NASA's Juno spacecraft is set to get up close and personal with Jupiter's extreme volcanic moon on Saturday, December 30.

The orbiter will pass 930 miles (1,500 kilometers) above Io's scorching surface during this unprecedented close approach. According to NASA, this is the closest approach to Io by any probe in over two decades.

This close encounter is expected to yield a wealth of data, unlocking mysteries surrounding the moon's volcanic activity.

"By combining data from this flyby with our previous observations, the Juno science team is studying how Io's volcanoes vary,"

When you eat a large meal, your stomach sends signals to your brain that create a feeling of fullness, which helps you realize it's time to stop eating. A stomach full of liquid can also send these messages, which is why dieters are often advised to drink a glass of water before eating.

MIT engineers have now come up with a new way to take advantage of that phenomenon, using an ingestible capsule that vibrates within the stomach. These vibrations activate the same stretch receptors that sense when the stomach is distended, creating an illusory sense of fullness.

In a study appearing in Nature, the researchers showed that these compounds could kill methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) grown in a lab dish and in two mouse models of MRSA infection. The compounds also show very low toxicity against human cells, making them particularly good drug candidates.

A key innovation of the new study is that the researchers were also able to figure out what kinds of information the deep-learning model was using to make its antibiotic potency predictions. This knowledge could help researchers to design additional drugs that might work even better than the ones identified by the model.

Astrobotic, a leading space robotics company, declared that its Peregrine lunar lander has accomplished all integration milestones and has been successfully mated with United Launch Alliance's (ULA) Vulcan Centaur rocket payload adapter.

The announcement revealed that after a meticulous three-week campaign for fueling and final checkouts, the Peregrine spacecraft is prepared for a groundbreaking mission to the Moon set for launch on January 8, 2024.

The past year has given many of us reason to pause. We are losing in a race to prevent planetary tipping points — the climate is changing faster than expected, and humanity has already breached six of the nine sustainable planetary boundaries (for biodiversity loss; climate, freshwater and land-system change; biogeochemical flows; and novel entities). Summer Antarctic sea ice shrank to its lowest recorded extent in 2023, a year that is on track to be the warmest on record.

But, looking to 2024, [we're] hopeful that the world can turn in a better direction...

The researchers use chlorine and UV light to create a chain reaction that breaks down methane just like nature does but way faster.

A new approach called Methane Eradication Photochemical System (MEPS) developed by researchers at the University of Copenhagen can break down methane roughly 100 million times faster than nature. The team has now spun out a company that aims to make this technology available to society.