Category: 7. Science

Whenever we study space, we’re usually talking about long-lasting objects, like our own solar system or faraway galaxies that occasionally catch our attention when something extraordinary happens. But sometimes, the universe sends us quick, random bursts of energy that are usually too far away and too ephemeral for scientists to make any sense of—like fast X-ray transients (FXTs), whose elusive origins have long evaded astronomers.

Recently, however, astrophysicists had a lucky strike: spotting an FXT flashing unprecedentedly close to Earth and for a marginally longer time than usual. Not only that, but the X-ray burst, later named EP 250108a, seemed to be a faint spillover signal—likely the result of a cosmic jet—that barely escaped the powerful gravitational binds of a supernova. 

Using multiple space telescopes around the world, an international team of astrophysicists from Northwestern University and the University of Leicester in England found compelling evidence that EP 250108a may have originated from the “failed” jets of a gamma-ray burst, likely triggered by the explosive death of a star around 2.8 billion light-years from Earth.

Their results—presented in two papers set for publication in The Astrophysical Journal Letters—offer some of the best evidence yet for at least one potential origin for fast X-ray transients (FXTs are distinct from fast radio bursts (FRBs), brief, extremely energetic bursts of radio waves with wavelengths much longer than those of X-rays).

When a star explodes in a fiery supernova, it swallows almost everything in its vicinity, eventually collapsing into a black hole. In this process of accretion, the star takes on an onion-like form, with different layers of gas, dust, and other cosmic material jostled around by gravitational forces. Some of this material escapes, usually in the form of jets that generate gamma-ray bursts, a class of the most powerful and luminous explosions in the universe. 

But sometimes, the outer layers of an “onion-shaped” supernova exert a strong gravitational barrier on the gamma-ray bursts. In the case of this FXT, the tiny bits of energy that managed to leak through probably created EP 250108a, explained Jillian Rastinejad, a PhD student at Northwestern University and lead author of the new paper, in a video call with Gizmodo. 

“As the jet is being launched, that extra material from the star that didn’t collapse into the black hole [interacts] with the jet in such a way that sort of suppresses the jet from actually breaking out of the outer layers,” she said.

Rastinejad and colleagues first spotted EP 250108a in January using data from the Einstein Probe, a collaborative project between China and Europe tasked specifically with the observation of FXTs and other “fleeting” cosmic phenomena. Einstein Probe detects on average “maybe one [FXT] every three days or so,” Rastinejad recounted, but some of her collaborators followed it up with optical telescopes and found that this particular transient was unusually close to Earth. 

“When something’s really nearby, it means that it’s going to be a lot brighter,” she explained. “So we can do a really detailed, beautiful, comprehensive, super exciting study of what else is going on at the location of the fast X-ray transient.”

“It’s always very exciting when there’s a transient object, just because it’s like there’s this sound of the record stopping, and you’ve got to stop what you’re doing and move over there,” said John O’Meara, deputy director and chief scientist at the W.M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii, during a video call with Gizmodo. 

Keck Observatory was one of several huge space telescopes Rastinejad and colleagues pointed toward EP 250108a, allowing the team to capture a high-resolution view of the ephemeral object before it fades to oblivion. 

Unlike most astronomical phenomena of interest to scientists—which lie on timescales that far exceed human lifespans—fast X-ray transients are part of the rare family of cosmic phenomena that evolve on a “human timescale,” Rastinejad said. 

“If you took a picture of our Milky Way today, and you took a picture of it maybe a thousand years ago, it would look the same,” she explained. “But if you studied one type of massive star like we studied here, it changes a lot in what it looks like across the wavelengths on very human timescales.”

“The universe keeps trying to tell us very interesting things,” added O’Meara. But the universe “doesn’t care what telescope you build, but [EP 250108a] is a good example of proving that we’re ready to rise to the challenge of whatever the universe wants to throw at us—and I hope we get to keep doing that into the coming decades.”

In fact, Rastinejad, who just finished defending her PhD thesis, already has her eyes on another odd signal from the universe. 

“Just a few days ago, [Einstein Probe] saw a fast X-ray transient that occurred in the same part of the sky at the same time as a signal from neutron star mergers,” she said excitedly. “Astronomy is like art. It doesn’t really affect our day-to-day lives. But it answers these questions that humans have always wondered about: where we come from and where we’re going.”

Proteins are the molecular machines that make life work. Each one in your body has a specific task—some become muscles, bones and skin. Others carry oxygen in the blood or get used as hormones or antibodies. Yet more become enzymes, helping to catalyse chemical reactions inside our bodies.

Given proteins can do so many things, what if scientists could design bespoke versions to order? Novel proteins, never seen before in nature, could make biofuels, say, or clean up pollution or create new ways to harvest power from sunlight. David Baker, a biochemist and recent Nobel laureate in chemistry, has been working on that challenge since the 1980s. Now, powered by artificial intelligence and inspired by living cells, he is leading scientists around the world in inventing a whole new molecular world.

Copper wires snake through every electric motor, power line, and rooftop solar panel on the planet. Demand for the metal is rising so fast that the International Energy Agency projects a 50 percent jump by 2040 in its net‑zero scenario.

A new study shows that some of Earth’s richest copper troves owe their existence not to ongoing subduction zones, but to the long‑lasting chemical aftershocks of a continental collision in southern Tibet.

The analysis includes contributions from Dr. Yongjun Lu of the School of Earth and Oceans at the University of Western Australia.

Copper demand is soaring

Copper’s unmatched ability to move electrons makes it the backbone of electric vehicles, heat pumps, and sprawling renewable‑energy grids. Two tons of copper may hide inside a utility‑scale wind turbine, while an electric car uses roughly three times more than a gasoline model.

More than half of the global resource sits in porphyry copper deposit clusters, gigantic ore bodies formed by mineral‑rich fluids rising from cooling magma. They are the workhorses of modern mining because a single district can run for decades.

Yet many prospective belts lie high in the Andes, Himalayas, or other remote ranges where exploration is costly and climate risks loom. Predicting which mountains hide ore and which hide barren rock has become an urgent economic puzzle.

Exploration teams scour trace‑element maps, but ore‑forming magmas can emerge tens of millions of years after an oceanic plate vanished. The Tibetan discovery uncovers why that delay happens, and how to spot it.

Ancient collision sparked copper deposits

The Gangdese Belt in southern Tibet holds more than 45 million tons of copper spread across Miocene‑age porphyries. Those deposits erupted between 18 and 13 million years ago, long after the Neo‑Tethys seafloor slid beneath Asia and broke off.

Researchers sampled igneous rocks spanning the entire subduction‑collision cycle. They grouped them into precollisional, syncollisional, and postcollisional suites, then tracked how each generation changed.

Both vanadium‑to‑scandium ratios and zircon oxygen‑fugacity indicators spiked in the post‑collision magmas. That jump signaled a surge of oxidized material, exactly what copper needs to stay dissolved until the magma reaches the shallow crust.

“This finding challenges the notion that only oceanic subduction introduces such oxidants into the mantle,” explained Dr. Lu.

Tracking copper’s rocky origin

To figure out where the extra oxygen came from, the researchers looked at chemical fingerprints left behind in the rocks.

They studied mercury isotopes, which hold onto their unique signature even after going through intense heat and pressure. In the post-collision rocks, that signature pointed to surface sediments, not deep mantle sources.

The team also examined magnesium isotopes in volcanic rocks called ultrapotassic lavas and found unusually light values. This kind of reading is a known sign of recycled carbonate material.

Together, the results showed that sediments from the Indian plate had sunk deep underground and played a major role in creating the copper-rich magma.

Mercury‑isotope work on porphyry systems elsewhere has reached similar conclusions, reinforcing the method as a global tracer of recycled surface material.

Crustal material fuels deposits

Carbonate layers from the Indian margin, rich in calcium and trapped CO2, rode the downgoing slab. At depths near 60 miles and temperatures above 1,600°F, those carbonates reacted with iron‑bearing mantle minerals.

The redox exchange turned ferrous iron into ferric iron, pushing the oxidation state of the mantle wedge higher.

Oxidized mantle melts can carry sulfur as sulfate instead of sulfide. That subtle chemical switch lets copper remain in solution rather than being locked away in early sulfide droplets. When the melt stalls in the mid‑crust, pressure drops and fluids separate, precipitating copper sulfides that build an ore shell.

“Think of it as a second wind for copper‑forming magmas, even after the oceanic plate is gone, recycled crustal sediments can continue to fuel metal‑rich systems for millions of years,” said Lu.

Finding copper from ancient collisions

Most exploration models steer geologists toward active volcanic arcs. The new Tibetan evidence widens the hunting ground to include fossil arcs sitting above former collision zones.

Provinces such as the Zagros in Iran or the Lesser Caucasus share similar histories of carbonate‑rich continental subduction.

“It changes the way we think about where and how to look for giant copper deposits and highlights the potential of post‑subduction settings, particularly those involving continent‑continent collision, as important frontiers for exploration,” noted Lu.

Mercury and magnesium isotope surveys no longer belong only in academic labs. They can flag hidden oxidized corridors before expensive drilling begins, saving both time and shareholder cash.

What it means for clean energy

Copper supply already trails projected demand. Without fresh discoveries, shortages could slow grid upgrades or inflate the cost of electric cars.

By demonstrating that continent‑continent collisions can keep ore‑forming magmas alive long after subduction halts, the Tibetan study offers practical hope.

Companies willing to brave high‑altitude logistics may unlock deposits that standard models overlook. Nations rich in orogenic belts gain leverage in critical‑minerals diplomacy, while resource-poor regions must double down on recycling and substitution.

The study shows that plate tectonics still shapes the economics of decarbonization, one oxidized magma batch at a time.

The study is published in the journal Science Advances.

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A new study suggests that our ancestors’ close cohabitation with domesticated animals and large-scale migrations played a key role in the spread of infectious diseases.

The team, led by Professor Eske Willerslev at the Universities of Cambridge and Copenhagen, recovered ancient DNA from 214 known human pathogens in prehistoric humans from Eurasia.

They found that the earliest evidence of zoonotic diseases – illnesses transmitted from animals to humans, like COVID in recent times – dates back to around 6,500 years ago, with these diseases becoming more widespread approximately 5,000 years ago.

The study detected the world’s oldest genetic trace of the plague bacterium, Yersinia pestis, in a 5,500-year-old sample. The plague is estimated to have killed between one-quarter and one-half of Europe’s population during the Middle Ages.

In addition, the researchers found traces of many other diseases including:

Malaria (Plasmodium vivax) – 4,200 years ago

Leprosy (Mycobacterium leprae) – 1,400 years ago

Hepatitis B virus – 9,800 years ago

Diphtheria (Corynebacterium diphtheriae) – 11,100 years ago

This is the largest study to date on the history of infectious diseases and is published today in the journal Nature.

The researchers analysed DNA from over 1,300 prehistoric humans, some up to 37,000 years old. The ancient bones and teeth have provided a unique insight into the development of diseases caused by bacteria, viruses, and parasites.

“We’ve long suspected that the transition to farming and animal husbandry opened the door to a new era of disease – now DNA shows us that it happened at least 6,500 years ago,” said Willerslev.

He added: “These infections didn’t just cause illness – they may have contributed to population collapse, migration, and genetic adaptation.”

The significant increase in the incidence of zoonoses around 5,000 years ago coincides with a migration to north-western Europe from the Pontic Steppe – that is from parts of present-day Ukraine, south-western Russia and western Kazakhstan. The people embarking on this migration – and who to a large extent passed on the genetic profile found among people in north-western Europe today – belonged to the Yamnaya herders.

The findings could be significant for the development of vaccines and for understanding how diseases arise and mutate over time.

“If we understand what happened in the past, it can help us prepare for the future. Many of the newly emerging infectious diseases are predicted to originate from animals,” said Associate Professor Martin Sikora at the University of Copenhagen, and first author of the report.

Willerslev added: “Mutations that were successful in the past are likely to reappear. This knowledge is important for future vaccines, as it allows us to test whether current vaccines provide sufficient coverage or whether new ones need to be developed due to mutations.”

The sample material was primarily provided by museums in Europe and Asia. The samples were partly extracted from teeth, where the enamel acts as a lid that can protect the DNA against degradation as a result of the ravages of time. The rest of the DNA was primarily extracted from petrosa bones – the hardest bone in humans – located on the inside of the skull.

The research was funded by the Lundbeck Foundation.

Reference

Sikora, M. et al: ‘The spatiotemporal distribution of human pathogens in ancient Eurasia.’ Nature, July 2025. DOI: 10.1038/s41586-025-09192-8

Adapted from a press release by the University of Copenhagen.

Discovered in 2007, Gliese 581c is the second planet discovered in the Gliese 581 system, and the third planet from its host star. The star is a red dwarf, the smallest type of hydrogen-burning star in the cosmos. While they have a lot less mass than the Sun and produce a lot less energy for any orbiting planets, these stars – also known as M-type stars – have been proposed as potential places to look for life.

Gliese 581c, with its mass of 5.5 Earths, is a class of planet called a “super Earth”. The planet, like companion planet Gliese 581d, briefly drew attention as it was first thought to be near the habitable zone.

“Planets Gl [Gliese] 581c and Gl 581d are near to, but outside, what can be considered as the conservative habitable zone,” a paper from 2007 explains.

“Planet ‘c’ receives 30 percent more energy from its star than Venus from the Sun, with an increased radiative forcing caused by the spectral energy distribution of Gl 581. This planet is thus unlikely to host liquid water, although its habitability cannot be positively ruled out by theoretical models due to uncertainties affecting cloud properties and cloud cover.”

While not exactly the most promising candidate for extraterrestrial life, you work with what you’ve got, and in 2008 the “Message from Earth” project decided to send a message towards the planet on the (tiny ^-10) off-chance there is somebody home. 

On October 9, 2008, the State Space Agency of Ukraine sent a message towards Gliese 581c. Unlike the Voyager records, whose messages were chosen by a committee chaired by renowned physicist Carl Sagan, the messages sent to the exoplanet were submitted by (among others) the users of defunct social network site Bebo, and put to a public vote.

In the final 501 images and pieces of text included in the message, there were images of famous Earthlings including Hillary Clinton and Britain’s inexplicable morning TV presenters Richard and Judy. Celebrities were involved too. X-Files star Gillian Anderson chose to send a picture of Barack Obama and George W. Bush Jr in order to “represent good and evil”, while the band McFly sent an image of Cheryl Cole to represent the Earthling “perfect body”. Other messages from the public, some on the theme of world peace and the meaning of life, were also sent to the planet.

Lying 21 light-years from Earth, the signal would take [counts on fingers] 21 years to get to the planet, arriving in 2029. Assuming that the aliens were evolved enough to have their own broadcast equipment, Bebo accounts, and extraterrestrial equivalent of McFly, the earliest we could expect a reply is in 2050.

More recent papers have been more optimistic about the potential habitability of the Gliese 581 planets.

“This study confirms that Gliese 581c is situated very close to the inner limit of Gliese 581’s [habitable zone], especially if the [habitable zone] limit for dry planets is considered. However, in that context, further studies including studies pertaining to the dry limit of super-Earths as well as planets in close proximity to M-dwarfs, would be needed to finally gauge the habitability prospects of Gliese 581c,” a paper on the topic explains.

“Another relevant aspect is the principal possibility of extremophiles. For those life forms, notable augmentations of [habitable zones] are expected to manifest, based on results given by, e.g., Rothschild & Mancinelli (2001) and Des Marais et al. (2008).”

Nevertheless, we wouldn’t hold our breath for a return message from aliens, even in 2050. In all likelihood, we have beamed a baffling selection of celebrities into the cosmos for absolutely nobody to see. Which, to be honest, is still pretty fun to think about.

Countries are currently negotiating a global treaty to end plastic pollution and make plastics safer and more sustainable. Plastic chemicals are a core issue because all plastics, from food packaging to car tires, contain hundreds of chemicals that can leach into foodstuffs, homes, and the environment.

Many of these are known to harm the health of humans and the environment. However, a comprehensive overview of these chemicals is currently missing, which limits society’s ability to protect people and planet from hazardous plastic chemicals.

A new peer-reviewed study published in Nature today provides a comprehensive and systematically compiled overview of all chemicals that can be present in plastics, their properties, uses, and hazards. It encompasses both chemicals intentionally added during production and contaminants detected in plastics. Importantly, the study provides a scientific approach for identifying chemicals of concern. This allows scientists and manufacturers to develop safer plastics and policy makers to promote a non-toxic circular economy.

The new study shows that there are more plastic chemicals than previously known, with 16,325 chemicals included in the PlastChem database that accompanies the work. Importantly, the scientists discovered at least 4,200 plastic chemicals are of concern because of the hazards they pose to health and the environment. These chemicals of concern can be present in each major plastic type, including in food packaging, and all tested plastics can release hazardous chemicals.

“Plastics should not contain harmful chemicals to begin with. Yet, the scientific evidence shows that they are intentionally used or unintentionally present in all types of plastics. This underpins the urgent need to make plastics safer,” said Martin Wagner, a lead author of the study and professor at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim.

The new study outlines three major pathways towards safer and more sustainable plastics: safer chemicals, transparency, and chemically simpler plastics. Known chemicals of concern should be removed from plastics, either by voluntary industry action or regulation. More transparency is needed, given that industry currently does not disclose which chemicals are present in which plastic product. Finally, plastics should be re-designed to contain fewer chemicals that are thoroughly assessed for their safety, particularly if they are to be reused or recycled.

“There is a lot of momentum to make plastics safer. Our study provides the scientific evidence needed to achieve that goal and better protect human health and the environment from chemicals of concern in plastics,” said Dr. Laura Monclús, a lead author of the study and researcher at the Norwegian Geotechnical Institute (NGI) in Trondheim.

Reference

Laura Monclús, Hans Peter H. Arp, Ksenia J. Groh, Andrea Faltynkova, Mari E. Løseth, Jane Muncke, Zhanyun Wang, Raoul Wolf, Lisa Zimmermann, Martin Wagner (2025). Mapping the chemical complexity of plastics, Nature, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09184-8 .

“This estimate shows that there is more plastic in the form of nanoparticles floating in the this part of the ocean, than there is in larger micro- or macroplastics floating in the Atlantic or even all the world’s oceans!”, said Helge Niemann, researcher at NIOZ and professor of geochemistry at Utrecht University. Mid-June, he received a grant of 3.5 million euros to conduct more research into nanoplastics in the sea and their fate.

Ocean expedition

For this research, Utrecht master student Sophie ten Hietbrink worked for four weeks aboard the research vessel RV Pelagia. On a trip from the Azores to the continental shelf of Europe, she took water samples at 12 locations where she filtered out anything larger than one micrometer. “By drying and heating the remaining material, we were able to measure the characteristic molecules of different types of plastics in the Utrecht laboratory, using mass spectrometry,” Ten Hietbrink says.

First real estimate

The research by NIOZ and Utrecht University provides the first estimate of the amount of nanoplastics in the oceans. Niemann: “There were a few publications that showed that there were nanoplastics in the ocean water, but until now no estimate of the amount could ever be made.” This first estimate was made possible, according to Niemann, by the joining of forces of ocean scientists and the knowledge of atmospheric scientist Dusân Materic of Utrecht University.

Shocking amount

Extrapolating the results from different locations to the whole of the North Atlantic Ocean, the researchers arrived at the immense amount of 27 million tons of nanoplastics. “A shocking amount,” Ten Hietbrink believes. “But with this we do have an important answer to the paradox of the missing plastic.” Until now, not all the plastic that was ever produced in the world could be recovered. So, it turns out that a large portion is now floating in the water as tiny particles.

Sun, rivers and rain

The nanoplastics can reach water by various routes. In part, this happens because larger particles disintegrate under the influence of sunlight. Another part probably flows along with river water. It also appears that nanoplastics reach the oceans through the air, as suspended particles fall down with rainwater or fall from the air onto the water surface as ‘dry deposition’.

Consequences

The consequences of all those nanoplastics in the water could be fundamental, Niemann emphasizes. “It is already known that nanoplastics can penetrate deep into our bodies. They are even found in brain tissue. Now that we know they are so ubiquitous in the oceans, it’s also obvious that they penetrate the entire ecosystem; from bacteria and other microorganisms to fish and top predators like humans. How that pollution affects the ecosystem needs further investigation.”

Other oceans

In the future, Niemann and colleagues also want to do further research on, for example, the different types of plastics that have not yet been found in the fraction of 1 micrometer or smaller. “For example, we have not found polyethylene or polypropylene among the nanoplastics. It may well be that those were masked by other molecules in the study. We also want to know if nanoplastics are as abundant in the other oceans. It is to be feared that they do, but that remains to be proven.

Not cleaning up but preventing

Niemann emphasizes that the amount of nanoplastics in ocean water was an important missing piece of the puzzle, but now there is nothing to do about it. “The nanoplastics that are there, can never be cleaned up. So an important message from this research is that we should at least prevent the further pollution of our environment with plastics.”

In 2018, NASA launched the Parker Solar Probe on a trajectory that would eventually have it dive into the Sun’s atmosphere (corona), getting seven times closer to our host star than any other spacecraft so far. In June 2025, the probe completed its 24th close approach to the Sun, whilst equaling its record for the fastest a human-made object has ever traveled, at a zippy 692,000 kilometers per hour (430,000 miles per hour).

The probe is aimed at studying the Sun’s atmosphere and will hopefully shed light on a few long-standing mysteries, such as how the solar wind is accelerated. One puzzle, first discovered in 1939, is that the Sun’s corona is far hotter than the solar surface. And not just by a little.

“The hottest part of the Sun is its core, where temperatures top 27 million °F (15 million °C). The part of the Sun we call its surface – the photosphere – is a relatively cool 10,000 °F (5,500 °C),” NASA explains. “In one of the Sun’s biggest mysteries, the Sun’s outer atmosphere, the corona, gets hotter the farther it stretches from the surface. The corona reaches up to 3.5 million °F (2 million °C) – much, much hotter than the photosphere.”

This is known as the “coronal heating problem”. The basic problem is this: why is the atmosphere far hotter than the surface, when the surface is much closer to the core, where energy is generated through the fusion of hydrogen into helium? 

There have been suggestions that the extra heat in the corona is caused by turbulence, or a type of magnetic wave known as “ion cyclotron waves”.

“Both, however, have some problem—turbulence struggles to explain why hydrogen, helium and oxygen in the gas become as hot as they do, while electrons remain surprisingly cold; while the magnetic waves theory could explain this feature, there doesn’t seem to be enough of the waves coming off the sun’s surface to heat up the gas,” Dr Romain Meyrand, author on the new paper, explained in a previous statement.

While both ideas have problems, together with a “helicity barrier”, they show some promise for explaining the coronal heating problem.

“If we imagine plasma heating as occurring a bit like water flowing down a hill, with electrons heated right at the bottom, then the helicity barrier acts like a dam, stopping the flow and diverting its energy into ion cyclotron waves,” Meyrand added. “In this way, the helicity barrier links the two theories and resolves each of their individual problems.”

Essentially, the helicity “barrier” alters turbulent dissipation, changing how fluctuations dissipate and how the plasma is heated. The team has now analyzed data from the Parker Solar Probe, and it appears to show evidence for the helicity barrier.

“The barrier can form only under certain conditions, such as when thermal energy is relatively low compared to magnetic energy. Since fluctuations in the magnetic field are expected to behave differently when the barrier is active versus when it is not, measuring how these fluctuations vary with solar wind conditions relevant to the barrier’s formation—including the thermal-to-magnetic energy ratio—provides a way to test for the barrier’s presence,” the team explains in their paper. 

“By analyzing solar wind magnetic field measurements, we find that the fluctuations behave exactly as predicted with changes in solar wind parameters that characterize these conditions. This analysis also allows us to identify specific values for these parameters that are needed for the barrier to form, and we find that these values are common near the Sun.”

Further analysis is necessary, but the approach looks fairly promising for explaining the problem.

“This paper is important as it provides clear evidence for the presence of the helicity barrier, which answers some long-standing questions about coronal heating and solar wind acceleration, such as the temperature signatures seen in the solar atmosphere, and the variability of different solar wind streams,” Dr Christopher Chen, study author and Reader in Space Plasma Physics at Queen Mary University of London, said in a statement.

“This allows us to better understand the fundamental physics of turbulent dissipation, the connection between small-scale physics and the global properties of the heliosphere, and make better predictions for space weather.”

While conducted on our own Sun (we are far from ready to plunge spacecraft into the atmosphere of other stars), the study has implications for other stars, and other parts of the universe, in other collisionless plasmas.

“This result is exciting because, by confirming the presence of the ‘helicity barrier’, we can account for properties of the solar wind that were previously unexplained, including that its protons are typically hotter than its electrons,” said Jack McIntyre, lead author and PhD student from Queen Mary University of London.

“By improving our understanding of turbulent dissipation, it could also have important implications for other systems in astrophysics.”

The study is published in Physical Review X.