Paris, France (SPX) Sep 01, 2025
Gaia, the European Space Agency's star-mapping mission, has redrawn our understanding of stellar communities in the Milky Way. After more than a decade of observations, the spacecraft revealed that clusters of stars are not isolated but instead linked in extended chains that stretch across vast galactic distances. Launched in 2013 and operating until early 2025, Gaia has already transforme

Tucson AZ (SPX) Sep 01, 2025
A team of astronomers has detected for the first time a growing planet outside our solar system, embedded in a cleared gap of a multi-ringed disk of dust and gas. The team, led by University of Arizona astronomer Laird Close and Richelle van Capelleveen, an astronomy graduate student at Leiden Observatory in the Netherlands, discovered the unique exoplanet using the University of Arizona's

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Sep 01, 2025
Rocky material buried deep within Mars has been traced to colossal impacts 4.5 billion years ago, according to new findings from NASA's retired InSight lander. The discovery points to lumps of mantle rock, some up to 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) wide, scattered beneath the surface. Scientists believe massive collisions melted large portions of early Mars into magma oceans while forcing fragmen

Berlin, Germany (SPX) Sep 01, 2025
A team led by Stockholm University has identified a young star surrounded by a disk unusually dominated by carbon dioxide, defying current theories of planet formation. Using the James Webb Space Telescope's MIRI instrument, the researchers found that water vapor is nearly absent in the disk, while carbon dioxide shows up strongly in regions where rocky planets could eventually take shape.

Paris (ESA) Sep 02, 2025
The European Space Agency-led Solar Orbiter mission has split the flood of energetic particles flung out into space from the Sun into two groups, tracing each back to a different kind of outburst from our star. The Sun is the most energetic particle accelerator in the Solar System. It whips up electrons to nearly the speed of light and flings them out into space, flooding the Solar System

London UK (SPX) Sep 01, 2025
Clues about the formation of Earth-like planets have emerged from the Butterfly Nebula NGC 6302, where astronomers used the James Webb Space Telescope and ALMA to probe its dusty heart. The combined observations revealed crystalline silicates, irregular dust grains, jets of iron and nickel, and even carbon-based molecules thought to be precursors of life. Lead researcher Dr Mikako Matsuura

Liverpool (AFP) Aug 31, 2025
Britain's energy operator is betting on an age-old technology to future-proof its grid, as the power plants that traditionally helped stabilise it are closed and replaced by renewable energy systems. Spinning metal devices known as flywheels have for centuries been used to provide inertia - resistance to sudden changes in motion - to various machines, from a potter's wheel to the steam eng

Tokyo, Japan (SPX) Sep 01, 2025
A research team led by Prof. Sun Youwen at the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has unveiled two artificial intelligence systems designed to enhance the stability and efficiency of fusion experiments. Their results appear in the journals Nuclear Fusion and Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion. Fusion energy promises clean, virtually inexhaustible powe

Troy NY (SPX) Sep 02, 2025
The Earth supports the only known life in the universe, all of it depending heavily on the presence of liquid water to facilitate chemical reactions. While single-celled life has existed almost as long as the Earth itself, it took roughly three billion years for multicellular life to form. Human life has existed for less than one 10 thousandth of the age of the Earth. All of this suggests

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Sep 01, 2025
Earths chemical make-up reached completion within the first three million years of the Solar Systems formation, according to a new study by the University of Berns Institute of Geological Sciences. However, this early Earth, known as the proto-Earth, lacked volatile elements such as water and carbon compounds that are essential for life. The findings, published in Science Advances, suggest