Category: 7. Science

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has made another remarkable
discovery, identifying a massive planet with temperatures
potentially suitable for sustaining life, Azernews
reports, citing foreign media.

Astronomers have found evidence of a planet orbiting the young
red dwarf star known as “TWA 7” or “CE Antilae,” located
approximately 34 light-years away. This planet, named “TWA 7b,” is
estimated to have a mass about 100 times that of Earth.

Preliminary analysis by NASA suggests that TWA 7b is a young,
cold planet with an approximate temperature of 48 degrees Celsius,
conditions that could support life. However, some areas on the
planet may reach temperatures as high as 70 degrees Celsius.

An international team of astronomers observed a faint infrared
source within a debris disk surrounding the star, located roughly
50 times the distance between Earth and the Sun. Using James Webb’s
mid-infrared instrument, they employed a high-contrast imaging
technique that blocks out the star’s bright light to reveal nearby
faint objects—allowing for direct detection of planets that would
otherwise be lost in the star’s glare.

If confirmed, this would mark the first instance where a space
telescope has directly imaged a planet beyond relying on
gravitational lensing. This technique, based on Albert Einstein’s
general theory of relativity, enhances the telescope’s ability to
detect exoplanets.

NASA notes that the planet’s position aligns with predictions,
and the infrared emission is believed to originate from three dust
rings encircling TWA 7b. This discovery highlights James Webb’s
unprecedented capability to study low-mass planets around nearby
stars, expanding our understanding of planetary systems beyond our
own.

Ever wonder why the moon looks different every night? Well, that’s because of a thing called the lunar cycle.

This is a recurring series of eight unique phases of the moon’s visibility. The whole cycle takes about 29.5 days (according to NASA), and these different phases happen as the Sun lights up different parts of the moon whilst it orbits Earth. The moon is always there, but what we see on Earth changes depending on how much it is lit up.

See what’s happening with the moon tonight, July 6.

What is today’s moon phase?

As of Sunday, July 6, the moon phase is Waxing Gibbous. According to NASA’s Daily Moon Observation, 83% of the moon will be lit up and visible to us on Earth.

This is day 11 of the lunar cycle, and we’re only one phase away from the Full Moon. So, what can we see tonight?

With just the naked eye, you’ll see plenty, the most notable being the Mare Vaporum, the Mare Imbrium, and the Mare Crisium. With binoculars, you’ll also spot the Alps Mountains, Archimedes Crater, and the Alphonsus Crater.

Add a telescope to your lineup and you’ll see even more, including the Rima Ariadaeus, Apollo 14, and Apollo 16.

Mashable Light Speed

When is the next full moon?

This month’s full moon will take place on July 10. The last full moon was on June 11.

What are moon phases?

Moon phases are caused by the 29.5-day cycle of the moon’s orbit, which changes the angles between the Sun, Moon, and Earth. Moon phases are how the moon looks from Earth as it goes around us. We always see the same side of the moon, but how much of it is lit up by the Sun changes depending on where it is in its orbit. This is how we get full moons, half moons, and moons that appear completely invisible. There are eight main moon phases, and they follow a repeating cycle:

New Moon – The moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it’s invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent – A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter – Half of the moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-moon.

Waxing Gibbous – More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon – The whole face of the moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous – The moon starts losing light on the right side.

Last Quarter (or Third Quarter) – Another half-moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent – A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

This post is also available in:
עברית (Hebrew)

A team of researchers at Aalto University in Finland has developed an ultra-thin material that can dynamically switch between intense cooling and rapid heating—without drawing attention from thermal imaging systems. The innovation, inspired by the changing brightness of cumulus clouds, could offer a passive and energy-free way to regulate heat across buildings, vehicles, and even stealth technologies.

At the heart of the breakthrough is a nanoscale metasurface—just hundreds of nanometres thick—that appears bright white in one state and deep grey in another. In its white phase, the surface strongly reflects sunlight, helping cool objects beneath it, yet it emits almost no thermal radiation detectable by infrared cameras. When switched to grey, the surface absorbs sunlight more efficiently than typical matte black coatings, warming rapidly, but still avoids emitting infrared signals that would betray its temperature.

According to the press release, this dual behavior is made possible by a network of metallic nanostructures engineered to manipulate light in complex ways. By using polarizonic reflection, the white state bounces sunlight away through multiple scattering. In contrast, the grey mode traps light, converts it into heat, but keeps that heat hidden from thermal surveillance by maintaining low emissivity in the 8–13 micron infrared range.

The coating offers a significant advantage over traditional thermal paints. Conventional white coatings like titanium dioxide can reflect sunlight but glow brightly in thermal imaging, while black coatings absorb sunlight and radiate heat, making them highly visible to infrared systems. This new metasurface sidesteps both limitations.

The material’s low profile makes it ideal for integration into architectural surfaces, wearable textiles, or even stealth coating for UAVs —anywhere where heat management or thermal camouflage is critical. Importantly, the surface operates passively, without requiring external energy inputs.

Future versions may include layers that allow the shift between modes to be triggered electrically or by environmental changes. With durability testing underway, the researchers hope the material can withstand real-world conditions.

The study appeared in Advanced Materials in June 2025.

Human freedivers can descend to significant depths on just one lungful of air. To do this they massively overbreathe beforehand to clear their systems of as much carbon dioxide (CO₂) as possible. This is the gas that triggers the normal urge to breathe when we hold our breath. But the technique doesn’t always work. Freedivers can black out underwater and must have teams of scuba divers on standby to rush them back to the surface.

Seals can dive to great depths for long periods of time, chasing their fishy prey. So why do they never seem to end up unconscious? This question intrigued marine ecologist Chris McKnight and his colleagues at the University of St Andrews.

To find out, they lined up six grey seals, temporarily taken from the wild, in a specially built tank. This was an enclosed underwater home with a feeding area and a domed breathing chamber at one end. The seals could forage for as long as they liked in the water and then surface to take a breath in the chamber, rather like emerging into the air through a hole in an ice sheet.

The scientists filled the breathing chamber air with different combinations of oxygen and CO₂, starting with normal air at 21 per cent oxygen and 0.04 per cent CO₂. Gradually they switched to higher concentrations of oxygen and then lower, followed by higher and lower concentrations of CO₂. They measured how long the seals’ feeding trips lasted while breathing each of the air mixes.

The expectation was that high-oxygen air would mean the seals stayed underwater longer. High CO₂ levels should make the dives shorter, they thought, as with humans when high CO₂ levels in their blood activate the need to breathe. To their surprise, the amount of CO₂ had no effect on the length of time the seals took between breaths. But low oxygen levels certainly did.

Their conclusion was that a seal’s brain monitors the amount of oxygen in its blood, rather than the levels of CO₂, and the animals make their own decisions on how long to stay underwater based on that information. Instead of their bodies being governed by an involuntary reaction to the amount of CO₂ in their systems, seals can judge when their oxygen levels need topping up and make their way to the surface in a controlled and timely manner. Therefore, they never risk drowning.

More amazing wildlife stories from around the world

What new methods can be developed in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI)? This is what a recent white paper submitted to the 2025 NASA Decadal Astrobiology Research and Exploration Strategy (DARES) Request for Information (RFI) hopes to address as a pair of researchers from the Breakthrough Listen project and Michigan State University discussed how high-energy astronomy could be used for identifying radio signals from an extraterrestrial technological civilization, also called technosignatures. This study has the potential to help SETI and other organizations develop novel techniques for finding intelligent life beyond Earth.

For the white paper, the researchers evaluated why high-energy astronomy, which involves celestial objects emitting cosmic rays, gamma rays, and X-rays, could be used by SETI for identifying technosignatures, noting how its use has grown in recent years. Additionally, they discussed the potential sources of high-energy emissions, including neutrinos, X-rays, cosmic rays, gamma rays, pulsar wind nebulae, neutron stars, black holes, solar flares, and gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). Regarding how this contributes to specifically identifying technosignatures, the researchers note how high-energy signals could be indicative of a form of communication, industry, and habitat.

For communication, high-energy signals could be indicative of a technosignature since high-energy signals are often needed to send large amounts of data. For industry, high-energy signals could be indicative of specific activities, including rockets, reactors, nuclear energy, accelerators, or even Dyson spheres and star engines, with the last two being far beyond Earth’s technological capabilities. For habitat, high-energy signals could be indicative of life on the surface of neutron stars that survive from nuclear energy and the radiation that neutron stars emit. Finally, the researchers discussed next steps for integrating high-energy astronomy into SETI, including using machine learning, searching X-ray images, neutrino bursts, and gamma-ray observations.

The study notes, “High-energy SETI by and large must be a commensal effort for the foreseeable future. Dedicated programs will only be feasible after much further investigation. At this stage, our efforts will be like those of the early radio and optical SETI pioneers who developed methods and infrastructure that took decades to grow into the robust subfield it is today. An even more basic reason for commensal studies is the difficulty in building optics for some kinds of radiation. Because we cannot make neutrino lenses, every neutrino detector is sensitive to large sky areas, making it a commensal SETI facility.”

The driving force behind SETI is the SETI Institute, which was founded in 1984 with the goal of scanning the heavens for signals that could indicate intelligent life beyond Earth. While no definitive signals have been identified, arguably the closest humanity has come to receiving a signal from another world that occurred seven years before the SETI Institute was founded. This was quickly known as the Wow! Signal, which was a radio signal that lasted over one minute and was received by the Big Ear radio telescope at Ohio State University. This signal was so powerful that the discovering astronomy intern, Jerry Ehman, wrote the word “Wow!” across the data readout. Despite repeated attempts, the astronomers at Big Ear were unable to identify the same signal again, and a signal of this strength and length has yet to be identified since then.

As the search for technosignatures continues, this white paper demonstrates how SETI could enhance and adapt its techniques for identifying intelligent life beyond Earth, specifically using methods that perhaps once seemed unnecessary or unreliable. Since traditional techniques of searching for radio signals on specific frequencies have shown zero results, perhaps high-energy astronomy could open the door for helping astronomers better understand the universe aside from searching for technosignatures.

How will high-energy astrophysics help astronomers identify technosignatures in the coming years and decades? Only time will tell, and this is why we science!

As always, keep doing science & keep looking up!

One of the most iconic cosmic scenes in the Universe lies nearly 3.8 billion light-years away from us in the direction of the constellation Carina. This is where two massive clusters of galaxies have collided. The resulting combined galaxies and other material are now called the Bullet Cluster, after one of the two members that interacted over several billion years. It’s one of the hottest-known galaxy clusters, thanks to clouds of gas that were heated by shockwaves during the event. Astronomers have observed this scene with several different telescopes in multiple wavelengths of light, including X-ray and infrared. Those observations and others show that the dark matter makes up the majority of the cluster’s mass. Its gravitational effect distorts light from more distant objects and makes it an ideal gravitational lens.

Astronomers pointed the infrared-sensitive James Webb Space Telescope (Webb) to view the Cluster in part to help refine its mass. The Bullet is actually two clusters, a smaller sub-cluster called the Bullet, and the larger one it collided with in the past. The observations provided extremely detailed images of the cluster’s galaxy members, as well as a view of hundreds of other faint ones that lie beyond. They also mapped the distribution of hot gas, which appears to be in separate “blobs”. Those gaseous regions helped them learn more about the distribution of dark matter in the cluster. “With Webb’s observations, we carefully measured the mass of the Bullet Cluster with the largest lensing dataset to date, from the galaxy clusters’ cores all the way out to their outskirts,” said Sangjun Cha, the lead author of a paper published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. Not only that, but the Webb view also allows scientists to study the distant galaxies “behind” the cluster in great detail. Their distorted images also give clues to the distribution of dark matter in the lens.

This image shows the different wavelengths at which scientists studied the Bullet Cluster using JWST’s NIRCam instrument. The circles show the two clusters (in blue with their hot gas clouds in red). The one on the left shows an elongated shape, which suggests it’s been through more than one collision. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, CXC

“Webb’s images dramatically improve what we can measure in this scene — including pinpointing the position of invisible particles known as dark matter,” said Kyle Finner, a co-author and an assistant scientist at IPAC at Caltech in Pasadena, California. Dark matter plays a role, not just in the Bullet Cluster’s hot gas clouds, but also in the light from distant galaxies passing through and around the cluster.

What Happened with the Bullet?

When you look at the combined infrared and X-ray views of the Bullet Cluster, among other things, you see those blobs of hot gas. One is in the form of a bow shock whipped up when the smaller sub-cluster member passed through the larger galaxy cluster. That sent the temperature of the gaseous regions up to millions of degrees, which released X-ray emissions detectable by Chandra.

A Chandra X-ray view of hot gas clouds in the Bullet Cluster. This one gives the cluster its distinctive name. It lies entirely separated from the dark matter in the cluster. This indicates something about how dark matter behaved in the collision. Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO

To understand why astronomers find the Bullet Cluster so fascinating, it helps to understand how it got the way it appears in Chandra and Webb observations. Well more than four billion years ago, these two galaxy clusters began a close approach. Both clusters were rich in stars, gas, and dust. Like the rest of the Universe, they were permeated with dark matter. Eventually, the two clusters collided. The stars were largely “unhurt” by this, other than perhaps having their velocities through space slightly altered. The collision basically caused a separation of the hot gas and dark matter. The gas, being affected by ram pressure (caused by something moving through the interstellar/intergalactic medium), slowed down due to the collision. The dark matter, which interacts primarily through gravity, passed through without any problem. This separation provided key evidence for the existence of dark matter. “As the galaxy clusters collided, their gas was dragged out and left behind, which the X-rays confirm,” Finner said. Webb’s observations show that dark matter still lines up with the galaxies — and was not dragged away.

What the Cluster’s Gravitational Lens Reveals

While we can’t see the dark matter at all, its presence around and within the Bullet Cluster’s galaxies turns it into a giant gravitational lens. Think of it as a cosmic magnifying glass that shows otherwise unseen things. It also does something remarkable: “Gravitational lensing allows us to infer the distribution of dark matter,” said James Jee, a co-author, professor at Yonsei University, and research associate at UC Davis in California. Jee suggests that we think of this gravitational lensing as working the same way that water in a pond magnifies the view of things in the pond. “You cannot see the water unless there is wind, which causes ripples,” Jee explained. “Those ripples distort the shapes of the pebbles below, causing the water to act like a lens.”

That lens reveals thousands of distant galaxies whose light is “smeared” and distorted by the gravitational effect of the dark matter lens. The distribution of those galaxies across the lens also helps astronomers map the distribution of the dark matter that makes it up.

The Webb NIRCam view of the Bullet Cluster, showing an infrared look at distant galaxies, with their images deformed by the gravitational effect of the dark matter. Credit: Near-infrared: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI; Image processing: NASA/STScI/J. DePasquale

Now that astronomers know where that dark matter is distributed in the cluster, the images and data also show that the particles (no matter what they’re made of) don’t affect each other beyond whatever gravitational attraction they have toward each other. It implies that they act independently of each other. Now the trick is to figure out what kind of particles act as dark matter has been observed to do. Webb’s observations also show that dark matter still lines up with the galaxies — and was not dragged away during the chaos of the cluster collisions. These new observations place stronger limits on the behavior of dark matter particles.

For More Information

NASA Webb ‘Pierces’ Bullet Cluster, Refines Its Mass

A High-Caliber View of the Bullet Cluster through JWST Strong and Weak Lensing Analyses

Is it possible to understand the Universe without understanding the largest structures that reside in it? In principle, not likely.

In practical terms? Definitely not. Extremely large objects can distort our understanding of the cosmos.

Astronomers have found the largest structure in the Universe so far, named Quipu after an Incan measuring system. It contains a shocking 200 quadrillion solar masses.

Astronomy is an endeavour where extremely large numbers are a part of daily discourse. But even in astronomy, 200 quadrillion is a number so large it’s rarely encountered.

Related: Largest Structure in The Universe May Be 50% Larger Than We Thought

And if Quipu’s extremely large mass doesn’t garner attention, its size surely does. The object, called a superstructure, is more than 400 megaparsecs long. That’s more than 1.3 billion light-years.

A structure that large simply has to affect its surroundings, and understanding those effects is critical to understanding the cosmos. According to new research, studying Quipu and other superstructures can help us understand how galaxies evolve, help us improve our cosmological models, and improve the accuracy of our cosmological measurements.

The research, titled “Unveiling the largest structures in the nearby Universe: Discovery of the Quipu superstructure,” has been accepted for publication in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics. Hans Bohringer from the Max Planck Institute is the lead author.

“For a precise determination of cosmological parameters, we need to understand the effects of the local large-scale structure of the Universe on the measurements,” the authors write.

“They include modifications of the cosmic microwave background, distortions of sky images by large-scale gravitational lensing, and the influence of large-scale streaming motions on measurements of the Hubble constant.”

Superstructures are extremely large structures that contain groups of galaxy clusters and superclusters. They’re so massive they challenge our understanding of how our Universe evolved. Some of them are so massive they break our models of cosmological evolution.

Quipu is the largest structure we’ve ever found in the Universe. It and the other four superstructures the researchers found contain 45 percent of the galaxy clusters, 30 percent of the galaxies, 25 percent of the matter, and occupy a volume fraction of 13 percent.

The image below helps explain why they named it Quipu. Quipu are recording devices made of knotted cords, where the knots contain information based on colour, order, and number.

“This view gives the best impression of the superstructure as a long filament with small side filaments, which initiated the naming of Quipu,” the authors explain in their paper.

In their work, Bohringer and his co-researchers found Quipu and four other superstructures within a distance range of 130 to 250 Mpc. They used X-ray galaxy clusters to identify and analyze the superstructures in their Cosmic Large-Scale Structure in X-rays (CLASSIX) Cluster Survey.

X-ray galaxy clusters can contain thousands of galaxies and lots of very hot intracluster gas that emits X-rays. These emissions are the key to mapping the mass of the superstructures. X-rays trace the densest regions of matter concentration and the underlying cosmic web. The emissions are like signposts for identifying superstructures.

The authors point out that “the difference in the galaxy density around field clusters and members of superstructures is remarkable.” This could be because field clusters are populated with less massive clusters than those in the superstructure rather than because the field clusters have lower galaxy density.

Regardless of the reasons, the mass of these superstructures wields enormous influence on our attempt to observe, measure, and understand the cosmos. “These large structures leave their imprint on cosmological observations,” the authors write.

The superstructures leave an imprint on the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB), which is relic radiation from the Big Bang and key evidence supporting it. The CMB’s properties match our theoretical predictions with near-surgical precision.

The superstructures’ gravity alters the CMB as it passes through them according to the Integrated Sachs-Wolfe (ISW) effect, producing fluctuations in the CMB. These fluctuations are foreground artifacts that are difficult to filter out, introducing interference into our understanding of the CMB and, hence, the Big Bang.

The superstructures can also impact measurements of the Hubble constant, a fundamental value in cosmology that describes how fast the Universe is expanding. While galaxies are moving further apart due to expansion, they also have local velocities, called peculiar velocities or streaming motions.

These need to be separated from expansion to understand expansion clearly. The great mass of these superstructures influences these streaming motions and distorts our measurements of the Hubble constant.

The research also notes that these massive structures can alter and distort our sky images through large-scale gravitational lensing. This can introduce errors in our measurements.

On the other hand, simulations of the Lambda CDM produce superstructures like Quipu and the four others. Lambda CDM is our standard model of Big Bang cosmology and accounts for much of what we see in the Universe, like its large-scale structure.

“We find superstructures with similar properties in simulations based on Lambda-CDM cosmology models,” the authors write.

It’s clear that these superstructures are critical to understanding the Universe. They hold a significant portion of its matter and affect their surroundings in fundamental ways. More research is needed to understand them and their influence.

“Interesting follow-up research on our findings includes, for example, studies of the influence of these environments on the galaxy population and evolution,” the authors write in their conclusion.

According to the study, these superstructures won’t persist forever. “In the future cosmic evolution, these superstructures are bound to break up into several collapsing units. They are thus transient configurations,” Bohringer and his co-researchers explain.

“But at present, they are special physical entities with characteristic properties and special cosmic environments deserving special attention.”

This article was originally published by Universe Today. Read the original article.

An earlier version of this article was published in February 2025.

If humans are ever going to live beyond Earth, they’ll need to construct habitats. But transporting enough industrial material to create livable spaces would be incredibly challenging and expensive. Researchers at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) think there’s a better way, through biology. 

An international team of researchers led by Robin Wordsworth, the Gordon McKay Professor of Environmental Science and Engineering and Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences, have demonstrated that they can grow green algae inside shelters made out of bioplastics in Mars-like conditions. The experiments are a first step toward designing sustainable habitats in space that won’t require bringing materials from Earth.

“If you have a habitat that is composed of bioplastic, and it grows algae within it, that algae could produce more bioplastic,” explained Wordsworth. “So you start to have a closed-loop system that can sustain itself and even grow through time.”

The research is published in Science Advances.

Growing algae in Mars-like conditions

In lab experiments that recreated the thin atmosphere of Mars, Wordsworth’s team grew a common type of green algae called Dunaliella tertiolecta. The algae thrived inside a 3D-printed growth chamber made from a bioplastic called polylactic acid, which was able to block UV radiation while transmitting enough light to allow the algae to photosynthesize.

The algae was kept under a Mars-like 600 Pascals of atmospheric pressure – over 100 times lower than Earth’s — and in a carbon dioxide-rich environment, as opposed to mostly nitrogen and oxygen like on Earth. Liquid water cannot exist at such low pressures, but the bioplastic chamber created a pressure gradient that stabilized water within it. The experiments point to bioplastics as potentially key to creating renewable systems for maintaining life in a lifeless environment.

The concept the researchers demonstrated is closer to how organisms grow naturally on Earth, and it contrasts with an industrial approach using materials that are costly to manufacture and recycle.

Humans living in space

Wordsworth’s team previously demonstrated a type of local Martian terraforming using sheets of silica aerogels that mimic the Earth’s greenhouse warming effect to allow for biological growth. A combination of the algae experiments with the aerogels would solve both temperature and pressure issues for supporting plant and algae growth, Wordsworth said, and could open a clearer path toward extraterrestrial existence.  

Next, Wordsworth said the researchers want to demonstrate that their habitats also work in vacuum conditions, which would be relevant for lunar or deep-space applications. His team also has plans to design a working closed-loop system for habitat production.

“The concept of biomaterial habitats is fundamentally interesting and can support humans living in space,” Wordsworth said. “As this type of technology develops, it’s going to have spinoff benefits for sustainability technology here on Earth as well.”