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. What, exactly, is a plant made of? Scientists have a good understanding of the essential nutrients plants need to grow. But what plants need and what they contain are not necessarily the same. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-global-database-fuller-picture-elements.html Biochemistry Thu, 22 Oct 2026 18:20:11 EDT news711903362 In this Picture of the Month from the NASA/ESA James Webb Space Telescope, we visit a turbulent cauldron of star formation to see what is brewing inside dense clumps of gas. This is a star-forming region named LHA 120-N 159, or simply N159, located 161,000 light-years away in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), one of the satellite galaxies orbiting the Milky Way galaxy. This image spans about 230 light-years across. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-webb-image-reveals-young-stars.html Astronomy Thu, 22 Oct 2026 13:40:01 EDT news711892283 Technion researchers have presented evidence for the existence of solar-storm-like outbursts near supermassive black holes, which can be a million times larger than the sun or more. The phenomenon was discovered in the vicinity of the black hole in the galaxy NGC 3783, and the researchers' findings were published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-black-hole-uncover-evidence-solar.html Astronomy Thu, 22 Oct 2026 11:03:31 EDT news711885705 A new study suggests that some of the heaviest rocky planets ever reported may not be as heavy as they look. These so-called 'mega-Earths,' rocky planets weighing more than about 10 Earths, could be an illusion created by activity on their host stars. The paper was posted to the arXiv preprint server on Oct. 8. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-mega-earths-real-stellar-oversized.html Planetary Sciences Thu, 22 Oct 2026 09:50:01 EDT news711879490 An international team of researchers, including members from the University of Michigan, has revealed surprising results that could rewrite our understanding of a key transition in the early universe. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-hubble-supernova-role-cosmic-reionization.html Astronomy Wed, 21 Oct 2026 13:20:15 EDT news711800461 Earthquakes and the seismic waves they generate provide some of the best clues to Earth's interior. To extend that success to other worlds, scientists placed seismometers on the Apollo missions to the moon and on the Viking Mars landers, which reached Mars in 1976. Though the Apollo detectors proved a resounding success, Viking's results on Mars were less clear: Viking 1's seismometer failed to deploy properly, and Viking 2 recorded only two ambiguous events. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-reexamined-viking-reveals-marsquake-region.html Planetary Sciences Wed, 21 Oct 2026 12:40:06 EDT news711799802 A new study led by researchers at the Konkoly Observatory of the HUN-REN Research Centre for Astronomy and Earth Sciences (HUN-REN CSFK) in Budapest has revealed what makes a distant red giant star the most explosively active in the entire Kepler field—and the answer lies in a surprisingly subtle interplay between a close stellar companion, vast dark starspots and a highly efficient internal magnetic dynamo. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-astronomers-uncover-powerful-stellar-flares.html Astronomy Wed, 21 Oct 2026 09:20:06 EDT news711791342 The Orionids—one of two major meteor showers caused by remnants from Halley's Comet—will peak this week, though a large moon will dim visibility until after it sets late at night. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-orionid-meteor-shower.html Space Exploration Tue, 20 Oct 2026 14:30:01 EDT news711722869 Pulsars are rapidly rotating neutron stars, the extremely dense cores left behind when massive stars explode. Astrophysicists have recently observed a pulsar rotating over 300 times per second that appeared to be slowing down unusually quickly. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-pulsar-apparent-slowdown-reveals-rare.html Astronomy Tue, 20 Oct 2026 14:20:10 EDT news711713533 NASA researchers are developing the future of flight on Mars, laying the groundwork for helicopters with the ability to fly higher and farther while conducting science on the Red Planet. Using high-fidelity computer simulations and wind tunnel tests, engineers are reimagining the rotorcraft blades that could carry the next generation of Mars flyers. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-nasa-experimental-mars-helicopter-blade.html Space Exploration Tue, 20 Oct 2026 13:50:01 EDT news711720660 Scientists at Columbia University and Imperial College London have found that the largest canyon system in the solar system is still active and shaping Mars today, billions of years after it first formed. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-giant-canyon-mars-tectonically-today.html Planetary Sciences Tue, 20 Oct 2026 09:20:36 EDT news711705481 A Japanese spacecraft rocketed toward Mars on Tuesday on a quest to explore its mysterious moons and bring back samples. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-japan-spacecraft-mysterious-moons-mars.html Space Exploration Tue, 20 Oct 2026 05:40:13 EDT news711693525 Japanese scientists are readying a mission to Mars' moons to retrieve samples that could help unlock the origins of the solar system and life on Earth, in what aims to be the first round trip to the Martian region. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-japan-historic-mission-mars-moon.html Space Exploration Sun, 18 Oct 2026 16:20:01 EDT news711555681 Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) researchers are developing three-dimensional simulations to examine how a nuclear device could be used to deflect or potentially disrupt an asteroid threatening Earth. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-simulations-explore-nuclear-mitigation-asteroid.html Planetary Sciences Sat, 17 Oct 2026 15:00:05 EDT news711191693 The ocean beneath Saturn's moon Enceladus lies under kilometers of ice, but some of its contents do reach the surface. Jets near the south pole spray out water vapor and icy particles, offering a way to investigate the hidden ocean without drilling down to it. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-salt-crystals-clues-life-beneath.html Astrobiology Sat, 17 Oct 2026 11:40:01 EDT news711288914 A University of Missouri astronomer is leading a team of 130 researchers from 62 institutions—including NASA, the California Institute of Technology, Princeton University and Harvard University—on an ambitious mission to capture an unprecedented view of the early universe. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-astronomer-global-team-nasa-mission.html Astronomy Fri, 16 Oct 2026 19:20:01 EDT news711376043 A phenomenon rarer than a solar eclipse and more powerful than any single storm system is unfolding this fall, and NASA is tracking it closely. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-nasa-satellites-historic-el-nio.html Earth Sciences Fri, 16 Oct 2026 12:44:08 EDT news711373385 On May 10, 2025, a spacecraft built in the Soviet Union to land on Venus came home. Launched in 1972, Cosmos-482 was stranded by a failed upper stage of its rocket and circled Earth for 53 years. In its last days, several space agencies and research groups forecasted when it would fall, and therefore where. Roscosmos later reported that it came down in the Indian Ocean, west of Jakarta. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-air-deep-uncontrolled-satellites-rocket.html Space Exploration Fri, 16 Oct 2026 10:40:12 EDT news711280994 Astronomers have used NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory to break down the cause of a remarkable formation of radio waves they have nicknamed the "Treble Clef" because its distinct shape strongly resembles the musical symbol. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-chandra-treble-clef-galaxy-cluster.html Astronomy Thu, 15 Oct 2026 12:20:14 EDT news711283870 If you've ever had your car start sluggishly, or not at all, on a particularly frigid winter morning, you know standard batteries do not like extreme cold. That's why NASA researchers are working to develop a battery that could function in the brutal cold of the moon's south pole, where nighttime temperatures plunge to minus 328 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 200 degrees Celsius). https://phys.org/news/2026-10-nasa-batteries-power-humanity-moon.html Space Exploration Wed, 14 Oct 2026 19:40:02 EDT news711213681 A new ice sheet model developed by glaciologists at the University of California, Irvine and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory projects that the melting of Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica will contribute up to 30 millimeters (1.2 inches) of sea level rise by 2100—twice previous estimates—even without additional climate warming. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-thwaites-glacier-contribute-sea-previously.html Earth Sciences Tue, 13 Oct 2026 17:50:01 EDT news711130141 Declining Colorado River flows and falling water levels at Lake Powell and Lake Mead are highly visible signs of the Southwestern megadrought. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-colorado-river-drought-unprecedented-pattern.html Earth Sciences Tue, 13 Oct 2026 13:40:11 EDT news711104486 Turbulence is ubiquitous and occurs every day, such as when milk is stirred into coffee or in the stormy motions of the ocean and the atmosphere. Media in space and astrophysical systems can also develop turbulence, but the physics is different because the medium is in an ionized state (known as the plasma state) and the flow motion is strongly coupled to electromagnetic fields. Furthermore, space plasma is collisionless because the medium is so dilute that the particles do not collide with each other. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-unstructured-phenomenon-solar.html Astronomy Tue, 13 Oct 2026 11:20:06 EDT news711102781 A new study led by researchers at the University of Oulu in Finland sheds light on a poorly understood part of space weather: where powerful waves form at the edge of Earth's magnetic shield and where the solar wind can find a way through. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-space-reveal-earth-magnetic-shield.html Planetary Sciences Tue, 13 Oct 2026 09:00:18 EDT news711098882 NASA's SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the universe, Epoch of Reionization, and ices Explorer) space telescope is shedding light on brown dwarfs, celestial objects that blur the line between stars and exoplanets. New findings published in The Astrophysical Journal show that these dark and cloudy worlds have chemically rich atmospheres not unlike the giant planets in our own solar system. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-spherex-menagerie-brown-dwarfs-atmospheric.html Astronomy Fri, 09 Oct 2026 09:20:05 EDT news710755921 Astronomers have detected and traced the most distant fast radio burst ever recorded, a powerful flash of radio waves that traveled for more than 10 billion years across the cosmos before reaching Earth. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-astronomers-distant-fast-radio.html Astronomy Thu, 08 Oct 2026 14:00:36 EDT news710612761 Using data from the DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys, with help from artificial intelligence, an international team of scientists has discovered 70 new gravitational lenses—rare cosmic alignments that act as natural magnifying glasses. The new lenses further expand one of the largest collections of confirmed lenses to date and will allow scientists to study dark matter, galaxy evolution and the structure of the universe. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-largest-2d-universe-scientists-gravitational.html Astronomy Thu, 08 Oct 2026 09:40:12 EDT news710669701 The European Space Agency–led Solar Orbiter spacecraft has flown through an S-shaped kink known as a "switchback" in the solar wind's magnetic field. By fingerprinting the elusive particles within the switchback, Solar Orbiter has traced its origin back to the sun's surface and revealed more about solar magnetism—the unruly instigator of dangerous solar storms. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-solar-orbiter-tracks-mysterious-magnetic.html Astronomy Thu, 08 Oct 2026 05:00:10 EDT news710588161 "Is there enough water? What's happening with climate change? How do I operate my hydro plant? In a world of water problems, there are problems that we need a good model to solve," says Colin Gleason, a hydrologist in the Riccio College of Engineering at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. But the models are only as good as the math that they're based on, and short of measuring every river in the world, there is no way to check this on a global scale. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-newly-satellite-flawed-river.html Earth Sciences Tue, 06 Oct 2026 17:40:01 EDT news710508841 The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope has unveiled numerous stars formerly hidden by clouds of dust in a stellar nursery known as NGC 7129—a cauldron of cosmic creation, 3,300 light-years from Earth. Webb captured infrared light, which pierces through the dense matter that scatters or absorbs other types of light. This region, rife with stellar objects in different stages of their lives, offers an opportunity to explore how stars shape their surroundings. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-webb-captures-commotion-nebula-stellar.html Astronomy Tue, 06 Oct 2026 13:40:01 EDT news710501821