoint splashdowns in the Indian Ocean while “catching” the Super Heavy booster back at the launch site, the company was now making mistakes not seen since much earlier in Starship’s development.
The failures prompted speculation of design flaws imperiling the program. “Can SpaceX Solve Its ‘Exploding Starships’ Problem?” asked the headline of a Scientific American article last month, speculating that all three failures were linked a problem with harmonic oscillations with the Starship upper stage that SpaceX said it corrected after the January failure. Another inquisitive headline came from New York magazine: “Is Elon Musk’s Starship Doomed?” It was not so much about vibrations than just bad vibes, as it rounded up comments from a group that ranged from a blogger to a space architect expressing skepticism that Starship could work.
Starship/Super Heavy takes off on its tenth test flight. (credit: SpaceX)
A (nearly) perfect ten
That was the environment facing the Starship program as it prepared for its tenth Starship/Super Heavy launch. The plan for Flight 10 was similar to recent test flights, in large part because SpaceX wasn’t able to carry out many of the tests planned for those previous flights. That included the deployment of mass simulators of next-generation Starlink satellites through Starship’s slot-shaped payload door. (Since Starship was flying a suborbital trajectory, the payloads would burn up on reentry minutes later.) Also on tap was a relight of a Raptor engine while in space, something completed on just one previous test flight but essential to plans for future orbital flights.
If all went according to plan, Starship would splash down in a designated region of the Indian Ocean a little more than an hour after liftoff. The Super Heavy booster, as with the previous flight, would not be recovered back at the launch site but instead attempt a soft splashdown just off the coast after performing tests.
After a first launch attempt was scrubbed August 24 because of a group equipment issue and second the next day due to weather, the vehicle finally lifted off at 7:30 pm EDT August 26 from the Starbase, Texas, test site on the Gulf coast. And what was remarkable about the next 66 and a half minutes was that the flight followed the plan, almost to the letter.
Starship completed its ascent without incident, while the Super Heavy booster flew back to a designated area off the coast, testing alternative engine configurations for a final landing burn, hovering just off the water before splashing down .Starship, now on its suborbital arc, opened its payload pay door and released eight Starlink mass simulators using the “Pez” dispenser, so named after the candy. Later, one Raptor engine ignited for a few seconds.
Then came reentry. Cameras on the exterior of Starship, connected via Starlink, provided high-resolution video of the vehicle enduring the heat of its passage through the upper atmosphere. SpaceX had said that, if Starship survived and the reentry was on target, a camera on a buoy in the Indian Ocean would be able to capture images of the final phases of flight, with the vehicle pitching up for a landing burn.
“It’s not been an easy year but we finally got the reentry data that’s so critical to Starship. It feels good to be back!” Diez said.
The reentry was on target, and that camera captured the vehicle making that final maneuver before settling down onto the surface of the water, falling over, and breaking apart. That video, though, show Starship was oddly discolored, with the nose appearing white and much of the body a rusty orange-red. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk later said it was linked to experiments with the vehicle’s thermal protection system: white from insulation in areas where tiled had been intentionally removed before launch, and the rust color from metallic test tiles. “Worth noting that the heat shield tiles almost entirely stayed attached, so the latest upgrades are looking good!”
The flight was not perfect. One of 33 Raptor engines in the Super Heavy booster shut down during ascent. Early in reentry, something appeared to break apart in the aft skirt of Starship, while one flap showed some damage; neither appeared to affect reentry and landing burn.
The company, though, declared success. “Every major objective was met, providing critical data to inform designs of the next generation Starship and Super Heavy,” SpaceX stated in a summary of the flight.
Starship during reentry on the August 26 flight. (credit: SpaceX)
Playing from behind
The flight had ended a streak of three test flights where many, if not most, major objectives were not met, as well as the ship destroyed in ground testing. It was clearly a relief to the company and its employees. “The last 4 vehicle failures and countless hours by engineering teams and technicians working to correct for the lessons we learned got us to a great outcome today,” Shana Diez, director of Starship flight reliability at SpaceX, said in a social media post hours after the flight.
“It’s not been an easy year but we finally got the reentry data that’s so critical to Starship. It feels good to be back!” she added.
Starship might be back, but it’s also behind. That string of failures means the program is lagging schedules it set for itself, and with NASA, for development of the vehicle to meet the company’s needs—launching next-generation Starlink spacecraft—as well as for NASA’s Artemis program.
It’s the latter that has attracted more attention given the increasing rhetoric, at least in the US, about a new space race with China to see who can land the first astronauts on the Moon since the Apollo program. China is making steady progress on launch vehicles and spacecraft needed for a landing that the country has projected to take place by 2030.
That would still be a few years behind the official NASA schedule, which continues to project Artemis 3 taking place in 2027. Sean Duffy, the secretary of transportation who was named acting NASA administrator nearly two months ago, has repeatedly stuck to that schedule in public comments, including a string of television interviews.
“In 2027, we WILL return American astronauts to the Moon,” he posted on social media August 28 (emphasis in original), including a clip from a CBS News interview where he reiterated that he believed the schedule was realistic: “I think we’re on track, where we sit today, to keep the 2027 mission in play.”
However, SpaceX is behind scheduled previously announced by NASA for key milestones in Starships’ development needed for the Artemis lunar lander version of the vehicle. At a briefing in April 2024, just after the third Starship/Super Heavy flight that included a transfer of cryogenic propellants from one tank to another within Starship, NASA officials said they expected to perform the first ship-to-ship transfer of propellants in 2025. That will require placing one Starship into orbit and then launching another to dock with it, demonstrating the refueling needed for sending a lunar lander Starship to the Moon.
The delays from the string of failures make it highly unlikely that SpaceX will be able to demonstrate that in-space propellant transfer this year.
“They feel very comfortable on Starship. They feel like they’re on pace for the lander,” Duffy said of SpaceX. “They said if there’s a holdup for Artemis 3, it’s not going to be them.”
“The key milestone that we are watching for, and everyone is watching for, is when will they be able to demonstrate cryogenic propulsion transfer,” Lori Glaze, NASA associate administrator for exploration systems development, said at a July 25 meeting of the Space Studies Board. “We were anticipating that would be completed by this year. Clearly, that is slipping, but we are anxiously watching for their next launch to see how they’re making progress towards achieving that particular milestone.”
She didn’t indicate when NASA now expected that propellant transfer test to take place, but it is essential to later milestones, including an uncrewed test flight of the Starship lander, touching down on the Moon and then taking off again. Completing that mission will require multiple Starship “tanker” launches to fill the lander’s propellant tanks with liquid oxygen and methane: perhaps 15 to 20, some argue, although neither NASA nor SpaceX have provided an updated estimate.
Getting all that done in order to support a 2027 Artemis 3 mission would appear to be a tall order. At the Space Studies Board meeting, Glaze showed a chart of milestones leading up Artemis 3, including Starship testing. The chart, though, did not include dates. Asked for a schedule by board members, she said NASA had a more detailed schedule she could provide to the committee; if she did, that document was not disclosed.
Duffy, attending a Crew-11 launch attempt at the Kennedy Space Center a few days later, said he had met with SpaceX executives about the Artemis 3 schedule and received assurances. “They feel very comfortable on Starship. They feel like they’re on pace for the lander,” he told a group of social media influencers who were guests of the launch. (Duffy did not attend any of the pre- or post-launch media briefings organized by NASA.) “They said if there’s a holdup for Artemis 3, it’s not going to be them.”
The question is now less about whether SpaceX can keep Starship from exploding—it did, at least for this flight—than if it can keep its development schedule from exploding, with consequences that go beyond just a launch vehicle program.
Jeff Foust (jeff@thespacereview.com) is the editor and publisher of The Space Review, and a senior staff writer with SpaceNews. He also operates the Spacetoday.net web site. Views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author alone.
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Oxford scientists have found that sleep may be triggered by tiny energy leaks in brain cell mitochondria, suggesting our nightly rest is a vital safety mechanism for the body’s power supply. Credit: Stock
A new study reveals that a buildup of metabolism in specialized brain cells is what triggers the need for sleep.
Sleep may serve as more than rest for the mind; it may also function as essential upkeep for the body’s energy systems. A new study from University of Oxford researchers, published in Nature, shows that the drive to sleep is caused by electrical stress building up in the tiny energy-producing structures of brain cells.
This finding provides a concrete physical explanation for the biological need for sleep and has the potential to reshape scientific thinking about sleep, aging, and neurological disorders.
Mitochondria and energy imbalance
The research team, led by Professor Gero Miesenböck from the Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics (DPAG) and Dr. Raffaele Sarnataro at Oxford’s Centre for Neural Circuits and Behaviour, discovered that sleep is triggered when the brain responds to a subtle imbalance in energy. The central role lies with the mitochondria, microscopic organelles that convert oxygen and food into usable energy.
In certain sleep-regulating neurons studied in fruit flies, mitochondria that become overloaded begin leaking electrons. This leakage produces harmful byproducts called reactive oxygen species. The leak functions as a signal that forces the brain into sleep, allowing balance to be restored before cellular damage spreads further.
“You don’t want your mitochondria to leak too many electrons,” said Dr. Sarnataro. “When they do, they generate reactive molecules that damage cells.”
Neurons as circuit breakers
The team also discovered that specialized neurons behave like circuit breakers: they monitor the electron leak from mitochondria and trigger sleep once a critical threshold is reached. By altering how these cells managed their energy—either increasing or reducing electron flow—the scientists were able to directly control the amount of sleep in fruit flies.
Even replacing electrons with energy from light (using proteins borrowed from microorganisms) had the same effect: more energy, more leak, more sleep.
Professor Miesenböck said: “We set out to understand what sleep is for, and why we feel the need to sleep at all. Despite decades of research, no one had identified a clear physical trigger. Our findings show that the answer may lie in the very process that fuels our bodies: aerobic metabolism. In certain sleep-regulating neurons, we discovered that mitochondria – the cell’s energy producers – leak electrons when there is an oversupply. When the leak becomes too large, these cells act like circuit breakers, tripping the system into sleep to prevent overload.”
The findings help explain well-known links between metabolism, sleep, and lifespan. Smaller animals, which consume more oxygen per gram of body weight, tend to sleep more and live shorter lives. Humans with mitochondrial diseases often experience debilitating fatigue even without exertion, now potentially explained by the same mechanism.
“This research answers one of biology’s big mysteries,” said Dr. Sarnataro. “Why do we need sleep? The answer appears to be written into the very way our cells convert oxygen into energy.”
Reference: “Mitochondrial origins of the pressure to sleep” by Raffaele Sarnataro, Cecilia D. Velasco, Nicholas Monaco, Anissa Kempf and Gero Miesenböck, 16 July 2025, Nature. DOI: 10.1038/s41586-025-09261-y
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Asteroid 1997 QK1 is shown to be an elongated, peanut-shaped near-Earth object in this series of 28 radar images obtained by the Deep Space Network’s Goldstone Solar System Radar on Aug. 21, 2025. The asteroid is about 660 feet (200 meters) long and completes one rotation every 4.8 hours. It passed closest to our planet on the day before these observations were made at a distance of about 1.9 million miles (3 million kilometers), or within eight times the distance between Earth and the Moon.
The 2025 flyby is the closest that 1997 QK1 has approached to Earth in more than 350 years. Prior to the recent Goldstone observations, very little was known about the asteroid.
These observations resolve surface features down to a resolution of about 25 feet (7.5 meters) and reveal that the object has two rounded lobes that are connected, with one lobe twice the size of the other. Both lobes appear to have concavities that are tens of meters deep. Asteroid 1997 QK1 is likely a “contact binary,” one of dozens of such objects imaged by Goldstone. At least 15% of near-Earth asteroids larger than about 660 feet (200 meters) have a contact binary shape.
The asteroid is classified as potentially hazardous, but it does not pose a hazard to Earth for the foreseeable future. These Goldstone measurements have greatly reduced the uncertainties in the asteroid’s distance from Earth and in its future motion for many decades.
The Goldstone Solar System Radar Group is supported by NASA’s Near-Earth Object Observations Program within the Planetary Defense Coordination Office at the agency’s headquarters in Washington. Managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the Deep Space Network receives programmatic oversight from Space Communications and Navigation program office within the Space Operations Mission Directorate, also at NASA Headquarters.
More information about planetary radar and near-Earth objects can be found at:
When the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) began science operations, one of its first tasks was to observe the earliest galaxies in the Universe. These observations revealed a huge population of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) that astronomers nicknamed “Little Red Dots” (LRDs), owing to their small appearance and deep red hue. Based on redshift measurements, these AGNs are estimated to have existed just 0.6 to 1.6 billion years after the Big Bang (13.2 to 12.2 billion years ago). Studying these objects has already triggered some groundbreaking discoveries about the early Universe.
This includes new insights into how supermassive black holes (SMBHs) formed shortly after the Big Bang and how Dark Matter may have influenced the formation of early galaxies. Thanks to a new set of images taken with Webb’s Mid-Infrared Imager (MIRI), the JWST has now provided the first long-wavelength infrared light observations of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field (HUDF), which contains several LRDs. As an international team of researchers explained in a study published in Astronomy & Astrophysics, these images provide new insights into how the earliest galaxies in the Universe formed over 13 billion years ago.
The study was conducted by researchers with the MIRI European Consortium, an international organization made up of thousands of astronomers from institutions like the Max-Planck-Institute for Astronomy (MPIA) and the MPI for Radioastronomy (MPIfR), the Centro de Astrobiología (CAB), the Cosmic Dawn Center (DAWN), the Niels Bohr Institute (DARK), the Centre for Extragalactic Astronomy, the Kapteyn Astronomical Institute, the Institute of Particle Physics and Astrophysics, the UK Astronomy Technology Center, the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), and the European Space Agency (ESA).
This image combines data from the JWST’s MIRI and NIRcam cameras to create a multicoloured view of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field. Credits: NASA/ESA/CSA/the JADES Collaboration/the MIDIS collaboration.
The research was conducted as part of the MIRI Deep Imaging Survey (MIDIS), an observation campaign that revisited the iconic Hubble Ultra Deep Field (HUDFD). This survey observed the HUDFD for nearly 100 hours, Webb’s longest observation of an extragalactic field with one filter to date. These observations revealed vital information on how and when stars in the earliest galaxies form, where previous observations only measured the light of newborn stars in these galaxies.
Göran Östlin, a Professor of Astronomy at Stockholm University and the lead author on the study, explained in an ESA press release:
In the images, we can see the most distant galaxies known to us. What is unique about our observations is that they are made in mid-wavelength infrared light and with an extremely long exposure time, close to 100 hours. This allows us to study extremely distant galaxies. They emitted their light more than 13 billion years ago, near the beginning of the Universe.
For their research, the team examined the MIRI data to obtain photometry and redshifts of about 2,500 light sources, the overwhelming majority of which were distant galaxies. This data could lead to estimates on the number of stars that formed shortly after the Big Bang, allowing astronomers to study how the first galaxies in the Universe evolved. It could also enable researchers to study galaxies that contain large amounts of interstellar dust (aka. “dusty galaxies”), which could contain the seeds of SMBHs and are only visible in infrared light.
These findings could help settle questions regarding how these galaxies and their central black holes grew to their observed sizes so soon after the Big Bang. When astronomers first viewed these galaxies, they found that the observations were in tension with what the most widely accepted cosmological models predicted. These models suggested that early galaxies and the seeds of SMBHs would not have had enough time to grow to their observed sizes. In this respect, Webb’s observations have triggered a revolutionary shift in what we think we know about the birth of galaxies and cosmic structures.
Jens Melinder, an astronomer at Stockholm University and a co-author on the paper, states that these latest findings will shed light on this and other cosmological mysteries:
MIRI allows us to see through the veil of dust and observe what lies behind. By observing this type of galaxy, we can understand how quickly the heavier elements that the dust is made from formed in the early Universe, and how supermassive black holes, surrounded by a ring of hot dust, evolved. We have contributed brand new data that will be used in the future by researchers studying galaxy evolution and the formation of the first galaxies. The HUDF is such an incredibly well-observed part of the night sky that there is great value in making our images available. We expect them to be used by many.
Further Reading: Stockholm University, Astronomy & Astrophysics
Doritos have been a favorite snack around the world for decades. One of the dyes that gives the chips their bright pop just did something unexpected in a lab: it helped make mouse skin temporarily transparent, creating “see-through” mice.
That dye is tartrazine, a vivid yellow-orange additive you’ll also find in some foods, medicines, and cosmetics.
Mix a small amount with water, apply it to the skin, and for a short time, cameras tuned to certain wavelengths can see through the top layers.
For people who study living systems, being able to look inside the body without cutting it open is important.
Light usually scatters in tissue, so images blur before you reach anything useful. A simple, safe topical mixture that sharpens the view – even briefly – can open doors for research.
Tartrazine and invisible skin
Researchers at Stanford University described the method in the journal Science.
The approach uses basic optics to reduce scatter and clarify what cameras pick up from living tissue. The idea hinges on changing how water bends light so that it better matches nearby fats in the skin.
“For those who understand the fundamental physics behind this, it makes sense; but if you aren’t familiar with it, it looks like a magic trick,” said Zihao Ou, the lead author of the study who is now an assistant professor of physics at The University of Texas at Dallas.
Living tissue normally looks cloudy
Skin, fat, and muscle aren’t uniform. They’re built from many tiny parts that bend light by different amounts. When light hits those differences, it scatters in many directions. That’s why images fade fast with depth.
Scientists describe how much a material bends light using a value called the refractive index. Water in tissue has a refractive index around 1.33. Lipids sit higher, roughly in the 1.45 to 1.48 range. That gap creates a lot of scatter.
Close that gap, and the path straightens. Less scatter means sharper images and a deeper reach for the same camera and light source.
How tartrazine changes light waves
Tartrazine absorbs blue and near-ultraviolet light. A principle of optics links absorption at one set of wavelengths to changes in refractive index at other wavelengths.
Add a dye that soaks up blue, and you can nudge water’s refractive index upward in the red and near-infrared – the wavelengths that already go deeper into tissue.
Water begins to act a little more like the fats around it, so the light scatters less and the image gets clearer.
The team first checked this in gels and thin tissue slices. The pattern held: there was less scatter where it mattered. Then they moved to live mice and applied a diluted solution to the skin.
To the naked eye, the area looked darker because the dye absorbs blue light. To a camera set for red or near-infrared, the patch turned more transparent for a short time.
“See-through” tartrazine mice
That window was long enough to watch organs move beneath the abdomen. They could follow the gut’s rhythm as it pushed food along.
On the head, they mapped surface blood vessels without shaving to the skull or placing a surgical window.
In a hind limb, they resolved the banded patterns inside muscle fibers – details that usually hide behind layers of scatter. They didn’t cut the skin or implant anything.
Once researchers washed off the dye, the mice lost their translucency, and the dye was excreted in urine, according to the research team.
“It’s important that the dye is biocompatible – it’s safe for living organisms,” Ou said. “In addition, it’s very inexpensive and efficient; we don’t need very much of it to work.”
Strongly absorbing molecules dissolved in water can modify the RI of the aqueous medium through the Kramers-Kronig relations to match that of lipids. This approach can render various samples transparent, including scattering phantoms, chicken breast tissue, and live mouse body for visualizing a wide range of deep-seated structures and activities. Scale bars, 5 mm. Click image to enlarge. Credit: The schematic was prepared using BioRender.com
Neat trick, but why does it matter?
Most methods that clear tissue for imaging work on dead samples. They often dehydrate the tissue, replace fats, or fix it chemically. Those steps can create beautiful static pictures, but they destroy the live dynamics.
This dye-based method leaves tissue alive and flexible. It quiets the optical mismatch just long enough to capture the action. That makes a difference for everyday lab work.
Researchers can track surface blood flow, watch organ motion without surgery, study how nerves in the gut coordinate with muscle contractions, and test new imaging tools with fewer invasive procedures.
Students can learn from live systems while avoiding harsher interventions.
“Optical equipment, like the microscope, is not directly used to study live humans or animals because light can’t go through living tissue,” Ou said.
“But now that we can make tissue transparent, it will allow us to look at more detailed dynamics. It will completely revolutionize existing optical research in biology.”
Tartrazine and future human health
Because the physics ties absorption to refractive index, this strategy isn’t limited to tartrazine. The principle points to a family of agents tuned to the exact wavelengths a microscope uses.
Researchers plan to explore other substances that could outperform tartrazine. The goal is the same: reduce scatter, sharpen images, and do it with materials that are safe, affordable, and easy to apply.
A small change in a fundamental property of water – how it bends light at certain wavelengths – turned cloudy tissue into a temporary window. The method showed live, moving structures in mice.
The immediate win for this study is to provide better, kinder live-animal imaging for biology.
The longer-term promise is a new class of simple add-ons that could help future optical devices “see” a bit deeper at the body’s surface – if safety and performance hold up.
The full study was published in the journal Science.
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Jupiter hosts the brightest and most spectacular auroras in the Solar System. Near its poles, these shimmering lights offer a glimpse into how the planet interacts with the solar wind and moons swept by Jupiter’s magnetic field. Unlike Earth’s northern lights, the largest moons of Jupiter create their own auroral signatures in the planet’s atmosphere — a phenomenon that Earth’s Moon does not produce. These moon-induced auroras, known as “satellite footprints,” reveal how each moon interacts with its local space environment.
Before NASA’s Juno mission, three of Jupiter’s four largest moons, known as Galilean moons — Io, Europa, and Ganymede — were shown to produce these distinct auroral signatures. But Callisto, the most distant of the Galilean moons, remained a mystery. Despite multiple attempts using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, Callisto’s footprint had proven elusive, both because it is faint and because it most often lies atop the brighter main auroral oval, the region where auroras are displayed.
NASA’s Juno mission, orbiting Jupiter since 2016, offers unprecedented close-up views of these polar light shows. But to image Callisto’s footprint, the main auroral oval needs to move aside while the polar region is being imaged. And to bring to bear Juno’s arsenal of instruments studying fields and particles, the spacecraft’s trajectory must carry it across the magnetic field line linking Callisto and Jupiter.
These two events serendipitously occurred during Juno’s 22nd orbit of the giant planet, in September 2019, revealing Callisto’s auroral footprint and providing a sample of the particle population, electromagnetic waves, and magnetic fields associated with the interaction.
Jupiter’s magnetic field extends far beyond its major moons, carving out a vast region (magnetosphere) enveloped by, and buffeted by, the solar wind streaming from our Sun. Just as solar storms on Earth push the northern lights to more southern latitudes, Jupiter’s auroras are also affected by our Sun’s activity. In September 2019, a massive, high-density solar stream buffeted Jupiter’s magnetosphere, briefly revealing — as the auroral oval moved toward Jupiter’s equator — a faint but distinct signature associated with Callisto. This discovery finally confirms that all four Galilean moons leave their mark on Jupiter’s atmosphere, and that Callisto’s footprints are sustained much like those of its siblings, completing the family portrait of the Galilean moon auroral signatures.
An international team of scientists led by Jonas Rabia of the Institut de Recherche en Astrophysique et Planétologie (IRAP), CNRS, CNES, in Toulouse, France, published their paper on the discovery, “In situ and remote observations of the ultraviolet footprint of the moon Callisto by the Juno spacecraft,” in the journal Nature Communications on Sept. 1, 2025.
The search for life beyond Earth is a profound scientific quest. Today, that search is under threat. Challenges to federal funding that support science are putting future research at risk. Your voice can help ensure this work continues.
Since 1984, the SETI Institute has partnered closely with NASA to explore the cosmos. Together, we’ve advanced the study of distant exoplanets, planetary systems, and astrobiology, building the innovative technologies that help us understand our place in the universe.
The SETI Institute is home to more than 100 scientists. Much of their research is federally funded and advances our mission to drive discovery and inspire the next generation of explorers.
Potential budget cuts at NASA threaten key programs at the SETI Institute and our ability to continue this critical research is also at risk. Every discovery and insight into whether life might exist beyond Earth depends on sustained support for this work.
By signing the petition, you send a clear message: this search matters — to science, to education, and to the generations who will inherit the future of space exploration.
Sign the petition today and join people around the world committed to keeping the search alive.
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The explosion left behind an interstellar gas-and-dust cloud rich in silicon (gray), sulfur (yellow) and argon (purple). Credit: Keck Observatory/Adam Makarenko
Massive stars have a layered structure, similar to an onion. The outermost layers predominantly comprise the lightest elements; as the layers move inward, the elements become heavier and heavier until reaching the innermost iron core.
This is the accepted theory, but observations of massive exploding stars – a phenomenon known as supernova – had until now typically revealed only strong signatures of light elements, such as hydrogen and helium. In a new study published today in Nature – and featured on the journal’s cover – an international team from Northwestern University, the Weizmann Institute of Science and other research institutions discovered a never-before-seen type of supernova: one that is rich in heavy elements such as silicon, sulfur and argon.
The observations suggest that the massive star, dubbed SN2021yfj, had somehow lost its outer layers while still “alive.” This finding offers direct evidence of the long-theorized inner layered structure of stellar giants and provides an unprecedented glimpse inside a massive star’s deep interior moments before its explosive death.
“This is the first time we have seen a star that was essentially stripped to the bone,” said lead author Dr. Steve Schulze, a former member of Prof. Avishay Gal-Yam’s team at the Weizmann Institute and currently a researcher at Northwestern University. “It shows us how stars are structured and proves that they can be completely stripped all the way down and still produce a brilliant explosion that we can observe from very, very far distances.”
A hot, burning onion
Despite their immense dimensions – they weigh in at 10 to 100 times heavier than our Sun — massive stars collapse within a fraction of a second, but the bright light emitted in the explosion can usually be observed for several weeks. Schulze and colleagues discovered the flare of SN2021yfj in September 2021 using the Zwicky Transient Facility, a telescope located east of San Diego, California, and equipped with a wide-field camera to scan the entire visible night sky. After looking through the telescope’s data, Schulze spotted an extremely luminous object in a star-forming region located 2.2 billion light-years from Earth.
To gain more information about the mysterious object, the team wanted to obtain its spectrum, which breaks down dispersed light into component colors, each of which represents a different element. By analyzing a supernova’s spectrum, scientists can determine which elements are present in the explosion.
“As soon as I saw the data Dr. Schulze sent me, it was obvious we were witnessing something no one had ever seen before”
Video showing an artist’s depiction of the most likely SN 2021yfj scenario. Near the end of its life, the dying star underwent two rare, extremely violent episodes, ejecting shells rich in silicon (gray), sulfur (yellow) and argon (purple). These massive shells collided with one another so violently as to create a particularly brilliant supernova that could be seen from a distance of 2.2 billion light years. Credit: Keck Observatory/Adam Makarenko
Although Schulze immediately leapt into action, the spectrum search hit multiple dead ends. Telescopes around the globe were either unavailable or could not see through the clouds to obtain a clear image. Ultimately, a colleague at University of California Berkeley managed to provide the required spectrum data. The researchers were amazed to discover that instead of helium, carbon, nitrogen and oxygen typically found in other stripped supernovae, the spectrum of SN2021yfj was dominated by strong signals of silicon, sulfur and argon. Nuclear fusion produces these heavier elements within a massive star’s deep interior during its final stages of life.
Although massive stars typically shed layers before exploding, other observations of “stripped stars” had revealed layers of helium or carbon and oxygen, exposed after the outer hydrogen envelope was lost. But astrophysicists had never glimpsed anything deeper than that, hinting that something extremely violent and extraordinary must have been at play. The SN2021yfj ejected far more material than scientists had previously seen, enabling the team to peer into its core deeper than ever, detecting heavier elements.
“Something very violent must have happened”
“This star lost most of the material that it produced throughout its lifetime,” Schulze said. “So we could only see the material formed during the months right before its explosion. Something very violent must have happened to cause that.”
“Exposure of such a deep inner core challenges current theories about how giant stars lose mass and shed their outer layers before exploding as supernovas,” explains Dr. Ofer Yaron, a staff scientist in Gal-Yam’s group and a leading expert on supernova databases.
The scientists are currently exploring multiple scenarios, including interactions with a potential companion star, a massive pre-supernova eruption or even unusually strong stellar winds. But, most likely, the team posits this mysterious supernova is the result of a massive star literally tearing itself apart.
As the star’s core squeezes inward under its own gravity, it becomes even hotter and denser. The extreme heat and density then reignite nuclear fusion with such incredible intensity that it causes a powerful burst of energy that pushes away the star’s outer layers. Moreover, the scientists hypothesize that the explosion may have been the result of a collision between one of the star’s pushed-out layers with another layer that had been pushed out earlier. For now, however, the precise cause of this phenomenon remains an open question.
“It’s always surprising – and deeply satisfying – to discover a completely new kind of physical phenomenon,” says Gal-Yam, whose research group in Weizmann’s Particle Physics and Astrophysics Department focuses on understanding how the elements are formed in the universe. “As soon as I saw the data Dr. Schulze sent me, it was obvious we were witnessing something no one had ever seen before.
“Once we identified the spectral signatures of silicon, sulfur and argon, it was clear this was a major step forward: Peering into the depths of a giant star helps us understand where the heavy elements come from. Every atom in our bodies and in the world around us was created somewhere in the universe and went through countless transformations over billions of years before arriving at its current place, so tracing its origin and the process that created it is incredibly difficult. Now it appears that the inner layers of giant stars are production sites for some of these important, relatively heavy elements.”
Extremely stripped supernova reveals a silicon and sulfur formation site, Nature
