Category: 7. Science

Astronomers may have caught a still-forming planet in action, carving out an intricate pattern in the gas and dust that surrounds its young host star. Using ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), they observed a planetary disc with prominent spiral arms, finding clear signs of a planet nestled in its inner regions. This is the first time astronomers have detected a planet candidate embedded inside a disc spiral.

“We will never witness the formation of Earth, but here, around a young star 440 light-years away, we may be watching a planet come into existence in real time,” says Francesco Maio, a doctoral researcher at the University of Florence, Italy, and lead author of this study, published today in Astronomy & Astrophysics. 

The potential planet-in-the-making was detected around the star HD 135344B, within a disc of gas and dust around it called a protoplanetary disc. The budding planet is estimated to be twice the size of Jupiter and as far from its host star as Neptune is from the Sun. It has been observed shaping its surroundings within the protoplanetary disc as it grows into a fully formed planet. 

Protoplanetary discs have been observed around other young stars, and they often display intricate patterns, such as rings, gaps or spirals. Astronomers have long predicted that these structures are caused by baby planets, which sweep up material as they orbit around their parent star. But, until now, they had not caught one of these planetary sculptors in the act.  

In the case of HD 135344B’s disc, swirling spiral arms had previously been detected by another team of astronomers using SPHERE (Spectro-Polarimetric High-contrast Exoplanet REsearch), an instrument on ESO’s VLT. However, none of the previous observations of this system found proof of a planet forming within the disc. 

Now, with observations from the new VLT’s Enhanced Resolution Imager and Spectrograph (ERIS) instrument, the researchers say they may have found their prime suspect. The team spotted the planet candidate right at the base of one of the disc’s spiral arms, exactly where theory had predicted they might find the planet responsible for carving such a pattern. 

“What makes this detection potentially a turning point is that, unlike many previous observations, we are able to directly detect the signal of the protoplanet, which is still highly embedded in the disc,” says Maio, who is based at the Arcetri Astrophysical Observatory, a centre of Italy’s National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF). “This gives us a much higher level of confidence in the planet’s existence, as we’re observing the planet’s own light.” 

A star’s companion is born 

A different team of astronomers have also recently used the ERIS instrument to observe another star, V960 Mon, one that is still in the very early stages of its life. In a study published on 18 July in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, the team report that they have found a companion object to this young star. The exact nature of this object remains a mystery. 

The new study, led by Anuroop Dasgupta, a doctoral researcher at ESO and at the Diego Portales University in Chile, follows up observations of V960 Mon made a couple of years ago. Those observations, made with both SPHERE and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), revealed that the material orbiting V960 Mon is shaped into a series of intricate spiral arms. They also showed that the material is fragmenting, in a process known as ‘gravitational instability’, when large clumps of the material around a star contract and collapse, each with the potential to form a planet or a larger object. 

“That work revealed unstable material but left open the question of what happens next. With ERIS, we set out to find any compact, luminous fragments signalling the presence of a companion in the disc — and we did,” says Dasgupta. The team found a potential companion object very near to one of the spiral arms observed with SPHERE and ALMA. The team say that this object could either be a planet in formation, or a ‘brown dwarf’ — an object bigger than a planet that didn’t gain enough mass to shine as a star. 

If confirmed, this companion object may be the first clear detection of a planet or brown dwarf forming by gravitational instability. 

Entanglement has now become the key resource in quantum information theory. It is being used in quantum teleportation and quantum cryptography, quantum computing, communication, and precision measurements.

More than 200 years after Sadi Carnot introduced the second law of thermodynamics, scientists have discovered a similar rule for the quantum world. This new “second law of entanglement” demonstrates that quantum entanglement can be altered and reversed in a controlled manner, much like the behavior of energy in classical thermodynamics. Until now, many researchers doubted this was possible.

The study could advance the understanding of entanglement’s basic properties. It also offers significant insight into effectively regulating entanglement and other quantum phenomena in practice.

Scientists have noticed many parallels between quantum entanglement and thermodynamics. One key example is entanglement entropy, which behaves like thermodynamic entropy, a measure of disorder, but in ideal, perfectly controlled quantum systems.

There is no second law of entanglement after all, suggests a study

But there’s been a missing piece: a quantum version of the second law of thermodynamics. This classical law states that systems naturally tend toward greater disorder (higher entropy) and that while reversing a process perfectly is theoretically possible, it’s extremely rare and requires ideal conditions.

In the quantum world, reversibility doesn’t mean rewinding time. Instead, it means that an outside agent can change a quantum system’s state and then return it to its original state without losing any information, a form of perfect control. Until now, proving this kind of reversibility for entanglement had been elusive.

For a long time, scientists in quantum information science have been searching for a rule analogous to the second law of thermodynamics, but applicable to the quantum world. This has been a central unsolved puzzle.

To tackle this problem, researchers often envision two people, typically referred to as Alice and Bob, who are separated and wish to share quantum information. However, there’s a catch: they can only interact with their local quantum systems and communicate with each other using conventional methods, such as a phone or the internet.

This setup, known as LOCC (Local Operations and Classical Communication), simplifies things. It also means that, regardless of what Alice and Bob do, they can’t directly alter the deep, nonlocal connection —the entanglement —between their quantum systems.

Under LOCC operations, entanglement is irreversible. Considering this, researchers in this study posed the question: Can we somehow go beyond LOCC in a meaningful way and recover reversibility?

They found the answer that it is possible, as long as Alice and Bob share an additional entangled system: an entanglement battery.

Like an ordinary battery stores energy, an entanglement battery injects and stores entanglement. Imagine Alice and Bob have access to a special kind of battery, not one that stores electricity, but one that stores entanglement. This entanglement battery can be used to help them change the state of their quantum systems. They’re allowed to charge or drain the battery during the process, but there’s one strict rule: they can’t reduce the total amount of entanglement in the battery.

Just like a regular battery lets you do things you couldn’t do otherwise, this entanglement battery lets Alice and Bob perform quantum operations that would typically be impossible under LOCC rules alone. With its help, the researchers showed that any transformation involving mixed quantum states can be made perfectly reversible, a breakthrough in quantum information science.

The idea of an entanglement battery can be expanded into a broader concept: a resource battery. This is an extra quantum system that facilitates a transformation, as long as it doesn’t reduce the key resource being utilized, whether that’s entanglement, coherence, or something else.

Lead author of the study Alexander Streltsov said, “We can have a battery that is supposed to preserve coherence or free energy, and then we can formulate a reversible framework in this setting where, instead of entanglement, we reversibly manipulate that particular resource of our system.”

“Though many of these other principles of reversibility have already been confirmed via other approaches, our technique offers a unified proof framework based on well-established physical principles.”

Journal Reference:

1. Ray Ganardi, Tulja Varun Kondra, Nelly H. Y. Ng, and Alexander Streltsov. Second Law of Entanglement Manipulation with an Entanglement Battery. Physical Review Letters, 2025; 135 (1) DOI: 10.1103/kl56-p2vb

Entanglement has now become the key resource in quantum information theory. It is being used in quantum teleportation and quantum cryptography, quantum computing, communication, and precision measurements.

More than 200 years after Sadi Carnot introduced the second law of thermodynamics, scientists have discovered a similar rule for the quantum world. This new “second law of entanglement” demonstrates that quantum entanglement can be altered and reversed in a controlled manner, much like the behavior of energy in classical thermodynamics. Until now, many researchers doubted this was possible.

The study could advance the understanding of entanglement’s basic properties. It also offers significant insight into effectively regulating entanglement and other quantum phenomena in practice.

Scientists have noticed many parallels between quantum entanglement and thermodynamics. One key example is entanglement entropy, which behaves like thermodynamic entropy, a measure of disorder, but in ideal, perfectly controlled quantum systems.

There is no second law of entanglement after all, suggests a study

But there’s been a missing piece: a quantum version of the second law of thermodynamics. This classical law states that systems naturally tend toward greater disorder (higher entropy) and that while reversing a process perfectly is theoretically possible, it’s extremely rare and requires ideal conditions.

In the quantum world, reversibility doesn’t mean rewinding time. Instead, it means that an outside agent can change a quantum system’s state and then return it to its original state without losing any information, a form of perfect control. Until now, proving this kind of reversibility for entanglement had been elusive.

For a long time, scientists in quantum information science have been searching for a rule analogous to the second law of thermodynamics, but applicable to the quantum world. This has been a central unsolved puzzle.

To tackle this problem, researchers often envision two people, typically referred to as Alice and Bob, who are separated and wish to share quantum information. However, there’s a catch: they can only interact with their local quantum systems and communicate with each other using conventional methods, such as a phone or the internet.

This setup, known as LOCC (Local Operations and Classical Communication), simplifies things. It also means that, regardless of what Alice and Bob do, they can’t directly alter the deep, nonlocal connection —the entanglement —between their quantum systems.

Under LOCC operations, entanglement is irreversible. Considering this, researchers in this study posed the question: Can we somehow go beyond LOCC in a meaningful way and recover reversibility?

They found the answer that it is possible, as long as Alice and Bob share an additional entangled system: an entanglement battery.

Like an ordinary battery stores energy, an entanglement battery injects and stores entanglement. Imagine Alice and Bob have access to a special kind of battery, not one that stores electricity, but one that stores entanglement. This entanglement battery can be used to help them change the state of their quantum systems. They’re allowed to charge or drain the battery during the process, but there’s one strict rule: they can’t reduce the total amount of entanglement in the battery.

Just like a regular battery lets you do things you couldn’t do otherwise, this entanglement battery lets Alice and Bob perform quantum operations that would typically be impossible under LOCC rules alone. With its help, the researchers showed that any transformation involving mixed quantum states can be made perfectly reversible, a breakthrough in quantum information science.

The idea of an entanglement battery can be expanded into a broader concept: a resource battery. This is an extra quantum system that facilitates a transformation, as long as it doesn’t reduce the key resource being utilized, whether that’s entanglement, coherence, or something else.

Lead author of the study Alexander Streltsov said, “We can have a battery that is supposed to preserve coherence or free energy, and then we can formulate a reversible framework in this setting where, instead of entanglement, we reversibly manipulate that particular resource of our system.”

“Though many of these other principles of reversibility have already been confirmed via other approaches, our technique offers a unified proof framework based on well-established physical principles.”

Journal Reference:

1. Ray Ganardi, Tulja Varun Kondra, Nelly H. Y. Ng, and Alexander Streltsov. Second Law of Entanglement Manipulation with an Entanglement Battery. Physical Review Letters, 2025; 135 (1) DOI: 10.1103/kl56-p2vb

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This intriguing astronaut photo shows a trio of “anomalous” ice masses merging in the heart of central Asia. The stripy glaciers are bucking a global trend by gaining volume, despite the effects of human-caused climate change.

The aerial image shows the Lolofond glacier (top) and Teram Shehr glacier (bottom) merging with the Siachen glacier (center), along with a smaller unnamed tributary glacier. The ice masses are located in the Karakoram mountain range, a largely uninhabited area situated alongside the Himalayas in the Kashmir region, where the borders of India, Pakistan, China, Afghanistan and Tajikistan meet.

Researchers led by Durham University, UK, examined radar measurements of ice thickness and found extensive, previously unmapped, flat surfaces buried beneath a 3,500 km stretch of the East Antarctic coastline.

These surfaces were once connected and it is believed were formed by large rivers after East Antarctica and Australia broke apart approximately 80 million years ago, and before ice covered Antarctica about 34 million years ago.

The flat surfaces are now hidden beneath the ice sheet and separated by deep troughs, which fast-flowing glaciers are steered through. The ice above the surfaces is moving much more slowly, the researchers say.

Ice loss from Antarctica is increasing, but the flat surfaces act as barriers to ice flow and may currently be regulating the rate of ice loss.

East Antarctica has the potential to raise global sea levels by 52 meters (170 feet) if it were to melt completely.

Adding the newly discovered surfaces’ effects into models of future ice-sheet behavior could help refine projections of how the East Antarctic Ice Sheet might react to climate change and what its impact on global sea levels could be, the researchers add.

The findings are published in the journal Nature Geoscience.

Research lead author Dr Guy Paxman, a Royal Society University Research Fellow in the Department of Geography, Durham University, said: “The landscape hidden beneath the East Antarctic Ice Sheet is one of the most mysterious not just on Earth, but on any terrestrial planet in the solar system.

“When we were examining the radar images of the sub-ice topography in this region, these remarkably flat surfaces started to pop out almost everywhere we looked.

“The flat surfaces we have found have managed to survive relatively intact for over 30 million years, indicating that parts of the ice sheet have preserved rather than eroded the landscape.

“Information such as the shape and geology of the newly mapped surfaces will help improve our understanding of how ice flows at the edge of East Antarctica.

“This in turn will help make it easier to predict how the East Antarctic Ice Sheet could affect sea levels under different levels of climate warming in the future.”

The extensive flat surfaces were found beneath approximately 40% of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet’s 3,500km-long coastline between Princess Elizabeth Land and George V Land.

The preservation of these enigmatic surfaces over tens of millions of years indicates a lack of intense, selective erosion of these areas throughout Antarctica’s glacial history.

The research team also included the universities of Newcastle, Edinburgh and Exeter, UK, the British Antarctic Survey, the Alfred Wegener Institute, Germany, the Polar Research Institute of China, and Beijing University of Technology.

Research co-author Professor Neil Ross, Professor of Polar Science and Environmental Geophysics, Newcastle University, said: “We’ve long been intrigued and puzzled about fragments of evidence for ‘flat’ landscapes beneath the Antarctic ice sheets.

“This study brings the jigsaw pieces of data together, to reveal the big picture: how these ancient surfaces formed, their role in determining the present-day flow of the ice, and their possible influence on how the East Antarctic Ice Sheet will evolve in a warming world.”

The researchers emphasize the need to further explore the influence of these flat surfaces on ice sheet movement during past warmer climates.

This would include drilling through the ice to retrieve rock from the flat surfaces to understand when they were last free from ice cover. This will help improve predictions for how the ice around this large section of the East Antarctic margin will respond as the climate and ocean warms.

The research was funded by the UK’s Natural Environment Research Council, a Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellowship, the European Research Council, the AWI INSPIRES III program and the Natural Science Foundation of China.

In the vibrant waters off Japan’s Kumejima Island, scientists have discovered a bizarre new marine species that’s got the internet buzzing. The skeleton panda sea squirt, officially named Clavelina ossipandae. This tiny, transparent creature looks like a baby panda dressed up as a skeleton. With black eye-like spots and white “ribs” running across its body, it’s one of the strangest yet cutest sea creatures ever found. And now, it’s making waves in both the marine biology world and social media. The discovery was formally published in Species Diversity by Naohiro Hasegawa and Hiroshi Kajihara, describing Clavelina ossipandae as a transparent colonial ascidian with white ‘rib‑like’ vessels and panda‑face markings based on specimens collected off Kumejima Island, Okinawa. Here’s everything you need to know about this weird panda-like sea creature that’s equal parts creepy and adorable.

What is the skeleton panda sea squirt?

The skeleton panda sea squirt is a newly discovered species of colonial ascidian, a marine invertebrate also known as a sea squirt. These filter-feeding animals may look simple, but they’re vital to ocean ecosystems. This particular species earned its nickname because of its striking appearance: two dark round patches that resemble panda eyes and white streaks that mimic rib bones. They live in colonies of up to four zooids (individual animals) and are only around 2 centimeters long. Despite their small size, their bizarre appearance made them stand out to divers and eventually scientists.

Why does the skeleton panda sea squirt look like a panda skeleton?

The creature’s “skeleton” effect comes from white blood vessels that run horizontally across its translucent body, almost like ribs. Meanwhile, dark pigmentation at the top of its body looks like eyes and a nose, giving it the panda vibe. The name ossipandae is Latin-based: “ossi” means bone and “pandae” refers to panda, making the name literally translate to “panda bones.” These markings likely have no specific function, but they’ve sparked curiosity among scientists and artists alike. It’s a rare example of marine life resembling terrestrial animals in such a surreal way.

How was Clavelina ossipandae discovered?

The first photos of this panda-like sea creature were actually shared on social media by Japanese divers back in 2017. For years, marine enthusiasts spotted these strange little animals off Kumejima’s coast. But it wasn’t until 2018 that Dr Naohiro Hasegawa noticed them while browsing diver blogs. He was intrigued enough to start collecting samples in 2021. After a thorough study, the species was finally described and named in the scientific journal Species Diversity in early 2024. This is a great example of citizen science in action, divers and hobbyists unknowingly helped identify a new species just by sharing underwater snapshots.

Habitat and behaviour of the skeleton panda sea squirt

These sea squirts live at a depth of around 10–20 metres near coral reefs, where ocean currents are strong. They attach themselves to hard surfaces like rocks or coral and feed by filtering plankton and bacteria from seawater, kind of like natural water purifiers.Though small, they play an important role in marine ecosystems by helping maintain water quality and supporting biodiversity.

Why this discovery matters

New marine species are always exciting, but this one is visually unique, increasing public interest in ocean life.

In a time when marine life is under threat from climate change and pollution, the discovery of Clavelina ossipandae is a reminder of how much wonder is still hidden beneath the waves. The discovery of the skeleton panda sea squirt might sound like something out of a Pokémon game, but it’s very real and seriously cool. Whether you’re a marine biology nerd or just here for the panda aesthetics, this weird little creature proves that nature always has a few surprises left. So the next time someone tells you sea squirts are boring blobs, hit them with this fun fact: one of them is literally dressed like a panda skeleton.Also read| NASA’s X-59 supersonic jet could fly you from New York to Paris in half the time

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The loose open cluster NGC 7243 makes it worth learning the location of Lacerta the Lizard, now visible in the evening sky.

Cosmic explosions offer clues to some of the biggest mysteries of the universe. One is the nature of dark energy, the mysterious pressure thought to be accelerating the universe’s expansion.

“Whether you want to explore dark energy, dying stars, galactic powerhouses, or probably even entirely new things we’ve never seen before, this survey will be a gold mine,” said Benjamin Rose, an assistant professor at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, who led a study about the results. The paper is published in The Astrophysical Journal.

Called the High-Latitude Time-Domain Survey, this observation program will scan the same large region of the cosmos every five days for two years. Scientists will stitch these observations together to create movies that uncover all sorts of cosmic fireworks.

Chief among them are exploding stars. The survey is largely geared toward finding a special class of supernova called type Ia. These stellar cataclysms allow scientists to measure cosmic distances and trace the universe’s expansion because they peak at about the same intrinsic brightness. Figuring out how fast the universe has ballooned during different cosmic epochs offers clues to dark energy.

In the new study, scientists simulated Roman’s entire High-Latitude Time-Domain Survey. The results suggest Roman could see around 27,000 type Ia supernovae — about 10 times more than all previous surveys combined.

Beyond dramatically increasing our total sample of these supernovae, Roman will push the boundaries of how far back in time we can see them. While most of those detected so far occurred within approximately the last 8 billion years, Roman is expected to see vast numbers of them earlier in the universe’s history, including more than a thousand that exploded more than 10 billion years ago and potentially dozens from as far back as 11.5 billion years. That means Roman will almost certainly set a new record for the farthest type Ia supernova while profoundly expanding our view of the early universe and filling in a critical gap in our understanding of how the cosmos has evolved over time.

“Filling these data gaps could also fill in gaps in our understanding of dark energy,” Rose said. “Evidence is mounting that dark energy has changed over time, and Roman will help us understand that change by exploring cosmic history in ways other telescopes can’t.”

But type Ia supernovae will be hidden among a much bigger sample of exploding stars Roman will see once it begins science operations in 2027. The team estimates Roman will also spot about 60,000 core-collapse supernovae, which occur when a massive star runs out of fuel and collapses under its own weight.

That’s different from type Ia supernovae, which originate from binary star systems that contain at least one white dwarf — the small, hot core remnant of a Sun-like star — siphoning material from a companion star. Core-collapse supernovae aren’t as useful for dark energy studies as type Ias are, but their signals look similar from halfway across the cosmos.

“By seeing the way an object’s light changes over time and splitting it into spectra — individual colors with patterns that reveal information about the object that emitted the light — we can distinguish between all the different types of flashes Roman will see,” said Rebekah Hounsell, an assistant research scientist at the University of Maryland-Baltimore County working at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland and a co-author of the study.

“With the dataset we’ve created, scientists can train machine-learning algorithms to distinguish between different types of objects and sift through Roman’s downpour of data to find them,” Hounsell added. “While searching for type Ia supernovae, Roman is going to collect a lot of cosmic ‘bycatch’ — other phenomena that aren’t useful to some scientists, but will be invaluable to others.”

Hidden Gems

Thanks to Roman’s large, deep view of space, scientists say the survey should also unearth extremely rare and elusive phenomena, including even scarcer stellar explosions and disintegrating stars.

Upon close approach to a black hole, intense gravity can shred a star in a so-called tidal disruption event. The stellar crumbs heat up as they swirl around the black hole, creating a glow astronomers can see from across vast stretches of space-time. Scientists think Roman’s survey will unveil 40 tidal disruption events, offering a chance to learn more about black hole physics.

The team also estimates Roman will find about 90 superluminous supernovae, which can be 100 times brighter than a typical supernova. They pack a punch, but scientists aren’t completely sure why. Finding more of them will help astronomers weigh different theories.

Even rarer and more powerful, Roman could also detect several kilonovae. These blasts occur when two neutron stars — extremely dense cores leftover from stars that exploded as supernovae — collide. To date, there has been only one definitive kilonova detection. The team estimates Roman could spot five more.

That would help astronomers learn much more about these mysterious events, potentially including their fate. As of now, scientists are unsure whether kilonovae result in a single neutron star, a black hole, or something else entirely.

Roman may even spot the detonations of some of the first stars that formed in the universe. These nuclear furnaces were giants, up to hundreds of times more massive than our Sun, and unsullied by heavy elements that hadn’t yet formed.

They were so massive that scientists think they exploded differently than modern massive stars do. Instead of reaching the point where a heavy star today would collapse, intense gamma rays inside the first stars may have turned into matter-antimatter pairs (electrons and positrons). That would drain the pressure holding the stars up until they collapsed, self-destructing in explosions so powerful they’re thought to leave nothing behind.

So far, astronomers have found about half a dozen candidates of these “pair-instability” supernovae, but none have been confirmed.

“I think Roman will make the first confirmed detection of a pair-instability supernova,” Rose said — in fact the study suggests Roman will find more than 10. “They’re incredibly far away and very rare, so you need a telescope that can survey a lot of the sky at a deep exposure level in near-infrared light, and that’s Roman.”

A future rendition of the simulation could include even more types of cosmic flashes, such as variable stars and active galaxies. Other telescopes may follow up on the rare phenomena and objects Roman discovers to view them in different wavelengths of light to study them in more detail.

“Roman’s going to find a whole bunch of weird and wonderful things out in space, including some we haven’t even thought of yet,” Hounsell said. “We’re definitely expecting the unexpected.”