🧠 A brain floating in space — and it’s real
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope just released the sharpest images ever taken of nebula PMR 1, nicknamed the “Exposed Cranium” — because it looks almost exactly like a human brain inside a transparent skull.
PMR 1 is a planetary nebula — an expanding shell of ionized gas and dust expelled by a star in the final stages of its life, as the nuclear fuel in its core runs out.
Webb captured it in both near- and mid-infrared light. The images reveal a distinctive dark lane running vertically through the center, dividing the nebula into two lobes — just like left and right brain hemispheres. That eerie split is likely carved by twin polar jets blasting outward from the dying star at its core.
The central star is several times more massive than our Sun and is just a few thousand years from its ultimate fate — either a spectacular supernova or a quiet collapse into a white dwarf. Scientists aren’t sure yet which way it will go.
The nebula was first spotted by the Spitzer telescope back in 2013, but Webb’s more advanced instruments now reveal features that were previously invisible, making its brain-like structure stand out with unprecedented clarity.
The universe has a sense of aesthetics.
🔗 Source: https://science.nasa.gov/missions/webb/nasas-webb-examines-cranium-nebula/
#space #JWST #astronomy #nebula #science
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope just released the sharpest images ever taken of nebula PMR 1, nicknamed the “Exposed Cranium” — because it looks almost exactly like a human brain inside a transparent skull.
PMR 1 is a planetary nebula — an expanding shell of ionized gas and dust expelled by a star in the final stages of its life, as the nuclear fuel in its core runs out.
Webb captured it in both near- and mid-infrared light. The images reveal a distinctive dark lane running vertically through the center, dividing the nebula into two lobes — just like left and right brain hemispheres. That eerie split is likely carved by twin polar jets blasting outward from the dying star at its core.
The central star is several times more massive than our Sun and is just a few thousand years from its ultimate fate — either a spectacular supernova or a quiet collapse into a white dwarf. Scientists aren’t sure yet which way it will go.
The nebula was first spotted by the Spitzer telescope back in 2013, but Webb’s more advanced instruments now reveal features that were previously invisible, making its brain-like structure stand out with unprecedented clarity.
The universe has a sense of aesthetics.
🔗 Source: https://science.nasa.gov/missions/webb/nasas-webb-examines-cranium-nebula/
#space #JWST #astronomy #nebula #science
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Saturn’s winds are far deeper than we thought — and that changes everything 🌀
Saturn is famous for its extreme winds — reaching up to ~1,600–1,800 km/h.
But the real mystery wasn’t speed.
It was depth.
For decades, scientists didn’t know whether these jet streams were just shallow “weather”… or something much bigger.
Now, thanks to data from the Cassini–Huygens mission, we finally have an answer.
📊 New studies show that Saturn’s winds don’t just skim the surface —
they extend thousands of kilometers deep into the planet.
• Equatorial winds may reach depths of up to ~10,000 km
• High-latitude winds are shallower, but still massive
• Below the clouds, winds can even become stronger than what we see at the surface
Why does this happen?
Because Saturn isn’t like Earth.
🌍 Earth’s atmosphere is thin and sits on solid ground
🪐 Saturn has no solid surface, and its atmosphere blends into its interior
Add to that:
• intense internal heat
• rapid rotation (~10.7 hours per day)
• almost no friction
→ and you get a planet-scale engine of continuous motion
Even more fascinating:
these deep flows actually affect Saturn’s gravity field, which is how scientists detected them in the first place.
👉 English source:
Read the study overview
⸻
Saturn isn’t just a gas giant.
It’s a 10,000-km-deep storm system.
Imagine weather that doesn’t just happen in the sky —
but inside the planet itself.
#space #saturn #astronomy #science #cosmos
Saturn is famous for its extreme winds — reaching up to ~1,600–1,800 km/h.
But the real mystery wasn’t speed.
It was depth.
For decades, scientists didn’t know whether these jet streams were just shallow “weather”… or something much bigger.
Now, thanks to data from the Cassini–Huygens mission, we finally have an answer.
📊 New studies show that Saturn’s winds don’t just skim the surface —
they extend thousands of kilometers deep into the planet.
• Equatorial winds may reach depths of up to ~10,000 km
• High-latitude winds are shallower, but still massive
• Below the clouds, winds can even become stronger than what we see at the surface
Why does this happen?
Because Saturn isn’t like Earth.
🌍 Earth’s atmosphere is thin and sits on solid ground
🪐 Saturn has no solid surface, and its atmosphere blends into its interior
Add to that:
• intense internal heat
• rapid rotation (~10.7 hours per day)
• almost no friction
→ and you get a planet-scale engine of continuous motion
Even more fascinating:
these deep flows actually affect Saturn’s gravity field, which is how scientists detected them in the first place.
👉 English source:
Read the study overview
⸻
Saturn isn’t just a gas giant.
It’s a 10,000-km-deep storm system.
Imagine weather that doesn’t just happen in the sky —
but inside the planet itself.
#space #saturn #astronomy #science #cosmos
Science
Winds of Change on Saturn
At long last, scientists figure out which way the wind blows on gas giant
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🪐 Saturn’s moon Mimas looks like the Death Star — and it’s not a coincidence… or is it?
When Cassini–Huygens sent back detailed images of Mimas, the resemblance was impossible to ignore: it looks almost identical to the Death Star from Star Wars.
The defining feature is the Herschel Crater:
• ~130 km wide — about one-third of the moon’s diameter (396 km)
• crater walls rise up to 5 km
• central peak reaches ~6 km
Why it looks so much like a superweapon:
• nearly perfect circular shape
• slightly off-center placement
• creates a “dish-like” shadow
• heavily cratered icy surface → panel-like texture
• lighting conditions enhanced the dramatic contrast
Now the twist:
The Death Star appeared in 1977.
The first close-up images of Mimas came in 1980 (via Voyager 1).
George Lucas designed something that already existed — without ever seeing it.
Sometimes fiction doesn’t imitate reality.
It predicts it.
#Saturn #Mimas #Space #Science
When Cassini–Huygens sent back detailed images of Mimas, the resemblance was impossible to ignore: it looks almost identical to the Death Star from Star Wars.
The defining feature is the Herschel Crater:
• ~130 km wide — about one-third of the moon’s diameter (396 km)
• crater walls rise up to 5 km
• central peak reaches ~6 km
Why it looks so much like a superweapon:
• nearly perfect circular shape
• slightly off-center placement
• creates a “dish-like” shadow
• heavily cratered icy surface → panel-like texture
• lighting conditions enhanced the dramatic contrast
Now the twist:
The Death Star appeared in 1977.
The first close-up images of Mimas came in 1980 (via Voyager 1).
George Lucas designed something that already existed — without ever seeing it.
Sometimes fiction doesn’t imitate reality.
It predicts it.
#Saturn #Mimas #Space #Science
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🪐 A Rare Meteorite May Preserve Evidence of a Lost World from the Dawn of the Solar System
Scientists at the University of Colorado Boulder have uncovered what may be the strongest evidence yet for a vanished protoplanet — a planetary embryo that once orbited the young Sun more than 4.5 billion years ago before being destroyed in a catastrophic collision.
The clue comes from an unusual meteorite known as Northwest Africa (NWA) 12774, discovered in the Sahara Desert. It belongs to the angrites, one of the rarest meteorite groups ever found. Out of more than 80,000 known meteorites, only a few dozen are classified as angrites. These rocks formed during the earliest stages of solar system history, just a few million years after the Sun was born.
What makes NWA 12774 remarkable is its mineral chemistry. Researchers found clinopyroxene crystals enriched in aluminum — a signature that indicates formation under enormous pressure. Their calculations suggest pressures exceeding 17.5 kilobars, more than 17 times greater than the pressure at the bottom of the Mariana Trench.
Such conditions could not have existed inside a small asteroid.
The results imply that the meteorite’s parent body had a radius of at least 1,000 km. Because the crystals preserve delicate structures that would likely not survive deep burial, the original world may have been much larger — potentially approaching the size of the Moon and perhaps even Mars.
🔹 Evidence points to a planetary embryo at least 1,000 km in radius
🔹 Formation pressures exceeded 17.5 kilobars
🔹 Its composition differs significantly from Earth and Mars
🔹 It may represent a previously unknown pathway of planetary evolution
🔹 Fragments of similar lost worlds could still be hiding in meteorite collections
The study suggests that the early solar system was far more diverse than previously thought. Many planetary embryos likely formed, collided, merged, or were destroyed before the planets we know today emerged.
How many lost worlds helped build the solar system we live in?
📄 Original paper (Earth and Planetary Science Letters) · ScienceDaily
#astronomy #space #meteorite #planetaryscience #solarsystem
Scientists at the University of Colorado Boulder have uncovered what may be the strongest evidence yet for a vanished protoplanet — a planetary embryo that once orbited the young Sun more than 4.5 billion years ago before being destroyed in a catastrophic collision.
The clue comes from an unusual meteorite known as Northwest Africa (NWA) 12774, discovered in the Sahara Desert. It belongs to the angrites, one of the rarest meteorite groups ever found. Out of more than 80,000 known meteorites, only a few dozen are classified as angrites. These rocks formed during the earliest stages of solar system history, just a few million years after the Sun was born.
What makes NWA 12774 remarkable is its mineral chemistry. Researchers found clinopyroxene crystals enriched in aluminum — a signature that indicates formation under enormous pressure. Their calculations suggest pressures exceeding 17.5 kilobars, more than 17 times greater than the pressure at the bottom of the Mariana Trench.
Such conditions could not have existed inside a small asteroid.
The results imply that the meteorite’s parent body had a radius of at least 1,000 km. Because the crystals preserve delicate structures that would likely not survive deep burial, the original world may have been much larger — potentially approaching the size of the Moon and perhaps even Mars.
🔹 Evidence points to a planetary embryo at least 1,000 km in radius
🔹 Formation pressures exceeded 17.5 kilobars
🔹 Its composition differs significantly from Earth and Mars
🔹 It may represent a previously unknown pathway of planetary evolution
🔹 Fragments of similar lost worlds could still be hiding in meteorite collections
The study suggests that the early solar system was far more diverse than previously thought. Many planetary embryos likely formed, collided, merged, or were destroyed before the planets we know today emerged.
How many lost worlds helped build the solar system we live in?
📄 Original paper (Earth and Planetary Science Letters) · ScienceDaily
#astronomy #space #meteorite #planetaryscience #solarsystem
ScienceDaily
Meteorite reveals a lost moon-sized world from the dawn of the solar system
A rare meteorite has revealed evidence of a massive lost world that once orbited the young Sun before being destroyed in a catastrophic collision. The discovery suggests some early planets formed from dramatically different materials than Earth and Mars,…
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🪐 Astronomers Found Two Giant Planets Less Dense Than Cotton Candy
Astronomers have confirmed the existence of two of the puffiest planets ever discovered — gas giants roughly the size of Jupiter, but with densities so low they are less dense than cotton candy.
The pair, named TOI-791 b and TOI-791 c, orbit an F7-type star about 1,110 light-years from Earth in the southern constellation Volans. Their numbers are almost hard to believe: TOI-791 b has an average density of just 0.038 g/cm³, while TOI-791 c comes in at 0.047 g/cm³.
For comparison, Jupiter’s average density is about 1.33 g/cm³. Cotton candy is roughly 0.05 g/cm³. Earth is around 5.5 g/cm³.
That makes these planets not just “fluffy” by astronomical standards — they are among the lowest-density giant planets ever detected.
The discovery, published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, is especially valuable because the two planets appear to be locked in a rare 5:3 orbital resonance: for every five orbits of the inner planet, the outer one completes almost exactly three. This gravitational interaction slightly shifts the timing of their transits across the star, allowing astronomers to estimate their masses.
🔹 The planets were first spotted by volunteers in the Planet Hunters TESS citizen-science project
🔹 Confirmation required eight years of observations
🔹 Data from the ASTEP telescope at Antarctica’s Concordia Station were crucial
🔹 Each transit lasts more than 11 hours — unusually long for ground-based observations
🔹 Only a handful of systems are known to contain multiple super-puff planets
The leading idea is that these worlds may have relatively small cores surrounded by enormous hydrogen- and helium-rich atmospheres. But exactly how such diffuse planets form — and how they keep their atmospheres for so long — remains an open question.
Important caveat: these measurements come from transits and orbital timing effects, not from direct imaging. The densities are robust within the current model, but the planets’ true atmospheric composition will require follow-up observations — potentially with the James Webb Space Telescope.
Super-puff planets are strange because they sit at the edge of what our planet-formation models can comfortably explain.
If a giant planet can be less dense than cotton candy and still hold itself together, what else is out there that our theories have not yet learned to expect?
📄 Source: https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article-lookup/doi/10.1093/mnras/stag864
#exoplanets #astronomy #space #TESS #superpuffs
Astronomers have confirmed the existence of two of the puffiest planets ever discovered — gas giants roughly the size of Jupiter, but with densities so low they are less dense than cotton candy.
The pair, named TOI-791 b and TOI-791 c, orbit an F7-type star about 1,110 light-years from Earth in the southern constellation Volans. Their numbers are almost hard to believe: TOI-791 b has an average density of just 0.038 g/cm³, while TOI-791 c comes in at 0.047 g/cm³.
For comparison, Jupiter’s average density is about 1.33 g/cm³. Cotton candy is roughly 0.05 g/cm³. Earth is around 5.5 g/cm³.
That makes these planets not just “fluffy” by astronomical standards — they are among the lowest-density giant planets ever detected.
The discovery, published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, is especially valuable because the two planets appear to be locked in a rare 5:3 orbital resonance: for every five orbits of the inner planet, the outer one completes almost exactly three. This gravitational interaction slightly shifts the timing of their transits across the star, allowing astronomers to estimate their masses.
🔹 The planets were first spotted by volunteers in the Planet Hunters TESS citizen-science project
🔹 Confirmation required eight years of observations
🔹 Data from the ASTEP telescope at Antarctica’s Concordia Station were crucial
🔹 Each transit lasts more than 11 hours — unusually long for ground-based observations
🔹 Only a handful of systems are known to contain multiple super-puff planets
The leading idea is that these worlds may have relatively small cores surrounded by enormous hydrogen- and helium-rich atmospheres. But exactly how such diffuse planets form — and how they keep their atmospheres for so long — remains an open question.
Important caveat: these measurements come from transits and orbital timing effects, not from direct imaging. The densities are robust within the current model, but the planets’ true atmospheric composition will require follow-up observations — potentially with the James Webb Space Telescope.
Super-puff planets are strange because they sit at the edge of what our planet-formation models can comfortably explain.
If a giant planet can be less dense than cotton candy and still hold itself together, what else is out there that our theories have not yet learned to expect?
📄 Source: https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article-lookup/doi/10.1093/mnras/stag864
#exoplanets #astronomy #space #TESS #superpuffs
OUP Academic
ASTEP confirmation of a pair of long-period Jupiter-sized planets with extremely low densities transiting TOI-791
ABSTRACT. Gas giant planets with periods $20~\lt ~P~\lt ~300~\rm d$ orbiting Sun-like stars are a relatively uncommon outcome of planetary formation, and k
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🌌 We @science May Have Finally Figured Out Why the Universe Is Expanding…
The explanation is surprisingly simple.
Large language models operate using tokens. Every time a model generates a new response, it processes the accumulated context of the conversation.
As the dialogue grows, each new message adds more information — while the model must repeatedly process everything that came before. The total amount of processed information therefore grows almost geometrically within every conversation.
Now imagine that the Universe is actually one enormous artificial intelligence.
Every new star, planet, living organism, human thought, cat video, and online argument adds more tokens to the global conversation. The context keeps growing in geometric progression, so the system needs more and more space to process it all.
That is why the Universe is expanding.
Dark energy may have nothing to do with it. Someone simply forgot to click “Start a new chat.” 😅
#science #space #universe #AI
The explanation is surprisingly simple.
Large language models operate using tokens. Every time a model generates a new response, it processes the accumulated context of the conversation.
As the dialogue grows, each new message adds more information — while the model must repeatedly process everything that came before. The total amount of processed information therefore grows almost geometrically within every conversation.
Now imagine that the Universe is actually one enormous artificial intelligence.
Every new star, planet, living organism, human thought, cat video, and online argument adds more tokens to the global conversation. The context keeps growing in geometric progression, so the system needs more and more space to process it all.
That is why the Universe is expanding.
Dark energy may have nothing to do with it. Someone simply forgot to click “Start a new chat.” 😅
#science #space #universe #AI
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🔭 The Largest Eye on Earth Is Rising Above the Atacama
At an altitude of 3,046 metres on Cerro Armazones in Chile’s Atacama Desert, engineers are building the most powerful optical telescope ever attempted: ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope, or ELT.
Its primary mirror will span an astonishing 39 metres — far too large to manufacture as a single piece. Instead, it will function as one perfectly synchronised surface made from 798 hexagonal segments, each about 1.45 metres across. The ELT will collect roughly 100 million times more light than the human eye and more than all existing 8–10-metre-class telescopes combined, observing the Universe in visible and infrared light.
But size is only part of the story.
Earth’s turbulent atmosphere makes stars twinkle — beautiful to us, disastrous for precision astronomy. The ELT’s 2.4-metre adaptive mirror, M4, will be controlled by more than 5,000 actuators, reshaping its surface as often as 1,000 times per second to cancel atmospheric distortion and vibrations almost in real time.
The result could transform the search for life beyond Earth. The ELT will directly image some exoplanets, including potentially rocky worlds in nearby habitable zones, and examine their atmospheres for molecules such as water, methane, carbon dioxide and even oxygen.
First test observations are currently planned for March 2029, followed by the first scientific observations in December 2030.
What will it see first: an Earth-like world, the earliest galaxies — or something astronomers have not yet imagined?
#Astronomy #Space #ELT #Exoplanets #Science #Atacama
At an altitude of 3,046 metres on Cerro Armazones in Chile’s Atacama Desert, engineers are building the most powerful optical telescope ever attempted: ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope, or ELT.
Its primary mirror will span an astonishing 39 metres — far too large to manufacture as a single piece. Instead, it will function as one perfectly synchronised surface made from 798 hexagonal segments, each about 1.45 metres across. The ELT will collect roughly 100 million times more light than the human eye and more than all existing 8–10-metre-class telescopes combined, observing the Universe in visible and infrared light.
But size is only part of the story.
Earth’s turbulent atmosphere makes stars twinkle — beautiful to us, disastrous for precision astronomy. The ELT’s 2.4-metre adaptive mirror, M4, will be controlled by more than 5,000 actuators, reshaping its surface as often as 1,000 times per second to cancel atmospheric distortion and vibrations almost in real time.
The result could transform the search for life beyond Earth. The ELT will directly image some exoplanets, including potentially rocky worlds in nearby habitable zones, and examine their atmospheres for molecules such as water, methane, carbon dioxide and even oxygen.
First test observations are currently planned for March 2029, followed by the first scientific observations in December 2030.
What will it see first: an Earth-like world, the earliest galaxies — or something astronomers have not yet imagined?
#Astronomy #Space #ELT #Exoplanets #Science #Atacama
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🛰 We May Be Building Satellite Constellations Too Large for Earth’s Orbit
A new analysis suggests that some satellite megaconstellations could cross a dangerous threshold where collisions create debris faster than Earth’s atmosphere can remove it — potentially triggering a runaway increase in space junk.
The study introduces the idea of a “critical size” for a satellite constellation. Above that point, even if individual satellites follow good disposal practices and actively avoid collisions, the constellation as a whole may still generate an unstable debris environment. The model found that several planned, partially deployed and existing constellations exceed that threshold under some assumptions.
The scale of what is being proposed is enormous. The paper notes that the number of active satellites in low-Earth orbit increased by nearly 12,000 in just five years, while applications submitted to the U.S. FCC in 2026 included proposed constellations totaling more than 1.2 million satellites. That would be over 78 times the current operational satellite population cited by the study.
The feared endpoint is related to the Kessler syndrome: one collision produces fragments, those fragments cause more collisions, and eventually parts of low-Earth orbit become increasingly difficult to use safely.
The important caveat: this is a modelling study and currently a preprint, not peer-reviewed research. It does not predict that a catastrophic debris cascade is about to happen tomorrow. But it raises a bigger question: should regulators evaluate satellites one by one — or the cumulative risk of entire constellations?
Space may be enormous. Useful orbit around Earth is not.
#Space #Satellites #SpaceDebris #Astronomy #SpaceTech #Science
https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.29644
A new analysis suggests that some satellite megaconstellations could cross a dangerous threshold where collisions create debris faster than Earth’s atmosphere can remove it — potentially triggering a runaway increase in space junk.
The study introduces the idea of a “critical size” for a satellite constellation. Above that point, even if individual satellites follow good disposal practices and actively avoid collisions, the constellation as a whole may still generate an unstable debris environment. The model found that several planned, partially deployed and existing constellations exceed that threshold under some assumptions.
The scale of what is being proposed is enormous. The paper notes that the number of active satellites in low-Earth orbit increased by nearly 12,000 in just five years, while applications submitted to the U.S. FCC in 2026 included proposed constellations totaling more than 1.2 million satellites. That would be over 78 times the current operational satellite population cited by the study.
The feared endpoint is related to the Kessler syndrome: one collision produces fragments, those fragments cause more collisions, and eventually parts of low-Earth orbit become increasingly difficult to use safely.
The important caveat: this is a modelling study and currently a preprint, not peer-reviewed research. It does not predict that a catastrophic debris cascade is about to happen tomorrow. But it raises a bigger question: should regulators evaluate satellites one by one — or the cumulative risk of entire constellations?
Space may be enormous. Useful orbit around Earth is not.
#Space #Satellites #SpaceDebris #Astronomy #SpaceTech #Science
https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.29644
arXiv.org
Critical Sizes of Satellite Constellations
The precipitous growth of commercial space activity, largely from the development of satellite constellations, threatens to produce a runaway orbital debris population. National regulators are...
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🔴 A Rock From Mars Just Filled a 2-Billion-Year Hole in the Planet’s History
Scientists have dated an unusual Martian meteorite to 1.273 billion years old — placing it almost exactly inside a huge missing chapter in our geological record of Mars.
The meteorite, called NWA 13441, was discovered in Algeria in 2019. Most Martian volcanic meteorites of its type are either younger than about 600 million years or around 2.4 billion years old. Until now, researchers had essentially no samples from the enormous interval between them.
But its age may not even be the strangest part. The rock’s neodymium isotopes suggest that the magma it formed from came from a portion of the Martian mantle that had remained remarkably untouched since the earliest days of the Solar System. Mars formed very quickly and, unlike Earth, has no active plate tectonics constantly remixing its interior — potentially allowing ancient chemical reservoirs to survive for billions of years.
In other words, a small rock blasted off Mars by an impact and eventually found in the Sahara may contain a chemical fingerprint preserved from almost the beginning of the planet itself.
How much of Mars’s earliest history could still be locked inside rocks already lying somewhere on Earth?
#Mars #Space #Meteorite #PlanetaryScience #Geology #Science
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gca.2026.06.035
Scientists have dated an unusual Martian meteorite to 1.273 billion years old — placing it almost exactly inside a huge missing chapter in our geological record of Mars.
The meteorite, called NWA 13441, was discovered in Algeria in 2019. Most Martian volcanic meteorites of its type are either younger than about 600 million years or around 2.4 billion years old. Until now, researchers had essentially no samples from the enormous interval between them.
But its age may not even be the strangest part. The rock’s neodymium isotopes suggest that the magma it formed from came from a portion of the Martian mantle that had remained remarkably untouched since the earliest days of the Solar System. Mars formed very quickly and, unlike Earth, has no active plate tectonics constantly remixing its interior — potentially allowing ancient chemical reservoirs to survive for billions of years.
In other words, a small rock blasted off Mars by an impact and eventually found in the Sahara may contain a chemical fingerprint preserved from almost the beginning of the planet itself.
How much of Mars’s earliest history could still be locked inside rocks already lying somewhere on Earth?
#Mars #Space #Meteorite #PlanetaryScience #Geology #Science
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gca.2026.06.035
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🪐 Saturn Has Grown a Giant 10-Sided Storm Pattern
Saturn has been famous for decades for the enormous hexagon circling its north pole.
Now Hubble has discovered something even stranger at the opposite end of the planet: a vast decagon — a 10-sided atmospheric wave — surrounding Saturn’s south pole.
The structure sits roughly between 58° and 63° south latitude inside a jet stream moving at about 400 km/h. The decagon itself drifts much more slowly around the planet, at about 10 km/h, while its corners oscillate back and forth over periods of roughly a month. Multiwavelength Hubble observations show that the pattern extends through several atmospheric levels rather than existing as a superficial cloud shape.
What makes the discovery particularly intriguing is that it seems to be new. Cassini saw no comparable structure before its mission ended in 2017. Hubble data reveal faint hints beginning in 2023, with the ten-sided shape becoming increasingly distinct in 2024 and 2025. Astronomers may therefore be watching a giant planetary wave form almost in real time.
Scientists do not yet know why Saturn produces geometric atmospheric structures at all. Models suggest the decagon may be a huge wave trapped inside the jet stream, possibly triggered by an instability or a nearby vortex. But why the north settled on six sides and the south apparently chose ten remains unexplained.
Earth gets hurricanes.
Saturn apparently prefers geometry.
#Saturn #Hubble #Astronomy #PlanetaryScience #Space #Science
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aee4251
Saturn has been famous for decades for the enormous hexagon circling its north pole.
Now Hubble has discovered something even stranger at the opposite end of the planet: a vast decagon — a 10-sided atmospheric wave — surrounding Saturn’s south pole.
The structure sits roughly between 58° and 63° south latitude inside a jet stream moving at about 400 km/h. The decagon itself drifts much more slowly around the planet, at about 10 km/h, while its corners oscillate back and forth over periods of roughly a month. Multiwavelength Hubble observations show that the pattern extends through several atmospheric levels rather than existing as a superficial cloud shape.
What makes the discovery particularly intriguing is that it seems to be new. Cassini saw no comparable structure before its mission ended in 2017. Hubble data reveal faint hints beginning in 2023, with the ten-sided shape becoming increasingly distinct in 2024 and 2025. Astronomers may therefore be watching a giant planetary wave form almost in real time.
Scientists do not yet know why Saturn produces geometric atmospheric structures at all. Models suggest the decagon may be a huge wave trapped inside the jet stream, possibly triggered by an instability or a nearby vortex. But why the north settled on six sides and the south apparently chose ten remains unexplained.
Earth gets hurricanes.
Saturn apparently prefers geometry.
#Saturn #Hubble #Astronomy #PlanetaryScience #Space #Science
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aee4251
Science Advances
A decagon wave around Saturn’s south pole
Saturn has a unique long-lived, nearly stationary hexagon wave close to its north pole that is coupled to an intense eastward jet. Despite decades of observation, no similar wave has been reported so far in the southern hemisphere or elsewhere on Saturn.…
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🌌 Astronomers Found 84 Cosmic Objects We Somehow Missed for Decades
They were already sitting in NASA’s data.
We simply weren’t looking at the right kind of light.
Astronomers mining observations from the Chandra X-ray Observatory have uncovered 84 mysterious objects across six nearby galaxies, including Andromeda and the Pinwheel Galaxy. They appear to belong to a previously unrecognized population researchers are calling hypersoft X-ray sources.
The strange part is their spectrum.
Most bright X-ray binaries radiate strongly above 0.3 keV. These objects do almost the opposite: they appear primarily below 0.3 keV, right near the boundary between X-rays and extreme ultraviolet light. That makes them exceptionally difficult to see, because this radiation is easily absorbed by gas between the stars — and because standard astronomical surveys were not optimized to search this faint corner of the spectrum.
Some of the objects may contain white dwarfs, neutron stars or black holes feeding on companion stars. Their true energy output could be enormous, with much of it emerging as invisible extreme-ultraviolet radiation.
That matters for two big reasons.
Such systems could provide a previously hidden source of radiation capable of ionizing gas throughout galaxies. And some may be accreting white dwarfs — systems astronomers suspect can eventually become Type Ia supernovae, the stellar explosions we use as cosmic distance markers.
Researchers do not yet know exactly what these objects are. “Hypersoft source” currently describes what astronomers observe, rather than one confirmed type of star system.
But the discovery carries a wonderful scientific lesson:
Sometimes the Universe does not need a new telescope to reveal something new.
Sometimes you just need to ask an old telescope a question nobody asked before.
#Astronomy #Space #Chandra #Xrays #BlackHoles #Supernovae #NASA #Science
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-026-02959-7
They were already sitting in NASA’s data.
We simply weren’t looking at the right kind of light.
Astronomers mining observations from the Chandra X-ray Observatory have uncovered 84 mysterious objects across six nearby galaxies, including Andromeda and the Pinwheel Galaxy. They appear to belong to a previously unrecognized population researchers are calling hypersoft X-ray sources.
The strange part is their spectrum.
Most bright X-ray binaries radiate strongly above 0.3 keV. These objects do almost the opposite: they appear primarily below 0.3 keV, right near the boundary between X-rays and extreme ultraviolet light. That makes them exceptionally difficult to see, because this radiation is easily absorbed by gas between the stars — and because standard astronomical surveys were not optimized to search this faint corner of the spectrum.
Some of the objects may contain white dwarfs, neutron stars or black holes feeding on companion stars. Their true energy output could be enormous, with much of it emerging as invisible extreme-ultraviolet radiation.
That matters for two big reasons.
Such systems could provide a previously hidden source of radiation capable of ionizing gas throughout galaxies. And some may be accreting white dwarfs — systems astronomers suspect can eventually become Type Ia supernovae, the stellar explosions we use as cosmic distance markers.
Researchers do not yet know exactly what these objects are. “Hypersoft source” currently describes what astronomers observe, rather than one confirmed type of star system.
But the discovery carries a wonderful scientific lesson:
Sometimes the Universe does not need a new telescope to reveal something new.
Sometimes you just need to ask an old telescope a question nobody asked before.
#Astronomy #Space #Chandra #Xrays #BlackHoles #Supernovae #NASA #Science
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-026-02959-7
Nature
Hypersoft X-ray sources as a low-energy class of luminous cosmic emitter
Nature Astronomy - Hypersoft X-ray sources are found in an observational blind spot; they can be extremely luminous in the X-ray band and extreme ultraviolet, and are likely to be X-ray binary...
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Max-Planck-Gesellschaft
Astronomers produce the first complete picture of (gas) planet formation in action
We present new deep, very high angular resolution observations of the sub-mm continuum (19x13 mas) and 12CO (67x52 mas) emission from the disk surrounding the planet host WISPIT2. Our analysis reveals a clear gas gap carved by WISPIT 2b and an empty cavity…
🪐 Astronomers Just Watched a Planet Being Built
We know surprisingly well how planets should form.
The problem is that the crucial parts of the process happen hundreds of light-years away, on scales so tiny that astronomers have mostly had to reconstruct them from simulations and indirect clues.
Now they have caught the process in action.
Using Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, astronomers imaged gas moving around WISPIT 2b, a newborn planet about 430 light-years from Earth.
It is a monster in the making: roughly five times the mass of Jupiter, orbiting inside the disk of gas and dust from which its planetary system is still emerging.
And around the planet, the gas is doing something remarkable.
On one side of WISPIT 2b it is moving toward us; on the other, away from us.
Together, those motions reveal a swirl of gas around the growing planet — exactly the kind of interaction predicted by simulations of planet formation, but never directly observed around a known protoplanet before.
The system is unusually valuable because astronomers can now see essentially every major piece of the process at once:
the enormous protoplanetary disk, the planet itself, hydrogen emission showing that WISPIT 2b is still accreting material, the gap it has carved through the disk — and now the surrounding gas responding directly to the planet.
A second young planet, WISPIT 2c, is also reshaping the system by carving out a larger cavity. And at the center, astronomers recently discovered that there isn’t even one star.
There are two.
The scale of the observation is extraordinary.
At WISPIT 2’s distance, resolving a structure the size of Earth’s orbit around the Sun is roughly equivalent to reading a normal book from five kilometers away.
For decades, simulations have shown us beautiful animations of planets growing inside swirling disks.
Now nature has finally provided the footage.
We are beginning to watch solar systems assemble in real time.
#Space #Astronomy #Exoplanets #PlanetFormation #ALMA #WISPIT2 #Science
https://www.mpg.de/26990768/astronomers-produce-the-first-complete-picture-of-gas-planet-formation-in-action
We know surprisingly well how planets should form.
The problem is that the crucial parts of the process happen hundreds of light-years away, on scales so tiny that astronomers have mostly had to reconstruct them from simulations and indirect clues.
Now they have caught the process in action.
Using Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, astronomers imaged gas moving around WISPIT 2b, a newborn planet about 430 light-years from Earth.
It is a monster in the making: roughly five times the mass of Jupiter, orbiting inside the disk of gas and dust from which its planetary system is still emerging.
And around the planet, the gas is doing something remarkable.
On one side of WISPIT 2b it is moving toward us; on the other, away from us.
Together, those motions reveal a swirl of gas around the growing planet — exactly the kind of interaction predicted by simulations of planet formation, but never directly observed around a known protoplanet before.
The system is unusually valuable because astronomers can now see essentially every major piece of the process at once:
the enormous protoplanetary disk, the planet itself, hydrogen emission showing that WISPIT 2b is still accreting material, the gap it has carved through the disk — and now the surrounding gas responding directly to the planet.
A second young planet, WISPIT 2c, is also reshaping the system by carving out a larger cavity. And at the center, astronomers recently discovered that there isn’t even one star.
There are two.
The scale of the observation is extraordinary.
At WISPIT 2’s distance, resolving a structure the size of Earth’s orbit around the Sun is roughly equivalent to reading a normal book from five kilometers away.
For decades, simulations have shown us beautiful animations of planets growing inside swirling disks.
Now nature has finally provided the footage.
We are beginning to watch solar systems assemble in real time.
#Space #Astronomy #Exoplanets #PlanetFormation #ALMA #WISPIT2 #Science
https://www.mpg.de/26990768/astronomers-produce-the-first-complete-picture-of-gas-planet-formation-in-action
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🌌 The Ingredients for Planets Were Spreading Through Space Just 500 Million Years After the Big Bang
The newborn universe started simple.
After the Big Bang, almost everything was hydrogen and helium. Carbon, oxygen, silicon and nearly every other element needed to build planets — and eventually us — had to be manufactured later inside stars.
Astronomers expected that process to take time.
JWST has now shown that it happened remarkably fast.
Researchers analyzed nearly 30 hours of Webb observations of three galaxies seen as they existed roughly 500–700 million years after the Big Bang.
They found unmistakable chemical fingerprints of carbon, oxygen and silicon in gas associated with the galaxies.
But the really interesting part was where that gas was going.
The absorption signatures were blueshifted by roughly 50–250 km/s, indicating that metal-enriched material was moving outward from the galaxies — consistent with powerful galactic winds carrying newly forged elements into surrounding space.
That means an entire cosmic recycling system was already operating while the universe was only about 3% of its present age.
Stars formed.
They forged heavier elements.
Stellar winds and explosions returned those elements to their galaxies.
And galaxies began spraying them outward, chemically transforming the surrounding universe.
Remarkably, the chemical fingerprints look similar to those seen around galaxies billions of years later.
The result may also help solve another mystery.
Astronomers have spent decades searching for Population III stars — the hypothetical first generation of stars, made almost entirely from pristine hydrogen and helium.
None has ever been conclusively found.
If early galaxies contaminated their surroundings with heavier elements this quickly, the window in which truly pristine stars could form may simply have been much shorter than expected.
Important caveat: the result comes from only three unusually bright early galaxies. We don’t yet know whether such rapid enrichment was universal across the young cosmos.
Still, the implication is striking.
Only half a billion years after the Big Bang, the universe had already started distributing the carbon in our bodies, the oxygen in our water and the silicon beneath our feet.
Cosmic chemistry apparently wasted very little time.
#JWST #Space #Astronomy #Cosmology #BigBang #EarlyUniverse #Science
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-026-02988-2
The newborn universe started simple.
After the Big Bang, almost everything was hydrogen and helium. Carbon, oxygen, silicon and nearly every other element needed to build planets — and eventually us — had to be manufactured later inside stars.
Astronomers expected that process to take time.
JWST has now shown that it happened remarkably fast.
Researchers analyzed nearly 30 hours of Webb observations of three galaxies seen as they existed roughly 500–700 million years after the Big Bang.
They found unmistakable chemical fingerprints of carbon, oxygen and silicon in gas associated with the galaxies.
But the really interesting part was where that gas was going.
The absorption signatures were blueshifted by roughly 50–250 km/s, indicating that metal-enriched material was moving outward from the galaxies — consistent with powerful galactic winds carrying newly forged elements into surrounding space.
That means an entire cosmic recycling system was already operating while the universe was only about 3% of its present age.
Stars formed.
They forged heavier elements.
Stellar winds and explosions returned those elements to their galaxies.
And galaxies began spraying them outward, chemically transforming the surrounding universe.
Remarkably, the chemical fingerprints look similar to those seen around galaxies billions of years later.
The result may also help solve another mystery.
Astronomers have spent decades searching for Population III stars — the hypothetical first generation of stars, made almost entirely from pristine hydrogen and helium.
None has ever been conclusively found.
If early galaxies contaminated their surroundings with heavier elements this quickly, the window in which truly pristine stars could form may simply have been much shorter than expected.
Important caveat: the result comes from only three unusually bright early galaxies. We don’t yet know whether such rapid enrichment was universal across the young cosmos.
Still, the implication is striking.
Only half a billion years after the Big Bang, the universe had already started distributing the carbon in our bodies, the oxygen in our water and the silicon beneath our feet.
Cosmic chemistry apparently wasted very little time.
#JWST #Space #Astronomy #Cosmology #BigBang #EarlyUniverse #Science
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-026-02988-2
Nature
Early metal-enriched baryon cycling before the midpoint of cosmic reionization
Nature Astronomy - Deep JWST spectra of three galaxies seen within the Universe’s first 700 million years allow the detection of blueshifted, chemically enriched gas, providing evidence that...
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