https://phys.org/ en-us Phys.org internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. NASA's Juno mission has provided the first measurements of the temperature below the surface of Jupiter's moon Io, revealing significant heating within the shallow subsurface of the most volcanically active world in the solar system. Collected during two close flybys, the data also show that most of Io's surface is remarkably smooth and composed of material with very low density. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-juno-temperature-jupiter-fiery-moon.html Planetary Sciences Wed, 22 Jul 2026 13:07:19 EDT news703943161 Observations made with the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (ESO's VLT) have revealed evidence for a moon-like object in the CD-35 2722 system. Unlike moons in our solar system, the newly found object does not orbit a planet, raising questions about what to name it. Instead, it circles a brown dwarf, an object larger than a planet, that orbits the CD-35 2722 star. If confirmed, this could be the first "moon" discovered outside our solar system. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-jupiter-mass-exomoon-orbiting-brown.html Astronomy Wed, 22 Jul 2026 11:00:03 EDT news703842182 On Aug. 5, 2026, an abandoned piece of space junk is predicted to crash into the moon near a spot called Einstein Crater. Astronomers will be watching because the collision and aftermath may be visible from Earth. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-spacex-rocket-moon-scientists.html Space Exploration Tue, 21 Jul 2026 12:50:01 EDT news703856818 The moon has been bathed in solar wind for billions of years, but the two hemispheres are struck by solar wind of different speeds and energies. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-samples-reveal-earth-solar-moon.html Planetary Sciences Sun, 19 Jul 2026 15:00:02 EDT news703506046 The spacecraft aced its encounter with Mars. Now, mission scientists are studying a trove of data from the flyby in preparation for its arrival at asteroid Psyche in 2029. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-nasa-psyche-mission-mars-flyby.html Planetary Sciences Sat, 18 Jul 2026 14:51:26 EDT news703605061 Scientists have painted the most detailed portrait yet of the planetary system orbiting Barnard's Star—the sun's closest neighbor after Alpha Centauri, just under six light-years from Earth. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-astronomers-nearby-planets-small-strange.html Astrobiology Wed, 15 Jul 2026 15:20:01 EDT news703340046 A Southwest Research Institute-led study has proposed a connection between a specific collision in the main asteroid belt and an inner-solar-system-wide bombardment episode that may have had measurable biological and geological consequences on Earth. The research suggests that the catastrophic breakup of the Eulalia parent body could be linked to an impact shower that struck the terrestrial planets about 800 million years ago. The work is published on the arXiv preprint server. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-asteroid-breakup-solar-bombardment-million.html Planetary Sciences Wed, 15 Jul 2026 15:00:12 EDT news703338887 Studies published in prestigious academic journals receive more attention from scholars and media outlets, shaping public discourse and potentially accelerating academic careers. While the path to publication is often murky, a new analysis of more than 110,000 papers submitted to Science and Science Advances—two leading journals published by the world's largest general science association—reveals that Western scientists, larger teams, top-ranked universities and select regions have slight advantages in acceptance rates. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-reveals-editorial-trends-science-journals.html Education Wed, 15 Jul 2026 14:00:30 EDT news703325741 Ocean tides push upstream along coastal rivers, in some cases reaching hundreds of kilometers (hundreds of miles) inland. These inland stretches are known as tidal rivers, and they're the scene of complex interactions between the river current and tidal oscillations. When rivers flood, tidal dynamics can sometimes add to a river's height, increasing overall peak water levels and amplifying flooding. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-tides-river-combine-amplify.html Earth Sciences Tue, 14 Jul 2026 17:20:03 EDT news703250317 New research by lunar scientists from Brown University provides critical new insights into the thickness of the moon's regolith, the layer of loose dust and rock that drapes the entire lunar surface. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-eye-exploration-moon-regolith-thickness.html Planetary Sciences Tue, 14 Jul 2026 17:00:09 EDT news703263513 How do black holes at the centers of galaxies form and grow over time? To answer this question, scientists need to detect and study supermassive black holes at great distances that existed much earlier in the universe's history. New research suggests NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, which is on track to launch Aug. 30, 2026, will be able to detect these distant, ancient black holes that existed up to 11 billion years ago. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-roman-telescope-distant-black-holes.html Astronomy Tue, 14 Jul 2026 15:20:06 EDT news703254967 Evidence of the slowing of Charon's spin period (despinning) is recorded in tectonic features on the surface of Pluto's icy moon, according to a modeling study published in Nature Communications. The findings offer insights into the early thermal evolution of Charon and other icy satellites in the outer solar system. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-pluto-moon-charon.html Planetary Sciences Tue, 14 Jul 2026 13:38:00 EDT news703255062 The expense of launching cargo into space will plummet over the next few years, with the cost of reaching orbit forecast to more than halve between now and the end of the decade, and fall by around 93% by 2040, according to new Cambridge-led research. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-space-cargo-fall.html Space Exploration Tue, 14 Jul 2026 07:35:02 EDT news703233247 More than a century after Albert Einstein first transformed our understanding of gravity, his general theory of relativity continues to withstand ever more demanding experimental tests. Now, an international team led by Ignazio Ciufolini at the Chinese Academy of Sciences has carried out the most precise measurement yet of one of the theory's most subtle predictions: the dragging of spacetime caused by Earth's rotation. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-validate-einstein.html Astronomy Tue, 14 Jul 2026 07:30:01 EDT news703154341 Researchers at the University of Warwick and the University of Colorado Boulder have directly observed, for the first time, four white dwarfs in binary star systems in our nearby region of space. These stellar binaries are all within 65 light-years of Earth, and one contains the ninth-closest white dwarf to the sun. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-dead-stars-cosmic-backyard-astronomers.html Astronomy Mon, 13 Jul 2026 20:00:01 EDT news703143636 A giant mirror to create "sunlight on demand" was just approved by the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC), despite opposition from astronomers and the public, and real safety concerns. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-giant-space-mirror-sunlight-demand.html Space Exploration Mon, 13 Jul 2026 11:07:02 EDT news703159573 A team at the Applied Physics Lab is working to understand the complex science behind predicting invisible threats that can quickly cripple electric grid infrastructure on Earth. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-solar-storms-million-miles-earth.html Earth Sciences Fri, 10 Jul 2026 11:20:05 EDT news702896122 Ever so slightly bigger than Earth, the exoplanet LHS 3844b orbits its parent star, LHS 3844, a red dwarf 48.5 light-years from our solar system. Its rotational speed mirrors its orbital speed. The result? One side of LHS 3844b is perpetually bathed in scorching sunlight, locked into a never-ending, blistering hot day, while the other is forever shrouded in darkness so cold that particles are incapable of movement, a state known as absolute zero (zero Kelvin). https://phys.org/news/2026-07-exoplanets-eternal-day-endless-night.html Astrobiology Fri, 10 Jul 2026 11:00:05 EDT news702896075 A new Southwest Research Institute-led study proposes a solution to a longstanding puzzle in planetary science: What caused the concentration, assembly, and preservation of millimeter-sized, spherical mineral grains within the parent bodies of the most common meteorites? The work is published in the journal Science Advances. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-primordial-mini-moons-meteorite-composition.html Planetary Sciences Wed, 08 Jul 2026 18:20:01 EDT news702746073 Scientists from Queen's University Belfast have led an international team in the discovery of a rare new planet, which is larger than Jupiter and orbits a distant star every 180 days. Named NGTS-38 b, it is an exoplanet—a planet that orbits a star beyond our solar system. It is about 8% larger than Jupiter and almost five times more massive. Planets of this size and mass are often referred to as "super-Jupiters." https://phys.org/news/2026-07-scientists-rare-super-jupiter-planet.html Astronomy Wed, 08 Jul 2026 16:40:02 EDT news702737535 Building material samples from the University of Delaware spent six months mounted outside the International Space Station, where the harsh conditions of low Earth orbit tested their limits. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-lab-moon-lunar-cement-alternative.html Space Exploration Wed, 08 Jul 2026 13:00:03 EDT news702724623 Day will briefly turn into night across a swath of northern Spain on Aug. 12, when the moon will completely cover the sun during a rare total solar eclipse. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-total-solar-eclipse-due-august.html Space Exploration Wed, 08 Jul 2026 04:30:01 EDT news702702142 Following its longest hibernation period ever of nearly a year, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft has emerged in good health and is ready to begin transmitting science data gathered in the distant Kuiper Belt far beyond Pluto. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-nasa-horizons-spacecraft-hibernation-good.html Space Exploration Tue, 07 Jul 2026 21:00:02 EDT news702655742 When it comes to the search for life elsewhere in the universe, methane and other chemical compounds are seen as signs of biology because they are often produced by living microbes. However, scientists can be misled because certain geological processes can produce chemical signatures identical to those of living organisms. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-baseline-tool-alien-life-geology.html Astrobiology Tue, 07 Jul 2026 13:30:01 EDT news702646858 A new Southwest Research Institute-led study compared eight AI-generated lunar crater catalogs, discovering that many of their published performance metrics drop sharply when the databases are evaluated using the same scientific standards humans are held to. Crater catalogs provide a comprehensive record of impact craters on planetary surfaces. They log the precise location, dimensions and physical characteristics of impact structures to help scientists understand the geological history of the solar system and its components. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-discrepancies-ai-lunar-crater.html Planetary Sciences Mon, 06 Jul 2026 12:40:01 EDT news702552476 In May 2018, the island of Mayotte, between Madagascar and Mozambique, began to experience a series of earthquakes that led to the discovery of an underwater volcano, now called Fani Maoré. Multiple scientific expeditions followed, taking samples of the recently erupted lava. When a team of researchers analyzed 13 samples from Fani Maoré and eight additional samples from eastern Mayotte, they discovered remnants of a mineral called bridgmanite that they believe came from Earth's earliest geologic time period, the Hadean eon. Their findings were recently published in Nature. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-earth-primordial-magma-ocean-lava.html Earth Sciences Mon, 06 Jul 2026 12:00:06 EDT news702553633 Rare images taken by a Japanese space probe during a flyby of a near-Earth asteroid have revealed that the space rock resembled a snowman, scientists said Monday. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-japan-snowman-asteroid-image-flyby.html Space Exploration Mon, 06 Jul 2026 11:10:11 EDT news702554975 China's Tianwen-2 space probe, which is set to bring back samples from an asteroid for research, has reached its target after traveling 1 billion kilometers (620 million miles) over more than a year, the Chinese space agency said Monday. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-china-space-probe-asteroid-billion.html Planetary Sciences Mon, 06 Jul 2026 04:17:17 EDT news702530194 For the first time, NASA's TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) mission has identified a planet orbiting a distant star thanks to its warping of space-time. Unlike the star-hugging transiting planets TESS regularly reveals, the newfound microlensing world is a super-Jupiter orbiting far from its host star. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-tess-planet-years.html Astronomy Wed, 01 Jul 2026 15:21:57 EDT news702138094 As humans, our eyes take in two-dimensional images that our brains convert to three-dimensional experiences. This ability enables us to be aware of our position in space, judge distances, possess depth perception, and visually examine and enjoy all manner of objects and happenings. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-d-scientists-ai-tool-complex.html Biotechnology Wed, 01 Jul 2026 15:00:03 EDT news702125822