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. Diamond is more than a dazzling gem—the extremely hard form of carbon makes up the pellet that encases fuel for inertial confinement fusion, and scientists believe it rains down deep inside ice giant planets like Neptune and Uranus. In both cases, the material experiences enormous pressures. Until now, experiments and simulations have disagreed about how it actually behaves under those conditions. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-diamond-triple-fusion-gain-secrets.html General Physics Thu, 13 Aug 2026 11:40:05 EDT news705836281 Within our solar system, Uranus is a geometric oddball. Its spin axis tilts more than 90° from its orbit, so it essentially rolls on its side through space. In contrast, Earth and other planets tilt only moderately or not at all. What's more, the ice giant's magnetic field is strangely offset and tilted another 60°. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-uranus-unusual-rotation-day.html Planetary Sciences Fri, 07 Aug 2026 12:20:05 EDT news705316681 In 1989, the Voyager 2 mission discovered six new moons orbiting Neptune, including five tiny ones that orbit just outside the planet's main rings. Because of their small sizes and locations, these satellites have been difficult to study from Earth. Now, using NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), a team of Caltech researchers has observed Neptune's rings and three of those moons—Larissa, Galatea and Proteus—and found that their composition is unique among outer solar system bodies. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-neptune-moons-shattered-ancient-icy.html Space Exploration Thu, 30 Jul 2026 10:00:06 EDT news704623381 Mercury was long considered the exception to the rule that magnetic planets have radiation belts similar to Earth's Van Allen belts, but a new study by University of Michigan Engineering and the University of California, Berkeley, suggests otherwise—Mercury occasionally has such a layer of radiation in its magnetic field. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-mercury-reveals-short-belts-sun.html Astronomy Mon, 27 Jul 2026 16:40:06 EDT news704381641 Researchers in the U.S. have carried out the most stringent tests to date of the idea that an ultraviolet glow in the atmospheres of giant planets could partly arise through the indirect interaction between dark matter and ordinary matter. Led by Carlos Blanco at Penn State University and Rebecca Leane at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, the team's results place some of the tightest constraints yet on the strength of this interaction. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-giant-planets-dark-detectors.html Astronomy Fri, 17 Jul 2026 10:20:06 EDT news703496425 Sending a spacecraft to the underexplored planet Uranus is at the top of many planetary scientists' wish lists. But which spacecraft-mounted instruments would be most useful for answering questions about the mysterious ice giant? https://phys.org/news/2026-06-energetic-neutral-atoms-uranus-odd.html Planetary Sciences Thu, 18 Jun 2026 18:20:02 EDT news701014562 Our solar system has two ice giants, Uranus and Neptune, but there may have been a third. According to a new study published in the journal Icarus, this extra world might have triggered a violent planetary shuffling billions of years ago that could have disrupted some of Jupiter's and Uranus's moons and possibly led to the formation of others. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-planets-solar.html Astronomy Mon, 01 Jun 2026 10:00:05 EDT news699524109 Researchers in the US and Germany have unveiled a theoretical blueprint for an atomic clock driven by a highly synchronized laser, where atoms work in concert rather than independently. Publishing their results in Physical Review Letters, Murray Holland at JILA, University of Colorado, including John Cooper and PhD student Jarrod Reilly, together with Simon Jäger at the University of Bonn revived an idea first proposed in the 1990s—possibly charting a course toward the narrowest-linewidth lasers ever achieved. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-physicists-revive-1990s-laser-concept.html Optics & Photonics Thu, 23 Apr 2026 10:10:01 EDT news696156265 Astronomers using the W. M. Keck Observatory on Maunakea, Hawaiʻi Island are revealing new insight into the composition and origins of Uranus's two outer rings. Using data from the Keck Observatory Archive (KOA), combined with observations taken by the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) and the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), researchers constructed the first complete reflectance spectrum (sunlight reflected off the rings) of the μ and ν rings, confirming their colors and uncovering their detailed composition. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-uranus-outer-starkly.html Planetary Sciences Thu, 16 Apr 2026 15:37:42 EDT news695572582 Planets, like those in our solar system, form in a bottom-up process where small bits of rock and ice clump together and grow larger over time. But the heftier the planet, the harder it is to explain its formation that way. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-webb-redefines-line-planets-stars.html Astronomy Tue, 14 Apr 2026 16:40:06 EDT news695390761 The interiors of ice giant planets like Uranus and Neptune could be home to a previously unknown state of matter, according to new computational simulations by Carnegie's Cong Liu and Ronald Cohen. Their work, published in Nature Communications, predicts that a quasi-one-dimensional superionic state of carbon hydride exists under the extreme pressures and temperatures found deep inside these outer solar system bodies. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-depths-neptune-uranus-superionic.html Planetary Sciences Fri, 03 Apr 2026 13:00:01 EDT news694435981 NASA's James Webb Space Telescope and Hubble Space Telescope have teamed up to capture new views of Saturn, revealing the planet in strikingly different ways. Observing in complementary wavelengths of light, the two space observatories provide scientists with a richer, more layered understanding of the gas giant's atmosphere. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-webb-hubble-comprehensive-view-saturn.html Astronomy Wed, 25 Mar 2026 18:20:03 EDT news693674762 New observations of Ganymede reveal a striking similarity between the auroras on the largest moon in the solar system and those on Earth. The international team of astrophysicists, led by researchers from the University of Liège, has produced new results indicating that, despite different conditions, the fundamental physical processes that generate auroras are common to different celestial bodies, and not just planets. https://phys.org/news/2026-02-auroras-ganymede-earth-similarities.html Planetary Sciences Mon, 23 Feb 2026 17:20:01 EST news691073641 An international team of astronomers has discovered a distant planetary system that challenges long-standing theories of how planets form. Across our galaxy, astronomers routinely observe a characteristic pattern in planetary systems: rocky planets orbiting close to their host star with gas giants farther away. Our own solar system follows this rule, with the inner planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars, composed of rock and iron, and the outer planets: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune being predominantly gaseous. https://phys.org/news/2026-02-cosmic-curveball-distant-planet-formation.html Planetary Sciences Sat, 21 Feb 2026 14:10:01 EST news690214027 For the first time, an international team of astronomers have mapped the vertical structure of Uranus's upper atmosphere, uncovering how temperature and charged particles vary with height across the planet. Using Webb's NIRSpec instrument, the team observed Uranus for nearly a full rotation, detecting the faint glow from molecules high above the clouds. https://phys.org/news/2026-02-webb-mysterious-upper-atmosphere-uranus.html Astronomy Thu, 19 Feb 2026 13:22:56 EST news690729721 Through a combination of high-pressure experiments and optical spectroscopy, physicists have revealed new insights into the structural forms of solid methane. Led by Mengnan Wang at the University of Edinburgh in the UK, the team hopes their results, published in Physical Review Letters, could dispel long-standing confusion over where these different forms appear within methane's phase diagram—potentially deepening our understanding of planetary interiors. https://phys.org/news/2026-02-solid-methane.html Planetary Sciences Mon, 02 Feb 2026 10:00:01 EST news689247706 Superionic water—the hot, black and strangely conductive form of ice that exists in the center of distant planets—was predicted in the 1980s and first recreated in a laboratory in 2018. With each closer look, it continues to surprise researchers. https://phys.org/news/2026-01-simultaneous-superionic-ice-giant-magnetic.html Planetary Sciences Thu, 08 Jan 2026 14:50:03 EST news687105907 The moon and sun share top billing in 2026. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-moon-sun-figure-big-year.html Space Exploration Mon, 29 Dec 2025 07:41:49 EST news686216460 This week, researchers identified signaling pathways underpinning drug resistance in pancreatic cancer, a normally lethal diagnosis. A physicist proposed that conscious states in the brain may arise from the brain's ability to resonate with the quantum vacuum that permeates space. And in a ranking of species monogamy, humans came in between meerkats and beavers. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-saturday-citations-nice-people-happier.html Other Sat, 13 Dec 2025 09:00:01 EST news684763110 A team of researchers from the University of Zurich and the NCCR PlanetS is challenging our understanding of the solar system planets' interior. The composition of Uranus and Neptune, the two outermost planets, might be more rocky and less icy than previously thought. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-uranus-neptune-giants.html Planetary Sciences Wed, 10 Dec 2025 09:00:01 EST news684521102 Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) scientists believe they may have resolved a 39-year-old mystery about the radiation belts around Uranus. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-solar-storms-mystery-uranus-belts.html Planetary Sciences Wed, 03 Dec 2025 11:10:01 EST news683982389 The outer planets of the solar system are swarmed by ice-wrapped moons. Some of these, such as Saturn's moon Enceladus, are known to have oceans of liquid water between the ice shell and the rocky core and could be the best places in our solar system to look for extraterrestrial life. A new study published Nov. 24 in Nature Astronomy sheds light on what could be going on beneath the surface of these worlds and provides insights into how their diverse geologic features may have formed. https://phys.org/news/2025-11-oceans-lurk-beneath-ice-solar.html Astrobiology Mon, 24 Nov 2025 15:32:03 EST news683220721 One of the most notable properties of the giant planets in our solar system—Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune—are the extreme winds observed around their equators. While some of these planets have eastward equatorial winds, others have a westward jet stream. For the first time, an international team of scientists led by Leiden Observatory and SRON, can explain the winds on all the giant planets using one model. https://phys.org/news/2025-10-extreme-jet-streams-giant-planets.html Planetary Sciences Fri, 10 Oct 2025 14:00:05 EDT news678970862 In the 17th century, astronomers Christiaan Huygens and Giovanni Cassini trained their telescopes on Saturn and uncovered a startling truth: the planet's luminous bands were not solid appendages, but vast, separate rings composed of countless nested arcs. https://phys.org/news/2025-09-simulations-saturn-moon-enceladus-ice.html Planetary Sciences Tue, 30 Sep 2025 15:52:04 EDT news678466322 Caltech researchers have developed a new simulation of the hydrological cycle on Jupiter, modeling how water vapor condenses into clouds and falls as rain throughout the giant planet's swirled, turbulent atmosphere. The research shows that Jupiter's water is not uniformly distributed, giving missions like NASA's Juno orbiter important guidance about where to look for water on the planet. https://phys.org/news/2025-09-simulation-reveals-uneven-jupiter-turbulent.html Planetary Sciences Mon, 29 Sep 2025 16:56:03 EDT news678383761 Growing evidence suggests that a subsurface ocean lurks beneath the icy surface of Uranus' moon Ariel, but new research, published in Icarus, characterizes the possible evolution of this ocean, and found that it may have once been over 100 miles (170 kilometers) deep. For perspective, the Pacific Ocean averages 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) deep. https://phys.org/news/2025-09-uranian-moon-ariel-surface-features.html Planetary Sciences Mon, 29 Sep 2025 13:30:03 EDT news678371401 For astrobiologists, the search for life beyond our solar system could be likened to where one would look in a vast desert—essentially, where there's water. And it turns out that one of the most common types of exoplanet observed in planetary systems beyond ours has a size and mass that indicate a water-rich interior. They are categorized as "sub-Neptunes" because their size and mass are between that of Earth and Neptune. https://phys.org/news/2025-08-aims-demystify-steam-worlds-solar.html Astrobiology Mon, 25 Aug 2025 14:19:04 EDT news675350341 Using NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, a team led by the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) has identified a previously unknown moon orbiting Uranus, expanding the planet's known satellite family to 29. The detection was made during a Webb observation on Feb. 2, 2025. https://phys.org/news/2025-08-webb-moon-orbiting-uranus.html Planetary Sciences Tue, 19 Aug 2025 14:41:03 EDT news674833262 In new research, University of California, Irvine astronomers describe how more than 200 known exoplanets are likely much larger than previously thought. It's a finding that could change which distant worlds researchers consider potential harbors for extraterrestrial life. https://phys.org/news/2025-07-scores-exoplanets-larger.html Planetary Sciences Mon, 14 Jul 2025 16:49:32 EDT news671730568 A new study led by University of Houston researchers, in collaboration with planetary scientists worldwide, suggests Uranus does have its own internal heat—an advance that not only informs NASA's future missions but also deepens scientists' understanding of planetary systems, including processes that influence Earth's climate and atmospheric evolution. https://phys.org/news/2025-07-scientists-uranus-puzzle-revealing-lingering.html Planetary Sciences Mon, 14 Jul 2025 12:25:16 EDT news671714681