Tonight, our ESA JUICE
mission will flyby Venus on it's way to Jupiter, following the successful resolution of a spacecraft anomaly that temporarily disrupted communication with Earth.

🔗 https://t.co/NA5ZbVAwMw

Giant worlds beyond the Solar System could be the probe we need to figure out how dark matter manifests in the Universe.

According to a new study, one particular dark matter model could see the mysterious mass accumulating in the cores of giant planets, collapsing into tiny black holes destined to consume the surrounding material over time.

If we can find evidence of the resulting planet-mass object, it might validate the existence of a hefty form of dark matter that doesn't destroy itself.

Ancient droplets found in meteorites reveal the history of planet formation.

About 4.5 billion years ago, Jupiter expanded quickly into the giant planet we see today. Its immense gravity disturbed the paths of countless rocky and icy objects, known as planetesimals, which resembled present-day asteroids and comets.

These disturbances led to violent collisions so energetic that the rock and dust inside the planetesimals melted, producing droplets of molten rock called chondrules. Many of these ancient droplets are still preserved within meteorites that fall to Earth.

In a new breakthrough, scientists from Nagoya University in Japan and the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF) have uncovered how these chondrules were created and used them to precisely date Jupiter’s formation.

Their research, published in Scientific Reports, reveals that the traits of chondrules, including their size and cooling rates in space, were shaped by the amount of water present in the colliding planetesimals. This discovery not only matches what scientists observe in meteorite samples but also confirms that the birth of planets directly drove the creation of chondrules.

The recent discovery of the third known interstellar object (ISO), 3I/ATLAS, has brought about another round of debate on whether these objects could potentially be technological in origin. Everything from random YouTube channels to tenured Harvard professors have thoughts about whether ISOs might actually be spaceships, but the general consensus of the scientific community is that they aren’t. Overturning that consensus would require a lot of “extraordinary evidence”, and a new paper led by James Davenport at the DiRAC Institute at the University of Washington lays out some of the ways that astronomers could collect that evidence for either the current ISO or any new ones we might find.

That evidence, known in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) circles as “technosignatures”, implies that a technological civilization crafted the objects making their way through our solar system. Technosignature searches don’t just happen for ISOs though - there are branches of SETI that look at everything from Dyson swarms around other stars to trying to find a hidden Monolith like that from 2001: A Space Odyssey somewhere on a moon in our solar system.

Since ISOs are still a relatively new discovery, despite their theorized existence for years, they are at the forefront of technosignature research. And the paper posits four different types of technosignatures astronomers might be able to find on one of them.

In a bold, strategic move for the U.S., acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy announced plans on Aug. 5, 2025, to build a nuclear fission reactor for deployment on the lunar surface in 2030. Doing so would allow the United States to gain a foothold on the moon by the time China plans to land the first taikonaut, what China calls its astronauts, there by 2030.

Apart from the geopolitical importance, there are other reasons why this move is critically important. A source of nuclear energy will be necessary for visiting Mars, because solar energy is weaker there. It could also help establish a lunar base and potentially even a permanent human presence on the moon, as it delivers consistent power through the cold lunar night.

Frozen water is one of the most abundant substances on Earth. It is found in glaciers, on mountain peaks and in polar ice caps. Although it is a well-known material, studying its properties continues to yield fascinating results.

An international study involving ICN2, at the UAB campus, Xi'an Jiaotong University (Xi'an) and Stony Brook University (New York), has shown for the first time that ordinary ice is a flexoelectric material.

In other words, it can generate electricity when subjected to mechanical deformation. This discovery could have significant implications for the development of future technological devices and help to explain natural phenomena such as the formation of lightning in thunderstorms.

Coral reefs are in crisis. Rising ocean temperatures driven by climate change are pushing these ecosystems to the brink, with mass bleaching events becoming more frequent and severe.

But what if nature already holds part of the solution?

New research led by UTS demonstrates that corals that naturally thrive in extreme environments, often referred to as "super corals," could be used in restoration efforts to protect vulnerable reef systems.

The research was published in the journal Science Advances and offers compelling evidence that these resilient corals can retain their heat tolerance even after being moved to more stable reef habitats.

For the first time, researchers have found that the number of electrical discharges on a spacecraft directly correlates to the number of electrons in the surrounding environment—information that could help scientists better understand how to protect equipment in space. Spacecraft environment discharges (SEDs) are transient electrical breakdowns that can damage sensitive onboard electronics and communication systems.

"We've long known that these SEDs exist," said Amitabh Nag, a scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory and lead author on a new paper detailing the research.

"But we haven't understood the relationship between the electrons in the space environment and SEDs. To do that, we needed two sensors on a single spacecraft: one that looked at the number and activity of electrons, and another that looked at the radio frequency signal."

What can the galactic habitable zone (GHZ), galactic regions where complex life is hypothesized to be able to evolve, teach scientists about finding the correct stars that could have habitable planets?

This is what a recent study accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysics hopes to address as an international team of researchers investigated a connection between the migration of stars, commonly called stellar migration, and what this could mean for finding habitable planets within our galaxy. This study has the potential to help scientists better understand the astrophysical parameters for finding habitable worlds beyond Earth and even life as we know it.

The rise of artificial intelligence (AI) has changed how people interact, but it also poses a global risk to human dignity, according to new research from Charles Darwin University (CDU).

Lead author Dr. Maria Randazzo, from CDU’s School of Law, explained that AI is rapidly reshaping Western legal and ethical systems, yet this transformation is eroding democratic principles and reinforcing existing social inequalities.

She noted that current regulatory frameworks often overlook basic human rights and freedoms, including privacy, protection from discrimination, individual autonomy, and intellectual property. This shortfall is largely due to the opaque nature of many algorithmic models, which makes their operations difficult to trace.

The black box problem
Dr. Randazzo described this lack of transparency as the “black box problem,” noting that the decisions produced by deep-learning and machine-learning systems cannot be traced by humans. This opacity makes it challenging for individuals to understand whether and how an AI model has infringed on their rights or dignity, and it prevents them from effectively pursuing justice when such violations occur.

“This is a very significant issue that is only going to get worse without adequate regulation,” Dr. Randazzo said.

“AI is not intelligent in any human sense at all. It is a triumph in engineering, not in cognitive behaviour.

“It has no clue what it’s doing or why – there’s no thought process as a human would understand it, just pattern recognition stripped of embodiment, memory, empathy, or wisdom.”

What did sauropods eat, and how far did they travel to meet their enormous food demands? An international team of researchers has reconstructed the feeding behavior of these long-necked dinosaurs by applying advanced dental wear analysis. Their study, published in Nature Ecology and Evolution, shows that microscopic wear patterns on tooth enamel can reveal unexpected details about migration, climate influences, and how different species shared ecological niches 150 million years ago.

The insecticide chlorpyrifos is a powerful tool for controlling various pests, making it one of the most widely used pesticides during the latter half of the 20th century.

Like many pesticides, however, chlorpyrifos lacks precision. In addition to harming non-target insects like bees, it has also been linked to health risks for much larger animals – including us.

Now, a new US study suggests those risks may begin before birth. Humans exposed to chlorpyrifos prenatally are more likely to exhibit structural brain abnormalities and reduced motor functions in childhood and adolescence.

Researchers at the University of California, Irvine have identified a previously unknown state of quantum matter. According to the team, this discovery could pave the way for computers that recharge themselves and withstand the extreme conditions of deep space exploration.

“It’s a new phase of matter, similar to how water can exist as liquid, ice, or vapor,” said Luis A. Jauregui, professor of physics & astronomy at UC Irvine and corresponding author of the new Physical Review Letters. “It’s only been theoretically predicted – no one has ever measured it until now.”

The phase behaves like a fluid formed by electrons and their counterparts, known as “holes,” which spontaneously pair together to create exotic structures called excitons. In a surprising twist, both electrons and holes rotate in the same direction. “It’s its own new thing,” Jauregui said. “If we could hold it in our hands, it would glow a bright, high-frequency light.”

Plastics that support modern life are inexpensive, strong, and versatile, but are difficult to dispose of and have a serious impact when released into the environment. Polyethylene, in particular, is the most widely produced plastic in the world, with more than 100 million tons distributed annually. Since it can take decades to decompose—and along the way can harm wildlife and degrade into harmful microplastics—its disposal is an urgent issue for mankind.

In 2017, European researchers discovered a potential solution. The larvae of wax moths, commonly known as wax worms, have the ability to break down polyethylene in their bodies. Wax worms have been considered a pest since ancient times because they parasitize beehives, feeding on beeswax. However, we now know that they also spontaneously feed on polyethylene, which has a chemically similar structure.