Here’s what you’ll learn when you read this story:
Why sunspots are able to last so long has been a mystery for millenia, but a new observation technique revealed their secret.
The equilibrium between magnetic fields and pressure allows the solar blotches to remain stable anywhere from days to months.
Despite being darker, cooler regions of the sun, sunspots are related to its hot temper, and can help predict solar outbursts like flares and coronal mass ejections.
Sunspots were observed on the surface of our star centuries before Galileo suffered eye damage peering at them through his telescope. The first known records were written down by Chinese astronomers in 27 B.C., but observation may go even further back if Greek philosopher Anaxagoras really, ahem, spotted one in 467 B.C. While some of the ancients thought that these shadows on our star meant changes in the cosmos, sunspots are surprisingly stable—and now we know why.
Sunspots are actually byproducts of magnetic field chaos. Inside the sun’s convective zone, scorching plasma cools as it moves towards the solar surface, taking energy with it. This plasma becomes denser as it loses heat and sinks, forming cooler dark spots until heat from further inside the sun causes it to rise again. And all the while, magnetic fields keep twisting and breaking and rearranging themselves. This explains the association of sunspots with the outbursts we know as solar flares and coronal mass ejections, which can release enough electromagnetic radiation to threaten satellites and electrical infrastructure on Earth.
More stable sunspots can possibly give more insight to the solar activity cycle, which is about 11 years long and peaks during a solar maximum. Previous explanations for their stability suggested an equilibrium between magnetic fields and gas pressure, but magnetic turmoil has long made this difficult to observe. Now, an international research team using Germany’s GREGOR solar telescope has finally cleared up the hazy observations of sunspots with a new method that removes interference from Earth’s atmosphere and reveals strikingly clear images.
Led by researchers from the Institute of Solar Physics in Freiburg, Germany, the technique—originally developed at the Göttingen Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research—has achieved what only (much more expensive) satellites were able to do before: it made the analysis of polarized light from the Sun possible. Polarization is the phenomenon of light’s electric field moving back and forth, perpendicular to the direction in which the light wave itself is headed, and light is said to be polarized when it continues to propagate one way (as opposed to scattering). By taking a closer look at polarized light, the team was able to tell exactly where it was coming from within sunspots, and what was going on inside.
It turned out that the equilibrium in sunspots is a balance of pressure and magnetism. Magnetic fields are strongest when electrons remain unattached, but as more pressure is exerted, it forces them into pairs and weakens the magnetic field. Just enough pressure balances out the strength of magnetic fields and keeps the sunspots intact for extended periods. This is known as magnetohydrostatic equilibrium, which describes the properties of a gas or fluid (such as solar plasma) in a magnetic field. Because solar plasma can conduct electricity, it supports the magnetic field it interacts with.
“[Our] results provide decisive observational and theoretical support for the idea that sunspots slowly evolve around an equilibrium state and are [in] magnetohydrostatic equilibrium, thereby helping to explain their long lifespans,” the researchers said in a study recently published in Astronomy & Astrophysics.
Understanding why sunspots—and the solar turbulence that comes with them—can hang around for so long will help us better forecast space weather and possibly prevent blackouts, damage to satellites, and threats to astronauts’ health.
A study led by a scientist at the University of California San Diego offers new warnings on the dangers of human interactions with wildlife.
Assistant Professor Shermin de Silva of the School of Biological Sciences studies endangered Asian elephants and has reported on their shrinking habitats, a downturn that has resulted in territorial conflicts between people and elephants.
Along with her study coauthors, de Silva now provides fresh evidence in the journal Ecological Solutions and Evidence on the serious consequences of humans supplying food to wild animals. The report indicates that such provisioning can lead wildlife to become habituated to people, causing the animals to become bolder and more prone to causing problems. Even for those who live in areas without native elephant populations, the new study provides cautionary information about interactions with any wildlife species living among us.
Wild elephants are a prime attraction in Asia, with Sri Lanka and India featuring some of the world’s last abundant populations of Asian elephants.
In Sri Lanka, de Silva studied 18 years of elephant-tourist interactions at Udawalawe National Park. She found that the elephants congregating near tourists at the park’s southern boundary have developed “begging” behavior and have become habituated to sugary foods, sometimes breaking through fences to continue being fed. As a result of elephants being drawn to the fence, several people have been killed or injured, and at least three elephants have been killed, while others have ingested plastic food bags and other contaminants. Such close human-wildlife encounters, including tourists feeding animals from sightseeing vehicles, also increases the risk of disease transmission to animals.
In India’s Sigur region, study coauthors Priya Davidar and Jean-Philippe Puyravaud of the Sigur Nature Trust observed feeding interactions with 11 male Asian elephants, four of which died from suspected human causes. One elephant was successfully rehabilitated and returned to natural foraging behavior.
“Many people, especially foreign tourists, think Asian elephants are tame and docile, like domestic pets,” said de Silva, a faculty member in the Department of Ecology, Behavior and Evolution and founder of the non-profit conservation organization Trunks & Leaves. “They don’t realize these are formidable wild animals and try to get too close in order to take photographs or selfies, which can end badly for both parties.”
Of the 800 to 1,200 elephants estimated living in Udawalawe National Park, the study found that 66 male elephants, or nine to 15% of the local male population of Asian elephants, were observed begging for food. Some elephants, including a popular male named Rambo, became local celebrities as they solicited food from tourists over several years.
“Food-conditioned animals can become dangerous, resulting in the injury and death of wildlife, people or both,” the researchers note in their paper. “These negative impacts counteract potential benefits.”
Since wild elephant feeding cannot be adequately regulated as an ongoing activity, the authors of the study recommend that feeding bans should be strictly enforced.
The researchers recognize that tourists are for the most part acting with good intentions, like people in many areas around the world who feed or leave food for wild animals in their regions. They can act from a motivation that they are helping friends in nature and take gratification from such interactions. “But this encourages wild animals to seek food from people, attracting them to areas that can put themselves or people at risk,” said de Silva. “It can be a conduit for disease transfer between species. Such feeding can also cause animals to lose their ability to forage for themselves if the behavior becomes prevalent, especially with young animals.”
Such interactions, de Silva says, can change animals’ movement patterns and possibly force them to lose knowledge of natural food sources if they become too dependent on handouts.
With rare exceptions, people should avoid feeding wild animals, de Silva urges, and encourages people to engage in responsible tourism.
If you want to get by in this world, you could do a lot worse than developing a predilection for ants. In fact, ant-eating may be a dramatically overlooked recipe for success.
According to new research, relying on ants as a sole food source has evolved at least 12 times in mammals since the reign of the dinosaurs ended some 66 million years ago. But it’s not the ant-exclusive diet itself that is the wonder: it’s that it always follows a similar blueprint.
“It’s not necessarily surprising that mammals would specialize on ant-eating, as ecological niches almost inevitably get filled,” biologist Thomas Vida of the University of Bonn in Germany told ScienceAlert, “but rather that we see the same, or at least very similar, morphological adaptations across so many unrelated groups.”
It’s one of the most striking examples of convergent evolution, in which dramatically different organisms can come to evolve similar features to solve similar problems.
Related: Evolution Keeps Making Crabs, And Nobody Knows Why
There are a lot of ants on planet Earth. A recent study estimated the number of individual ants at around 20 quadrillion, for a combined biomass of 12 megatons of dry carbon. That’s more than all the wild mammals and birds combined, and around 20 percent of the human biomass.
It wasn’t always this way; just after the dinosaurs went extinct, ants represented less than 1 percent of the insect population, exploding around 23 million years ago at the beginning of the Miocene.
Many animals happily include insects as part of their diet, including mammals. It makes sense: insects are plentiful, and full of nutrition. However, a diet that revolves exclusively around ants – a strategy called obligate myrmecophagy – is a little more rare.
“One of the things my lab focuses on is how social insects like ants and termites have reshaped the history of life on the planet,” entomologist Phillip Barden of the New Jersey Institute of Technology told ScienceAlert.
“Ants in particular have altered the trajectory of evolution in lots of insect and plant lineages, but a lingering question that I’ve had is just how much mammals have had to reckon with the rapid ascent of ants and termites over the last 100 million years. I also just love giant anteaters.”
To investigate, Vida, Barden, and their colleague Zachary Calamari of City University of New York undertook a painstaking review of more than 600 published scientific sources to compile a database of the dietary habits of 4,099 mammal species.
The researchers divided these animals into five different categories based on their diets: insectivores, carnivores, omnivores, herbivores, and the obligate myrmecophages. These were then mapped onto an animal family tree to observe how these dietary adaptations emerged over tens of millions of years.
Myrmecophagy, the researchers found, emerged at least 12 times, with 2 more tentative instances that could not be confirmed. This includes animals such as anteaters, pangolins, echidnas, numbats, and aardvarks – a diversity that the researchers did not expect – across all three major mammal groups: placental mammals, marsupials, and monotremes.
These animals all developed similar traits to optimize eating ants.
“There are a few obvious things: their skulls and tongues tend to elongate, their teeth often get reduced, and they usually have strong claws/forelimbs for tearing into insect nests,” Vida explained.
“There are also some less obvious things, like their low body temperatures/slow metabolisms and their enzymatic adaptations towards digesting chitin, both of which are adaptations for surviving off of abundant, but low-energy food.”
The finding is reminiscent of the famous phenomenon whereby crab body plans keep emerging, with at least five separate crab evolutions throughout evolutionary history. Well, crabs are cool and all, but apparently ants are where the real party is at.
Related: Parasites May Be Hijacking Evolution on Planet Earth
“Ants really seem to be engineers of convergent evolution,” Barden said.
“There are twice as many origins of ant- and termite-eating in mammals as there are origins of crab body plans. And that’s not even counting the over 10,000 species of arthropods that mimic ant and termite morphology, behavior, or chemical signaling to evade predation or get access to social insect resources.”
Their work, the researchers say, lays a solid foundation for future studies of mammalian dietary strategies. Vida notes that their database will allow further investigations of fascinating dietary specializations, and to drill down into the origins of individual myrmecophagous species. There may even be some interesting discoveries waiting in comparative studies of insectivorous birds, reptiles, and amphibians.
“The history of life is full of crossovers. Even very distantly related lineages – social insects and mammals last shared a common ancestor more than 500 million years ago – interact in ways that can kick off striking specializations over tens of millions of years,” Barden said.
“As we rapidly reshape our planet, it’s important to remember that the loss of any one species may have lots of unexpected consequences.”
Artificial light and higher temperatures in cities may lengthen the growing season by up to 24 days, according to a new study in Nature Cities.
Previous studies have observed that plant growth starts earlier and ends later in cities than in rural areas. But these studies haven’t concluded whether this difference depends more on heat or light, both of which regulate the growing season and are amplified in urban centers.
The new study’s authors used satellite data to estimate nighttime light pollution in cities and pinpoint the start and end of the growing season. They found that the amount of artificial light at night plays a bigger role in growing season length than temperature does, especially by delaying the end of the season.
“This study highlights artificial light at night as a powerful and independent force on plant phenology,” said Shuqing Zhao, an urban ecologist at Hainan University in China who was not involved in the research. “It marks a major step forward in our understanding of how nonclimatic urban factors influence plant life cycles.”
City Lights Trick Plants
“Plants rely on both temperature and light as environmental cues to regulate their growth,” explained Lin Meng, an environmental scientist at Vanderbilt University and a coauthor of the study. In the spring, warmer temperatures and lengthening days signal to plants that it’s time to bud and produce new leaves. In the fall, colder, shorter days prompt plants to drop their leaves and prepare for winter.
“Plants evolved with predictable cycles of light and darkness—now, cities are flipping that on its head.”
But in cities, these essential cues can be disrupted. Cities are typically hotter than surrounding rural areas—the so-called urban heat island effect—and much brighter because of the abundance of artificial light. These disrupted cues “can trick plants into thinking the growing season is longer than it actually is,” Meng said. “Plants evolved with predictable cycles of light and darkness—now, cities are flipping that on its head.”
To assess how heat and light are affecting urban plants, Meng and her coauthors used satellite data from 428 cities in the Northern Hemisphere, collected from 2014 to 2020. For each city, the researchers analyzed correlations between the amount of artificial light at night (ALAN), air temperature, and the length of the growing season.
The scientists found that on average, the growing season started 12.6 days earlier and ended 11.2 days later in city centers compared with rural areas. ALAN apparently played an important role in extending the growing season, especially in the autumn, when ALAN’s influence exceeded that of temperature.
Anna Kołton, a plant scientist at the University of Agriculture in Krakow who was not part of the research, highlighted the significance of this result. “The impact of climate change, including increased temperatures on plant functioning, is widely discussed, but light pollution is hardly considered by anyone as a significant factor affecting plant life.” The new study is among the first to bring ALAN’s effects into the spotlight.
“Every Day Needs a Night”
“The extension of urban vegetation may at first glance appear positive,” said Kołton. But this positive impression is deceiving. In reality, an extended growing season “poses a threat to the functioning of urban greenery.”
Delaying the end of the growing season may be especially disruptive. In the fall, shortening days prompt plants to reduce their metabolic activity, drop their leaves, and toughen up their cell walls to withstand the coming winter. But if they are constantly stimulated by artificial light, Kołton pointed out, urban plants may miss their cue and be unprepared when the cold hits.
“Every day needs a night, and so do our trees, pollinators, and the rhythms of nature we all depend on.”
Longer growing seasons also affect animals and people. “Flowers might bloom before their pollinators are active, or leaf-out might not align with bird migration,” said Meng. “And for people, a longer growing season means earlier and prolonged pollen exposure, which can make allergy seasons worse.”
As cities become bigger and brighter, their growing seasons will likely continue to lengthen unless the impacts of ALAN are addressed. “The good news is that unlike temperature, artificial light is something we can manage relatively easily,” said Meng. She and Zhao both suggested that swapping blue-rich LED lamps for warmer LEDs (which are less stimulating to plants), introducing motion-activated or shielded lights, and reducing lighting in green spaces could limit light pollution in cities.
“Every day needs a night,” Meng said, “and so do our trees, pollinators, and the rhythms of nature we all depend on.”
Citation: Hasler, C. (2025), Artificial light lengthens the urban growing season, Eos, 106, https://doi.org/10.1029/2025EO250254. Published on [DAY MONTH] 2025.
Bacterial wilt caused by Ralstonia solanacearum is considered one of the most important diseases that cause economic losses to tomato.
Currently, eco-friendly biocontrol agents have been increasingly considered as effective approaches to control tomato bacterial wilt. However, the specific mechanisms by which biocontrol bacteria with distinct functions exert their effects remain unclear. In this study, researchers employed a combination of amplicon sequencing, transcriptomics, and metabolomics analysis to investigate how Bacillus velezensis and Pseudomonas fluorescens affect the defense responses against R. solanacearum in tomato. The researchers showed that the fermentation broth of these biocontrol agents inhibited the growth of R. solanacearum in vitro, and improves the ability of tomato plants against bacterial wilt. In general, different biocontrol agents protect plants from bacterial wilt in many ways, by recruiting specific microbial communities in rhizosphere soil and activating different synthetic/metabolic and signaling pathways.
Collectively, the findings contribute to a more in-depth understanding in disease resistance mechanisms of biocontrol agents, and provide a theoretical foundation for the development of targeted strategies using beneficial microorganisms to suppress disease occurrence.
Du X-Q, Sun T-X, Xu W-L, Zhu T, Wang Q, Gu P-W and Lu J (2025) Multi-omics analysis reveals the specific role of biocontrol reagents against tomato bacterial wilt. Front. Plant Sci. 16:1620460. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2025.1620460
Pain is subjective, and although most stings are a real nuisance, there are very few that can stop you eye-wateringly in your tracks, cursing loudly, and gritting your teeth, says Richard Jones.
What is a sting?
A sting is not just a passive jab with a sharp pinpoint; the stiff hollow stinger (or fang) is the carrier to get the liquid venom from a storage reservoir as deep under the skin and into the flesh as the moment allows. There is usually an active pump, either squeezing the bag, or at the base of the hollow sting tube.
Venoms usually contain a cocktail of active ingredients: protein-destroying polypeptide enzymes rupture and destroy flesh cells; histamines increase blood flow, flushing the venom further into the body, causing swelling and redness; and neurotransmitters confuse and over-stimulate nerves creating that stabbing or burning sensation, but also throbbing and numbness. And venom is remarkably toxic. Precise measures are few, but a single wasp sting injects about 15µg of toxin (that’s roughly 1/65,000 of a gram). And it damn well hurts. Multiple stings add pain cumulatively.
What’s the point of venom?
In nature venom has two purposes — subduing prey and defence against attack. Thankfully no stinging animal has yet evolved to target humans as potential food, but there are plenty which need their powerful stings to ward us off, because we are a highly dangerous species to them. Others, by a certain evolutionary luck of the draw, have venoms targeted against other organisms, but which nevertheless are highly potent in our rather over-sensitive skins.
Most stings can be brushed aside after a few moments of mild pain, but anaphylactic shock can be fatal. This is an EXTREMELY RARE condition where an individual’s immune response catastrophically over-reacts to the venom injection, leading to a cascade release of the body’s own histamines and other inflammatory chemicals. Untreated it can result in breathlessness, low blood pressure, interference with the heart muscles, and internal bleeding. Similar responses can be induced by peanut and penicillin allergies, and susceptible individuals usually carry an epipen for self-injection of adrenalin to counter the effects.
Bullet ant
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A native of the rainforests of Central and South America, the sting of this large (20 mm) ant has been likened to being shot (hence its name bullet ants) or walking over hot coals with a rusty nail driven into your foot. Small colonies of a few hundred individuals use their stings to defend their nests against predators, and also to kill small insect prey items.
Tarantula hawk wasp
A tarantula hawk is a spider wasp that hunts tarantulas. Tarantula hawks belong to any of the many species in the genera Pepsis and Hemipepsis, in the family Pompilidae (spider wasps). The more familiar species are up to 5 cm (2.0 in) long, making them among the largest of wasps, and have blue-black bodies and bright, rust-colored wings (other species have black wings with blue highlights). The vivid coloration found on the bodies, and especially wings, of these wasps is an aposematism, advertising to potential predators the wasps’ ability to deliver a powerful sting. Their long legs have hooked claws for grappling with their victims. The stinger of a female Pepsis grossa can be up to 7 mm (1⁄4 in) long, and the sting is considered one of the most painful insect stings in the world.
The very many species in this wasp family specialise in catching and paralysing spiders to stock the small nest stash where a single egg is laid. The wasp grub then feeds on the still living but unmoving fresh spiders. They often catch and subdue prey much larger than themselves, dragging it back to the nest burrow rather than managing to fly with it, and they have evolved powerful toxins to immobilize the spider which might otherwise fight back dangerously as if its life depended on it.
The very largest tropical and subtropical species have stings just about long enough and tough enough to penetrate human skin and can deliver a painful whack. This usually happens by accident because these are large black or strongly coloured insects, with deeply clouded wings, making them look very sinister — not the type of cute insect you’d willingly pick up between finger and thumb.
Honeybee
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Despite being everyone’s favourite insects, honeybees can deliver a very painful sting, and because of the social structure of their colonies, the stings can be multiple and very dangerous. Though evolved from wasps, honeybees now only need their stings for defence — against all manner of animals intent on raiding their honey stores and succulent brood of grubs.
They also defend their hives against unwary humans venturing too close. The first to sting is often killed — brushed off by a quick wipe of the hand, but a barbed stinger means that the needle point, venom sac, and venom delivery apparatus stay attached in the skin, still pumping in the venom. That bee dies, but the lodged sting gives off an alarm pheromone scent which effectively labels you as the enemy.
This recruits more bees to the attack, but as they are killed and disembowelled of their stings more alarm scent is raised and only a rapid exit well away from the hive will stop the onslaught. Ten stings and you might feel breathless and a bit nauseous, you’ll certainly want a sit down and a cup of tea.
A hundred stings and you should seek immediate medical attention. There is no antivenom, but dialysis can remove the toxins before they start to cause organ damage to heart, liver and kidneys. A thousand stings is where fatalities start to occur, but such events are extremely uncommon.
Social wasps
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Wasps use their stings to kill insect prey to feed to their grubs back at the nest, but they also need them to defend their protein-rich colonies against major dangers like badgers and the mistakenly named honey badger (ratel) and honey buzzard, which are more likely to go for tasty wasp grubs than honeybee combs.
Just like honeybees, killing a wasp gives off an air-borne danger signal which baits the nest occupants into a frenzy. With perhaps 10,000 workers in a nest at the height of summer they are a well-organized army and willing to go on suicide attack for the benefit of their colony.
Ironically badly maligned hornets, with only a hundred or two individuals in a nest, are much more docile and far less inclined to sacrifice themselves by attacking a clumsy human.
Saddleback caterpillar, Acharia stimulea
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Looking like a brightly coloured lego model of a caterpillar, this is no toy to be casually picked up for close examination. It is covered all over with large tufts of long spines. These spines are hollow and easy break off in the skin, releasing the stinging venom inside them.
They cause a painful rash, and can cause swelling around the affected area, nausea, breathlessness and migraine. This species is widespread in eastern North America and Mexico. The cocoon, in which the chrysalis forms, incorporates these same stinging hairs into the silk, and causes similar problems, but the rather drab adult moth is altogether mundane and harmless.
Arizona bark scorpion, Centruroides sculpturatus
Andrew Meeds, CC BY 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
All scorpions have a sting in the tail, that’s how they kill the prey they grasp in their pincered claws. There is a bit of folklore surrounding the size of the claws — large pincers implying a powerful crushing grip so less need of powerful sting, but smaller pincers needing more of a chemical boost so stronger toxin.
In truth this is all a bit fanciful. Nevertheless, this species has acquired the reputation as being the most venomous scorpion in North America, and although fatalities are extremely few (maybe two in the last half century) the pain is reckoned to be extreme and an antivenom was developed.
Velvet ants, family Mutilidae
Hectonichus, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Not ants, but certainly covered in a velvety coat of hairs, these curious insects are wasps that lay their eggs in bumblebee nests, where the grubs feed on the host brood.
The females are wingless, and furry, but the males just look like slim black wasps. It is unlikely that the females need to sting any bumblebees when they are invading the nests, but they inherited their venom from their wasp-like ancestors anyway.
Perhaps because of their cute appearance they might be picked up by the unwary, who then get a powerful sting for their error. In North America they are sometimes called cow-killers, although the exact number of cow deaths resulting from their stings seems to still be hovering around the zero mark each year.
Black widow spider, Latrodectus species
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Most spiders have venom in their fangs, that is, after all, how they kill their insect prey. But so very very few have fangs long enough, strong enough, or sharp enough to puncture leathery human hide.
True, the many species of black widow across the warmer parts of the globe can deliver a painful bite if given the chance, but this is usually described as being like a bad wasp sting. It may be because black widows are relatively small spiders that it seems surprising they should be able to give quite a nip if handled injudiciously, but this has given rise to an unparalleled reputation.
It is not helped, in a misogynistic world, where the females (usually much larger than the males) are the ones with longer jaws, bigger venom sacs, and more painful bites.
Artist’s concept of the hidden molecular cloud in our Milky Way. Scientists are calling this region of gas and dust the Midpoint Cloud. Image via NSF/ AUI/ NSF NRAO/ P. Vosteen.
A hidden molecular cloud in our Milky Way
Our Milky Way galaxy consists of gas, dust and billions of stars. They trace out its spiral arms and form its central bulge, while a supermassive black hole resides at our galaxy’s center. But on July 16, 2025, astronomers from the National Science Foundation’s National Radio Astronomy Observatory said they’ve found a giant molecular cloud – a gaseous region of star birth made mostly of molecular hydrogen – that was previously hidden from our view. The molecular cloud lies at a transition zone between the quieter galactic disk and the more extreme central region.
Lead author Natalie Butterfield of the NSF National Radio Astronomy Observatory said:
One of the big discoveries of the paper was the giant molecular cloud itself. No one had any idea this cloud existed until we looked at this location in the sky and found the dense gas. Through measurements of the size, mass and density, we confirmed this was a giant molecular cloud.
The Midpoint Cloud
The scientists have dubbed their new discovery the Midpoint Cloud. That’s because it was found at the midpoint of the dust lanes in the central bar in our galaxy. This active region is likely the location of new star birth. Butterfield described the molecular cloud in detail:
These dust lanes are like hidden rivers of gas and dust that are carrying material into the center of our galaxy. The Midpoint cloud is a place where material from the galaxy’s disk is transitioning into the more extreme environment of the galactic center. It provides a unique opportunity to study the initial gas conditions before accumulating in the center of our galaxy.
The astronomers used the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia to make their discovery. They looked at molecules such as ammonia and cyanobutadiyne (which has hydrogen, carbon and nitrogen atoms). These molecules help trace out the dense gas.
The researchers said the Midpoint Cloud is likely a “crucial link” in how material flows to the center of the galaxy. Studying this cloud might reveal the process of galaxies building their central structures. And it should show how stars form in extreme environments.
This depiction of the Milky Way shows the location of the hidden molecular cloud that astronomers have named Midpoint Cloud. Image via NRAO/ Nick Risinger.
Other discoveries
The researchers outlined other discoveries in their paper. They found a new maser, which stands for microwave amplification by stimulated emission of radiation (like laser but for microwave light). The maser could be a sign of star formation.
Other signs of star birth include clumps of gas and dust that the astronomers said might be forming new stars. But some of the new stars are eating away at other clumps. For example, the researchers named one clump Knot E. It appears this dense little knot of dust is eroding due to surrounding stars.
And the cloud is home to not just star birth, but stars dying as well. Researchers found a shell that’s likely the remains of a dying star. In general, there’s a lot going on in this chaotic cloud. Co-author Larry Morgan of the NSF Green Bank Observatory said:
Star formation in galactic bars is a bit of a puzzle. The strong forces in these regions can actually suppress star formation. However, the leading edges of these bars, such as where the Midpoint is located, can accumulate dense gas and trigger new star formation.
This image points out the location of the shell (likely from a dying star) and maser in the Midpoint Cloud. Image via NSF/ AUI/ NSF NRAO/ P. Vosteen.
Bottom line: Researchers have discovered a giant molecular cloud that has been hiding in our Milky Way galaxy near its central bar. The area is likely a region of star birth.
Source: Discovery of a Giant Molecular Cloud at the Midpoint of the Galactic Bar Dust Lanes: M4.7–0.8
Via NRAO
Kelly Kizer Whitt
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About the Author:
Kelly Kizer Whitt – EarthSky’s nature and travel vlogger on YouTube – writes and edits some of the most fascinating stories at EarthSky.org. She’s been writing about science, with a focus on astronomy, for decades. She began her career at Astronomy Magazine and made regular contributions to other outlets, including AstronomyToday and the Sierra Club. She has nine published books, including a children’s picture book, Solar System Forecast, and a young adult dystopian novel, A Different Sky.
When the European Space Agency’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice) flew past our Moon in August 2024, its Radar for Icy Moon Exploration (RIME) instrument listened to radio wave echoes to reveal the height of the lunar surface.
The comparison slider below matches RIME’s first-ever ‘radargram’ with an elevation model from NASA’s Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter (LOLA). The bright pink-to-yellow line that wiggles across the dark purple background traces out the height of the Moon’s surface. The bumps and dips in these RIME data clearly match up with the height of the land in LOLA’s elevation map.
Click on ‘Open Image’ for more information about how the radargram was created and how it should be interpreted.
First radargram from Juice’s RIME instrument
Preparing RIME for Jupiter’s icy moons
The lunar flyby provided a great opportunity to test out all of Juice’s ten science instruments on a solid surface in space for the first time. But it was crucial for RIME, as electronic noise within the rest of the spacecraft is unexpectedly disturbing the sensitive device.
During the flyby of the Moon, RIME was given eight minutes to observe totally alone, with other instruments either switched off or set to quiet mode.
This was the first chance during Juice’s journey to Jupiter for RIME scientists to check how the electronic noise affects the performance of their instrument. Based on the data collected, they have spent many months working on an algorithm to correct the issue. The beautiful new view indicates just how successful they have been.
RIME’s task at Jupiter is to peer below the icy surfaces of moons Europa, Ganymede and Callisto to map the invisible rocky layers below. Though our own Moon has no icy surface, the successful mapping of it by RIME demonstrates that the radar instrument is up to the job.
An iconic patch of the Moon
What makes this image extra special is that it captures the same region photographed by NASA astronaut William Anders on 24 December 1968 during the Apollo 8 mission.
Anders’ spontaneous Earthrise photo became so iconic of the Apollo programme that the biggest crater, in the foreground of the image, was renamed from ‘Pasteur T’ to ‘Anders’ Earthrise’.
Earthrise (annotated)
Coming up for Juice is a flyby of Venus next month. This is a purely operational manoeuvre, making use of Venus’s gravity to give Juice a boost on its journey to Jupiter. During the flyby, no instruments will be switched on – after all, they’re designed to work at chilly Jupiter rather than toasty Venus.
RIME science is led by the University of Trento. The instrument was built by a consortium led by Thales Alenia Space Italia under the responsibility of the Italian Space Agency (ASI) and with contributions from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
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Humpback whales lose around 36 percent of their energy reserves during their long annual migrations, according to a new study published in the journal Marine Mammal Science.
Using drones, researchers monitored 103 humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) to see how their body conditions – how much muscle and blubber it has – changed during their migration between their Antarctic feeding grounds and their breeding grounds in Colombia.
The whales’ body condition changed considerably between early autumn (March to May), when they were at their fattest after feasting on krill, and late spring (August to December) when they had lost significant amounts of weight.
Watch: the researchers used drones to measure humpback whales’ body condition (the amount of energy reserves standardised against the structural size of the animal). Credit: Griffith University
“An average size adult humpback whale loses about 36 percent of its body condition during migration – equivalent to 11,000 kilograms of blubber, which is as much as the weight of standard single-decker city bus or two adult African elephants,” says lead author Alexandre Bernier-Graveline, PhD candidate from Griffith University’s Southern Ocean Persistent Organic Pollutants Programme.
To gain this amount of energy for their remarkable journeys, the whales would need to eat 57,000 kilos of Antarctic krill. At around 196 million kilojoules of energy, it would take the average adult human more than 62 years to consume this much.
Bernier-Graveline was surprised when he calculated the figures. He was used to working with four-metre, 1,000-kilo beluga whales, but humpbacks can grow to 13 metres and tip the scales at around 35,000 kilos – so everything is supersized. Their sheer size “makes any estimates quite impressive and difficult to grasp.”
Bernier-Graveline first became interested in marine mammals’ energy reserves while studying beluga whales in the St. Lawrence River, Quebec, Canada.
He decided to study how declining reserves could offer insights into the health of marine mammal populations. “Understanding early warning signal of population collapse, such as changes in behaviour, morphology, and life-history traits is crucial for anticipating population declines and implementing effective conservation strategies,” he says.
Data-collecting drones
The researchers used drones to monitor the whales’ body conditions. Although this is an effective and non-invasive method of collecting data, the approach is technically demanding and lots of things can go wrong.
“The method relies on converting pixel-based measurements from overhead images into accurate real-world dimensions, which requires precise data and good image quality,” Bernier-Graveline says. “Working in marine environments presents several logistical challenges. Weather conditions can be unpredictable and often limit flight opportunities.”
Any issues with the drone can cause problems and, even if they do capture what they need, processing the images is a long and complex process. “It involves managing various sources of variability, such as whale posture, sea state, image quality and light conditions, all of which can affect measurement accuracy,” he says.
There are also many benefits to using drones. Compared with other research methods, like biopsies, they are less invasive and help the scientists to keep track of more whales.
The researchers used drone photography and converted the pixel-based images into real-life measurements. Credit: Griffith University
Importance of krill
The findings demonstrate just how important it is for humpbacks in the Southern Hemisphere to binge on krill during the Antarctic feeding season. This important energy source will sustain them for months as they swim thousands of miles to their tropical breeding grounds.
But krill are under threat. “The Antarctic sea-ice ecosystem is changing rapidly, significantly impacting krill populations,” Bernier-Graveline says.
The loss of krill could cause huge problems for humpback populations. “With less food comes less energy, directly affecting their health, body condition, and reproductive success, factors closely linked to krill abundance and sea ice extent,” he adds.
Without enough to eat, whales could be in serious trouble. “Modelling studies suggest that while humpback whales may fully recover from historical whaling by 2050, their numbers could decline sharply by 2100 due to ocean warming and reduced prey availability,” says Bernier-Graveline – and this will have a ripple effect on ecosystems across the ocean.
The idea is worrying but there is hope. Many species of whales were nearly wiped out by industrial whaling but, since a global ban was put in place, they have rebounded.
Bernier-Graveline says: “History has shown that bold conservation actions can reverse negative trends.”
Read the full study: Drone-Based Photogrammetry Provides Estimates of the Energetic Cost of Migration for Humpback Whales Between Antarctica and Colombia.
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