College Station, TX (SPX) Jan 21, 2026
A hundred years ago, quantum mechanics was a radical theory that baffled even the brightest minds. Today, it's the backbone of technologies that shape our lives, from lasers and microchips to quantum computers and secure communications. In a sweeping new perspective published in Science, Dr. Marlan Scully, a university distinguished professor at Texas A and M University, traces the journey

Berlin, Germany (SPX) Jan 21, 2026
A new theoretical framework from physicists at Heidelberg University connects two long standing views of how a single exotic particle behaves inside a quantum many body system of fermions. The work unifies descriptions of an impurity that moves through a Fermi sea and an impurity that is so heavy it is effectively fixed in place. In the standard quasiparticle picture, a lone electron or at

Tokyo, Japan (SPX) Jan 20, 2026
Electronic order in quantum materials often arises through intricate, non-uniform patterns that shift across space. A well-known example is the charge density wave (CDW), an ordered electronic state that forms periodic patterns at low temperatures. Although CDWs have been studied for decades, directly observing how their strength and spatial coherence evolve through a phase transition has remain

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Jan 26, 2026
Starfighters Space Inc has completed a dedicated wind tunnel campaign for its STARLAUNCH 1 air launched rocket, marking a key technical milestone in the development of the sub orbital vehicle. The program focused on validating how the rocket separates from the companys supersonic aircraft platform under a range of flight conditions. The test series examined STARLAUNCH 1 separation behavior

Berlin, Germany (SPX) Jan 26, 2026
Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, working with colleagues at the Centro de Astrobiologia in Spain, have identified the largest sulfur-bearing molecule yet seen in interstellar space. The compound, 2,5-cyclohexadiene-1-thione (C6H6S), was detected in the molecular cloud G+0.693-0.027 near the center of the Milky Way, about 27,000 light years from Earth. With a

Paris, France (SPX) Jan 26, 2026
Just as avalanches on snowy mountains begin with the motion of a small amount of snow, Solar Orbiter has revealed that a powerful solar flare can start from initially weak magnetic disturbances that rapidly escalate into a large-scale eruption. During a close approach to the Sun on 30 September 2024, the ESA-led Solar Orbiter spacecraft captured one of its most detailed views yet of a larg

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Jan 26, 2026
Space debris, the thousands of fragments of human made hardware abandoned in Earth orbit, can threaten people and infrastructure when it falls out of the sky and reaches the ground. Researchers at Johns Hopkins University and Imperial College London have now shown that existing networks of earthquake detecting seismometers can also detect and track falling space junk in near real time, offering

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Jan 26, 2026
Sweeping winds of vaporized metals have been detected in a massive cloud of gas and dust that dimmed the light of a distant star for nearly nine months, offering a rare view of late stage planetary system evolution. Astronomers obtained the observations with the Gemini South telescope in Chile, one half of the International Gemini Observatory, which is partly funded by the U.S. National Science

Tokyo, Japan (SPX) Jan 26, 2026
Modern cells rely on intricate molecular machinery and genetic programs to grow and divide, but the earliest protocells were likely simple lipid-bound compartments whose behavior depended mainly on their physical and chemical properties. A new experimental study suggests that subtle differences in membrane composition could have helped these primitive compartments grow, fuse, and hold on to gene

Tokyo, Japan (SPX) Jan 26, 2026
China is preparing to bring into operation its first offshore platform purpose built for testing, launching and recovering reusable liquid propellant rockets, with the goal of lowering access costs to orbit and expanding commercial launch capacity. The new facility is located at the Oriental Aerospace Port in Haiyang in east China s Shandong province, currently the country s only dedicated