The next time you use your phone, you should raise your eyes to the skies and say thanks to … a dying star. More specifically, you should thank the explosions that happen on a class of celestial bodies known as white dwarfs. Scientists have long pondered where all that lithium that powers our phones and much else of the modern world comes from. This might seem strange, as lithium was one of only three elements that were created in the first moments after the Big Bang, the others being hydrogen and helium. However, the lithium produced was only a trace amount, and when astronomers looked at older stars, they found that there was even less lithium than expected. This discrepancy can be explained by the tendency of larger stars to pull lithium inwards towards the star’s core, where it’s destroyed.
Yet, when scientists study younger stars, the reverse is found to be true — these stars have far more lithium than previous generations. This begs the question — where does all this lithium come from? The smoking gun was found when data from a nova dating from December 2013 was recently re-analyzed by scientists. The re-analysis happened after it was discovered that the white dwarf was nearer than originally thought, which brought it into a range where meaningful data could be pulled from the observation. Let’s shine a light on how explosions on distant white dwarf stars are helping to make the lithium-ion batteries that are possibly powering the device you’re reading this on.
How novas produce lithium
Nazarii_Neshcherenskyi/Shutterstock
A white dwarf forms when a star about the same size as the sun has burned through all its nuclear fuel. At this stage, the outer and lighter layers of the star are expelled to form a planetary nebula, and what is left behind is the dense inner core. This is the white dwarf. In most cases, a white dwarf will be part of a binary or multiple star system. It’s estimated that about 85% of all stars exist in such systems. This is lucky for our smartphones and other electrical devices, because the nature of this relationship can cause thermonuclear explosions known as novae. Put simply, a nova occurs when a white dwarf gravitationally accumulates excess material from a neighboring star. This causes pressure and heat to rise on the surface until all that tension gives way in a massive, ring-shaped explosion.
It was the observation of such an explosion by the European Space Agency’s International Gamma-ray Astrophysics Laboratory in 2013 that solved the lithium puzzle. Recent re-examination of the data confirmed the presence of gamma rays carrying an energy of 478 kiloelectron volts. While this might seem like a random fact, this is the energy level that gamma rays produce when beryllium-7 decays radioactively into lithium-7. The amount of lithium produced was measured in solar mass units, where one solar mass is equivalent to the mass of the sun. Using this scale, it was estimated that the nova produced lithium totaling 100 millionths of a solar mass. Enough to power a smartphone or two.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) — An international crew of four astronauts launched toward the International Space Station from Florida on Friday aboard a SpaceX rocket, beating gloomy weather to embark on a routine NASA mission that could be the first of many to last a couple months longer than usual.
The four-person astronaut crew — two NASA astronauts, a Russian cosmonaut and Japanese astronaut — boarded SpaceX’s Dragon capsule sitting atop its Falcon 9 rocket at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center and blasted off at 11:43 a.m. ET. They will arrive at the ISS on Saturday.
In the push to shrink and enhance technologies that control light, MIT researchers have unveiled a new platform that pushes the limits of modern optics through nanophotonics, the manipulation of light on the nanoscale, or billionths of a meter.
The result is a class of ultracompact optical devices that are not only smaller and more efficient than existing technologies, but also dynamically tunable, or switchable, from one optical mode to another. Until now, this has been an elusive combination in nanophotonics.
The work is reported in the July 8 issue of Nature Photonics.
“This work marks a significant step toward a future in which nanophotonic devices are not only compact and efficient, but also reprogrammable and adaptive, capable of dynamically responding to external inputs. The marriage of emerging quantum materials and established nanophotonics architectures will surely bring advances to both fields,” says Riccardo Comin, MIT’s Class of 1947 Career Development Associate Professor of Physics and leader of the work. Comin is also affiliated with MIT’s Materials Research Laboratory and Research Laboratory of Electronics (RLE).
Comin’s colleagues on the work are Ahmet Kemal Demir, an MIT graduate student in physics; Luca Nessi, a former MIT postdoc who is now a postdoc at Politecnico di Milano; Sachin Vaidya, a postdoc in RLE; Connor A. Occhialini PhD ’24, who is now a postdoc at Columbia University; and Marin Soljačić, the Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Physics at MIT.
Demir and Nessi are co-first authors of the Nature Photonics paper.
Toward new nanophotonic materials
Nanophotonics has traditionally relied on materials like silicon, silicon nitride, or titanium dioxide. These are the building blocks of devices that guide and confine light using structures such as waveguides, resonators, and photonic crystals. The latter are periodic arrangements of materials that control how light propagates, much like how a semiconductor crystal affects electron motion.
While highly effective, these materials are constrained by two major limitations. The first involves their refractive indices. These are a measure of how strongly a material interacts with light; the higher the refractive index, the more the material “grabs” or interacts with the light, bending it more sharply and slowing it down more. The refractive indices of silicon and other traditional nanophotonic materials are often modest, which limits how tightly light can be confined and how small optical devices can be made.
A second major limitation of traditional nanophotonic materials: once a structure is fabricated, its optical behavior is essentially fixed. There is usually no way to significantly reconfigure how it responds to light without physically altering it. “Tunability is essential for many next-gen photonics applications, enabling adaptive imaging, precision sensing, reconfigurable light sources, and trainable optical neural networks,” says Vaidya.
Introducing chromium sulfide bromide
These are the longstanding challenges that chromium sulfide bromide (CrSBr) is poised to solve. CrSBr is a layered quantum material with a rare combination of magnetic order and strong optical response. Central to its unique optical properties are excitons: quasiparticles formed when a material absorbs light and an electron is excited, leaving behind a positively charged “hole.” The electron and hole remain bound together by electrostatic attraction, forming a sort of neutral particle that can strongly interact with light.
In CrSBr, excitons dominate the optical response and are highly sensitive to magnetic fields, which means they can be manipulated using external controls.
Because of these excitons, CrSBr exhibits an exceptionally large refractive index that allows researchers to sculpt the material to fabricate optical structures like photonic crystals that are up to an order of magnitude thinner than those made from traditional materials. “We can make optical structures as thin as 6 nanometers, or just seven layers of atoms stacked on top of each other,” says Demir.
And crucially, by applying a modest magnetic field, the MIT researchers were able to continuously and reversibly switch the optical mode. In other words, they demonstrated the ability to dynamically change how light flows through the nanostructure, all without any moving parts or changes in temperature. “This degree of control is enabled by a giant, magnetically induced shift in the refractive index, far beyond what is typically achievable in established photonic materials,” says Demir.
In fact, the interaction between light and excitons in CrSBr is so strong that it leads to the formation of polaritons, hybrid light-matter particles that inherit properties from both components. These polaritons enable new forms of photonic behavior, such as enhanced nonlinearities and new regimes of quantum light transport. And unlike conventional systems that require external optical cavities to reach this regime, CrSBr supports polaritons intrinsically.
While this demonstration uses standalone CrSBr flakes, the material can also be integrated into existing photonic platforms, such as integrated photonic circuits. This makes CrSBr immediately relevant to real-world applications, where it can serve as a tunable layer or component in otherwise passive devices.
The MIT results were achieved at very cold temperatures of up to 132 kelvins (-222 degrees Fahrenheit). Although this is below room temperature, there are compelling use cases, such as quantum simulation, nonlinear optics, and reconfigurable polaritonic platforms, where the unparalleled tunability of CrSBr could justify operation in cryogenic environments.
In other words, says Demir, “CrSBr is so unique with respect to other common materials that even going down to cryogenic temperatures will be worth the trouble, hopefully.”
That said, the team is also exploring related materials with higher magnetic ordering temperatures to enable similar functionality at more accessible conditions.
This work was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, the U.S. Army Research Office, and a MathWorks Science Fellowship. The work was performed in part at MIT.nano.
Four crew members of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-11 mission launched at 11:43 a.m. EDT Friday from Launch Complex 39A at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida for a science expedition aboard the International Space Station.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket propelled the Dragon spacecraft into orbit carrying NASA astronauts Zena Cardman and Mike Fincke, JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Kimiya Yui, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Platonov. The spacecraft will dock autonomously to the space-facing port of the station’s Harmony module at approximately 3 a.m. on Saturday, Aug. 2.
“Thanks to the bold leadership of President Donald J. Trump, NASA is back! The agency’s SpaceX Crew-11 mission to the space station is the first step toward our permanent presence on the Moon. NASA, in conjunction with great American companies, continues the mission with Artemis in 2026. This Moon mission will ensure America wins the space race – critical to national security – and leads in the emerging, exciting and highly profitable private sector commercial space business,” said acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy. “The Commercial Crew Program and Artemis missions prove what American ingenuity, and cutting-edge American manufacturing can achieve. We’re going to the Moon…to stay! After that, we go to Mars! Welcome to the Golden Age of exploration!”
During Dragon’s flight, SpaceX will monitor a series of automatic spacecraft maneuvers from its mission control center in Hawthorne, California. NASA will monitor space station operations throughout the flight from the Mission Control Center at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.
NASA’s live coverage resumes at 1 a.m., Aug. 2, on NASA+ with rendezvous, docking, and hatch opening. After docking, the crew will change out of their spacesuits and prepare cargo for offload before opening the hatch between Dragon and the space station’s Harmony module around 4:45 a.m. Once the new crew is aboard the orbital outpost, NASA will provide coverage of the welcome ceremony beginning at approximately 5:45 a.m.
Learn how to watch NASA content through a variety of platforms, including social media.
The number of crew aboard the space station will increase to 11 for a short time as Crew-11 joins NASA astronauts Anne McClain, Nichole Ayers, and Jonny Kim, JAXA astronaut Takuya Onishi, and Roscosmos cosmonauts Kirill Peskov, Sergey Ryzhikov, and Alexey Zubritsky.
NASA’s SpaceX Crew-10 will depart the space station after the arrival of Crew-11 and a handover period. Ahead of Crew-10’s return, mission teams will review weather conditions at the splashdown sites off the coast of California prior to departure from station.
During their mission, Crew-11 will conduct scientific research to prepare for human exploration beyond low Earth orbit and benefit humanity on Earth. Participating crew members will simulate lunar landings, test strategies to safeguard vision, and advance other human spaceflight studies led by NASA’s Human Research Program. The crew also will study plant cell division and microgravity’s effects on bacteria-killing viruses, as well as perform experiments to produce a higher volume of human stem cells and generate on-demand nutrients.
The mission is part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, which provides reliable access to space, maximizing the use of the station for research and development and supporting future missions beyond low Earth orbit by partnering with private companies to transport astronauts to and from the space station. Learn more about the agency’s Commercial Crew Program at:
LOS ANGELES, Aug. 1 (Xinhua) — NASA and SpaceX launched a new crew rotation mission to the International Space Station (ISS) on Friday, marking the 11th commercial flight under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program.
The mission, codenamed Crew-11, carries NASA astronauts Zena Cardman and Mike Fincke, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Kimiya Yui, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Platonov to the ISS. ■
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The Perseids are one of 2025’s most prolific meteor showers of the year and a great reason to look up at the night sky.
The meteor shower is known for having some of the highest meteor rates – up to 100 per hour under absolutely perfect conditions.
Plus, if you’re getting up early to see the meteor shower in the hours before dawn, you might catch sight of another celestial treat. On 13 August, Jupiter and Venus – the two brightest things in the night sky after the Moon – will be making their closest pass for the whole year.
Here’s everything you need to know to get the most out of the 2025 Perseids meteor shower.
When is the 2025 Perseid meteor shower?
The Perseids run from 17 July to 24 August, with the peak of activity falling on the night of 12/13 August.
This is when you could expect to see the most meteors, but if clouds or your schedule mean you can’t meteor watch on the peak, then you should be able to see a good show any time between 9-15 August.
The Perseids will be at their best from midnight until the hour or so before dawn. If that’s too late (or early) for you, you should still be able to see some meteors in the evening.
The Perseids have what’s known as a zenithal hourly rate (ZHR) of 100 to 150 meteors per hour, but that doesn’t quite mean you’ll see that many shooting stars.
“The ZHR of a meteor shower represents the rate expected under perfect conditions, a situation that’s rarely met,” says Pete Lawrence, an expert astronomer and presenter on The Sky at Night.
“Consequently, the actual number of meteors seen, the visual hourly rate, is often significantly lower, but at least a high ZHR indicates that good activity is possible.”
Where should I be looking to see the Perseid meteor shower?
A meteor can appear anywhere in the sky, so the best place to look is straight up, taking in as much of the night sky as you can.
However, if you trace back the trails of all the Perseid meteors, you’ll find they are all shooting out of the same spot in the sky, called the radiant, which is located in the constellation of Perseus (hence the name).
You don’t want to look directly at the radiant, as the meteors will be coming at you head-on. If you look away from this point, though, you should spot meteors with longer tails.
It’s still worthwhile tracking down Perseus. The constellation rises just as the Sun is setting and can be found throughout the night in the north to the northeastern sky.
The easiest way to find it is by locating the nearby constellation of Cassiopeia, which will appear as a W shape of bright stars. Perseus is just below this.
Where is the best place to observe a meteor shower?
The best place to see the 2025 Perseid meteor shower is anywhere that’s dark with a good view of the whole sky.
Light pollution will brighten up the background sky, making it harder to see dim meteors. If you can get away from the urban sprawl to a really dark sky site, then that’s the best option – though make sure it’s safe to do so and you have permission to be there after dark.
If you can’t get away, don’t worry. Look for a spot that’s shielded from any direct light sources. This could be a local park or even your back garden, using your house to block out any pesky streetlights.
If you can, get away from the city to a dark sky site – Credit: Getty Images
How can you see a meteor shower?
The best way to see a meteor shower is to sit back and take in as much of the night sky as you can, as that will give you the best chance of catching a meteor.
It’s best to look with just your eyes, as telescopes and binoculars will narrow down your field of view.
Once you’re settled, allow your eyes time to adapt to the dark. It takes them about 30 minutes for our eyes to fully adjust, but you’ll start to notice a difference before that.
Be aware – a single bright light will completely undo all your dark adaptation, so be sure to turn off any security lights, and set your phone to red light mode.
Will the Moon interfere?
One source of light pollution we can’t do anything about is the Moon.
The Moon is full just a few days before the peak of the 2025 Perseids meteor shower, on 9 August. On the day of the peak, it will still be around 88 per cent illuminated and will be up for most of the night.
If you can, it’s best to position yourself so the Moon is blocked by a building or tree.
The Moon will rise in the east, moving higher in the sky and towards the East as the night goes on.
Here are our top tips for getting the most out of the Perseid meteor shower
Find a dark spot. Whether in a proper dark sky site or in the darkest corner of your backyard, you’ll want to find a spot that’s away from as many lights as possible with a clear view of the sky.
Put your phone on red light mode. Red light will help protect your hard-won dark adaptation. Some phones have a function to set them to red light mode, while others will need an app to do it.
Wrap up warm. Even in August, it gets cold at night when you’re sitting in one place. Wear layers so you can adapt to the changing temperatures throughout the night.
Get comfy. Looking directly up all night can give you a real crick in the neck. If you’ve got one, a sun lounger will help support your head. Alternately, you can lie on the floor, but bring a blanket to insulate yourself from the ground and a cushion to rest your head on.
Let your eyes adapt to the dark. This should take around 20-30 minutes, but the longer you adjust, the more meteors you’ll see.
What causes the Perseid meteor shower?
“Meteor showers occur when Earth passes through the fine dust debris strewn around the orbit of a comet,” says Lawrence.
In the case of the Perseids, this comet was 109P/Swift-Tuttle, which loops around the Solar System once every 133 years, having last come through our neck of the woods in 1995.
“The dust distribution tends to be sparse in the outer regions of the stream, densest towards the centre before trailing off again,” says Lawrence.
The dust left is around the size of a grain of sand, but they hit Earth’s atmosphere at approximately 215,000 km/h (130,000 mph).
This is so fast that they heat the air to extreme temperatures, causing it to glow. We see that glow as a bright streak of light streaking across the sky.
The peak of the meteor shower occurs when our planet passes through the middle of the debris stream, where the dust is thickest.
“Earth begins to pass through the wide dust stream of comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle from around 14 July, a passage that concludes around 1 September,” says Lawrence.
The northern lights will be active on Friday, Aug. 1, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)’s forecast
The rare, colorful display is expected to be visible from Earth in select location across the United States
The northern lights have a three on the Kp-index that ranges from zero to nine, which means the auroras can be “quite pleasing to look at” under perfect conditions
The cosmos are sizzling this August!
The month is starting off strong with another round of northern lights, expected to color the night sky across several parts of the United States on Friday, Aug. 1, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)’s forecast.
The astronomical event, also known as the aurora borealis, is forecast a three on the Kp-index that ranges from zero to nine. This means that the display can be “quite pleasing to look at” under perfect conditions.
Those who reside in the northernmost areas of the U.S. have greater chances at catching a glimpse of the display if the weather aligns, meaning no clouds or rain that could hinder visibility from Earth. It’s important to avoid light pollution, too, which could drown out the vibrant hues.
Artificial light pollution aside, like city lights, the moon’s glow could also negatively impact the auroras. Fortunately, this month’s full moon — nicknamed the Sturgeon Moon — doesn’t peak until Aug. 9, so it’s currently only 49% illuminated as it’s amid its waxing crescent phase.
The chance to watch the northern lights from several parts of the U.S. is a rare phenomenon, however, there’s many many opportunities across the country in the last year alone. Most recently, NOAA’s forecast predicted visibility for northern areas on July 30.
Now, read on for how to watch the northern lights tonight!
When will the northern lights be visible?
Ross Harried/NurPhoto via Getty
Northern Lights
The northern lights are expected to be visible on Friday evening, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)’s forecast.
For the best chances at spotting them, cast your eyes to the sky in the hours before and after midnight, specifically between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m. local time. Note, it’s impossible to view the auroras during daylight hours — so darkest is best!
Since the northern lights have a three on the Kp-index, the auroras will move further away from the poles and have the potential to be “quite pleasing to look at” under perfect conditions.
Where will the northern lights be visible?
Skywatchers who live in the northernmost areas of the country have the best chances at viewing the colorful display from Earth tonight.
Locations include Alaska, the northeastern tip of Washington, northern Idaho, northern Montana, most of North Dakota, Minnesota and northern Wisconsin. (Be sure to check NOAA’s aurora forecast for the most accurate updates throughout the night.)
How to watch the northern lights?
Roy Rochlin/Getty
Northern Lights
The best part about the northern lights is that no advanced technology is necessary to spot them from Earth. Simply all that’s needed is the naked eye, a dark viewpoint and a state that’s in NOAA’s predicted aurora viewline.
Then, all sky gazers have to do is point their eyes to the sky and look up!
How to take photos of the northern lights?
If you didn’t take a photo of the northern lights, did you really see them in person? Fortunately, many smartphones have the technological capability to capture the auroras with a simple click of a button!
All smartphone users have to do is switch on the “Night Mode” settings on the device. Then, point the lens to the sky and snap away!
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Infrared imaging is crucial for applications such as surveillance, search and rescue missions, healthcare and autonomous vehicles, offering the ability to visualize what the human eye cannot. Infrared technology is effective at detecting body heat, gas leaks and water content, even in conditions like smoke or darkness. However, a major challenge arises in the design of infrared cameras: they require electrical contacts to capture and transmit the images they detect.
Many materials that can conduct electrical signals, like metals, block infrared radiation, creating a fundamental conflict in the device’s design. Researchers at NYU Tandon School of Engineering have developed a new solution: a transparent electrode made by embedding tiny silver wires into a transparent plastic matrix. This design allows infrared detectors to function without blocking infrared light.
New electrode material improves infrared imaging
The team’s work, recently published in the Journal of Materials Chemistry C, addresses this fundamental issue in infrared detector technology. The electrode material is made by embedding silver nanowires, each about the width of a human hair, into a polymer matrix, creating a transparent, flexible material that can be easily applied to conventional infrared detectors.
The novel electrode is a significant advancement, offering better performance than traditional materials like indium tin oxide (ITO) or thin metal films, which either suffer from poor electrical properties or lack transparency at longer infrared wavelengths.
“We’ve developed a material that solves a fundamental problem that has been limiting infrared detector design,” said Ayaskanta Sahu, associate professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering (CBE) at NYU Tandon and the study’s senior author. “Our transparent electrode material works well across the infrared spectrum, giving engineers more flexibility in how they build these devices.”
Enhancing infrared detectors with quantum dots
To test their material, the team implemented it into infrared cameras that use colloidal quantum dots – semiconductor particles that exhibit unique optical properties – as their active material. Quantum dots have recently garnered attention due to their role in technologies such as QLED television displays, as well as being the subject of the 2023 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. For their study, the researchers used mercury telluride quantum dots, which respond to infrared light.
The silver nanowires, embedded in a polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) matrix, form conductive networks even at low concentrations. The nanowires’ diameter is around 120 nanometers, with lengths between 10 and 30 micrometers. These networks allow infrared radiation to pass through the transparent electrode, while the nanowires simultaneously serve as the necessary wiring for electrical currents. The material is also flexible and can be manufactured at low temperatures, which is essential for the production of quantum dot-based detectors.
“Conventional electrodes in the infrared are like blackout curtains – most of the signal never reaches the sensor,” said graduate researcher Shlok J. Paul, a co-author on the study. “Our near-invisible web of silver nanowires lets more infrared photons in while doubling as the wiring that carries the electrical current needed to turn the invisible light into data. While there is more work to be done, the simplicity of this flexible layer could carry IR detection from the lab to commercial applications like for firefighter vision or self-driving cars.”
The researchers have filed a U.S. patent application covering their method of embedding silver nanowires in a polymer matrix for transparent infrared electrodes.
This work represents a significant step forward in the development of infrared imaging technologies, with potential uses across various fields, including safety and autonomous systems.
Reference: Paul SJ, Mølnås H, Farrell SL, Parashar N, Riedo E, Sahu A. Plenty of room at the top: exploiting nanowire – polymer synergies in transparent electrodes for infrared imagers. J Mater Chem C. 2025;13(21):10592-10601. doi: 10.1039/D5TC00581G
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