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. As NASA prepares to send humans to Mars as early as the 2030s, University of Mississippi researchers are working on one of the key questions: How will they get back? https://phys.org/news/2026-09-martian-air-yield-methane-rocket.html Space Exploration Tue, 08 Sep 2026 15:20:01 EDT news708092281 Some of the world's brightest colors don't just reflect light; they create it. Scientists and museum conservators are now uncovering why these luminous pigments fade and how to preserve them for future generations. The findings could help protect artwork while informing the development of longer-lasting phosphorescent materials for a variety of applications, from fashion runways to airport runways. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-hidden-chemistry-dark-art.html Materials Science Tue, 25 Aug 2026 05:00:12 EDT news706777134 In the world of fusion energy, scientists and engineers study the fourth state of matter known as plasma in an effort to design and build a new type of power plant. Relying on the heat produced by two small atoms smashing together, a network of such facilities would help create a novel source of stable electricity and help ensure America's energy independence. And while scientists in this endeavor are devoting their attention to complex machinery and temperatures hotter than the surface of the sun, they are also trying to determine the best designs for such a power plant by focusing on geometry. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-power-stars-geometry.html Plasma Physics Wed, 19 Aug 2026 13:00:04 EDT news706349882 Our sun is capable of storms far bigger than we've ever recorded. Studying the world's oldest trees suggests we could soon be due one of these gargantuan events. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-ancient-trees-enormous-solar-storm.html Planetary Sciences Mon, 17 Aug 2026 14:00:06 EDT news706186321 Researchers from the U.S. National Science Foundation National Solar Observatory (NSF NSO), the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS) in Germany, and the High Altitude Observatory (HAO) in the U.S. have made a discovery in solar physics. New images of the sun's surface taken with the world's largest solar telescope, the NSF Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope, built and operated by the NSO in Hawaii, along with sophisticated computer simulations, reveal tiny plasma vortices that had never before been visible. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-tiny-vortices-sun-surface.html General Physics Wed, 05 Aug 2026 11:00:01 EDT news705066601 For the first time in more than a century, a total solar eclipse is coming to mainland Spain with an even longer encore next summer. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-august-total-solar-eclipse-spain.html Space Exploration Mon, 03 Aug 2026 03:12:40 EDT news704945507 Some of the most extraordinary gems ever found belong to a rare class of diamonds known as CLIPPIRs (Cullinan-like, Large, Inclusion-Poor, Pure, Irregular, Resorbed). They make up less than 1% of all diamonds on Earth and include three of the largest diamonds ever recovered: the Cullinan, at 3,106 carats (1.4 pounds), found at the Premier mine in South Africa; the 1,111-carat Lesedi La Rona, discovered at the Karowe mine in Botswana in 2015 and sold for $53 million in 2017; and the 2,492-carat Motswedi (1.1 pounds), recovered from the Karowe mine in 2024. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-world-biggest-diamonds-geology.html Earth Sciences Mon, 20 Jul 2026 09:20:08 EDT news703748821 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 team of astronomers has discovered a third planet orbiting the star Beta Pictoris. The new planet, Beta Pictoris d, is 100 times fainter than Beta Pictoris b—the first planet discovered in the same system—and is among the lightest exoplanets ever imaged from the ground. After spotting the planet using the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (ESO's VLT), the team found it had been hiding in archival observations spanning more than a decade. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-faintest-planet-imaged-earth-years.html Astronomy Wed, 15 Jul 2026 08:00:06 EDT news703174094 Researchers are closer to unraveling a longstanding solar mystery surrounding the extreme thinness of the sun's tachocline layer of strong shearing motion—a region believed to be critical for creating the violent eruptions of high-energy particles and radiation from the sun known as "space weather." https://phys.org/news/2026-07-unraveling-solar-mystery-extreme-thinness.html Astronomy Wed, 08 Jul 2026 14:40:01 EDT news702724695 As a child, Enrique Bordallo would gaze in awe at the starry night sky in rural Spain. Next month's solar eclipse has now made his passion a popular obsession. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-unique-event-solar-eclipse-fever.html Space Exploration Wed, 08 Jul 2026 04:00:16 EDT news702701988 Natural gas still plays an important role in many industrial sectors, but it is a climate-damaging fossil fuel. TU Wien and the University of Innsbruck have now discovered an unexpected reaction pathway that makes it possible to synthesize natural gas, or methane (CH4), using CO2 that was previously captured from exhaust gas streams or directly from the air. In this way, methane can become climate-neutral overall. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-unexpected-pathway-climateneutral-methane-nickelzirconia.html Materials Science Mon, 29 Jun 2026 19:40:03 EDT news701964661 The world's most powerful particle accelerator will shutter operations Monday for four years of renovations to dramatically boost its collision capacity and the potential for unlocking one of the greatest mysteries of the universe: dark matter. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-world-largest-particle-smasher-halts.html General Physics Sat, 27 Jun 2026 15:29:47 EDT news701792967 It's the time of year when parents are thinking of registering their children for kindergarten in September—a much-anticipated moment in the lives of many parents and their young ones. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-ways-kindergarten-lays-foundation-lifelong.html Social Sciences Tue, 16 Jun 2026 11:00:01 EDT news700812001 The space between stars may seem like a barren desert, but over the past few decades scientists have been finding all sorts of interesting chemicals in it. From the precursors to proteins to the building blocks of cell membranes, there has been discovery after discovery of new molecules in the giant gas clouds between the stars. Now, a new paper available on the arXiv preprint server details the discovery of the first-ever four-carbon sugar in the interstellar medium (ISM), and it is another brick on the path to understanding how life on Earth first developed. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-astronomers-carbon-sugar-deep-space.html Astronomy Wed, 10 Jun 2026 09:20:01 EDT news700300081 On May 22, 2026, the Pentagon released a second batch of previously classified photos and videos showing what appear to be unexplained flying objects. These file dumps were the culmination of a process that was set in motion back in July 2023, when a group of government whistleblowers testified before Congress that the U.S. government was secretly in possession of extraterrestrial spacecraft and suspected alien body parts. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-aliens-earth-aerospace-scientist-interstellar.html Astrobiology Wed, 27 May 2026 10:01:14 EDT news699094082 Our solar system is currently passing through the Local Interstellar Cloud, a region of highly diluted gas and dust between the stars. On its path, Earth continuously accumulates iron-60, a rare radioactive isotope of iron produced in stellar explosions. This has now been confirmed by an international research team led by the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) through the analysis of Antarctic ice tens of thousands of years old. From the steady but time-varying influx, the researchers conclude that the radioactive isotope has been stored within the cloud since a long-past stellar explosion. The results have been published in the journal Physical Review Letters. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-stardust-antarctic-ice-cores-earth.html Astronomy Sun, 17 May 2026 15:20:01 EDT news697946932 We're focusing on space news this week, but we did cover the usual amount of local news down here in Earth's gravity well: A new Tokamak reactor regime sustained stable plasma fusion for one full minute. An anomaly in global sea level rise turns out to be due to deep ocean heating. And Chinese researchers report that they found microplastics in every part of both healthy and diseased human brains. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-saturday-citations-spaaa-aaace.html Other Sat, 02 May 2026 09:00:01 EDT news696857370 If you walk across the open yard in front of the Physics, Math and Astronomy building at the University of Texas at Austin, you'll see a 17-story tower and a huge L-shaped building. What you won't see is what's underneath you. Two floors below ground, behind heavy double doors stamped with a logo that most students have never noticed, sits one of the most powerful lasers in the United States. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-ive-america-powerful-lasers-shot.html Optics & Photonics Mon, 20 Apr 2026 14:00:07 EDT news695903942 Engineers interested in creating artificial cells to deliver drugs to unhealthy parts of the body face a key challenge: for a cell-like system to move, change shape, or divide, it needs a way to generate force on command. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-muscle-synthetic-cells.html Biotechnology Sun, 19 Apr 2026 17:00:04 EDT news695486650 NASA's SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization, and Ices Explorer) mission has mapped interstellar ice at an unprecedented scale. Covering regions in our Milky Way galaxy more than 600 light-years across, the ice was found inside giant molecular clouds—vast regions of gas and dust where dense clumps of matter collapse under gravity, giving birth to stars. A study describing these findings was published Wednesday in The Astrophysical Journal. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-interstellar-glaciers-nasa-spherex-vast.html Astronomy Wed, 15 Apr 2026 19:20:04 EDT news695485741 When created at the nanoscale, materials can resemble shapes like stars, rods or even pyramids. These particle shapes, also known as the morphologies of a solid, make for more than just interesting images under a microscope—they can determine how the material behaves, sometimes in dramatic ways. University at Buffalo researchers have demonstrated this phenomenon by creating the first-ever star-shaped vanadyl hydroxide (VOOH) and shown that this shape can fundamentally alter how the material stores energy. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-pretty-picture-star-nanomaterial-energy.html Nanophysics Tue, 07 Apr 2026 12:40:04 EDT news694776061 Quantum technologies, devices that can process, store, or detect information leveraging quantum mechanical effects, could outperform classical devices in some tasks or scenarios. Despite their potential, verifying that these devices work correctly and truly realize desired quantum states can be challenging, particularly when they cannot be fully examined or inspected. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-universal-scheme-quantum-state.html Quantum Physics Sun, 29 Mar 2026 11:00:06 EDT news693570930 "Project Hail Mary," the Ryan Gosling-led adaptation of the best-selling sci-fi novel from Andy Weir, is being praised for putting the science in science fiction. Although aliens, sun-draining microorganisms and galaxy-spanning spaceflight are all a part of the story of a scientist sent on a suicide mission to save Earth, the film and its source material are not afraid to delve into the kind of astrophysics that would make most people's heads spin. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-hail-mary-wrong-astrophysics.html Astronomy Fri, 20 Mar 2026 15:10:07 EDT news693221914 A study led by the University of Oxford has identified a new type of planet beyond our solar system—one that stores large amounts of sulfur deep within a permanent ocean of magma. The findings have been published in Nature Astronomy. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-class-molten-planet-abundant-sulfur.html Astronomy Mon, 16 Mar 2026 06:00:02 EDT news692628541 Neuroscientists have uncovered new insights into a key evolutionary question: Why can humans talk when most animals can't? The journal Science published the research led by Emory University and the New College of Florida. The findings suggest that seals and sea lions may have vocal flexibility as a side effect of developing a brain "bypass" for voluntary breath control. This same bypass allowed them to adapt to aquatic life. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-sea-lions-clues-evolution-vocalization.html Plants & Animals Thu, 12 Mar 2026 17:10:01 EDT news692553061 During their search for food, most insects head specifically for the flowers that promise the highest reward. But how do they know which ones to choose? Researchers from the University of Konstanz and the University of Würzburg have now studied how bumblebees process information about their food sources. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-shortcut-reveals-bumblebees-efficient-decision.html Plants & Animals Mon, 02 Mar 2026 19:20:03 EST news691685824 Thanks to Fink, a software package created by two CNRS engineers, it is now possible to track millions of transient celestial phenomena observed in the sky by the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile, in real time and with unprecedented precision. Minutes after each image is taken, Fink receives, processes, enriches, and cross-references the data with existing datasets. This allows even the faintest variations in detected light to be characterized with remarkable accuracy. The data is then stored, classified, and shared with users—scientists and astronomy enthusiasts—in a concise and targeted manner. https://phys.org/news/2026-02-closer-stars-fink-french-tool.html Astronomy Thu, 26 Feb 2026 14:50:01 EST news691339681 To capture higher-definition and sharper images of cosmological objects, astronomers sometimes combine the data collected by several telescopes. This approach, known as long-baseline interferometry, entails comparing the light signals originating from distant objects and picked up by different telescopes that are at different locations, then reconstructing images using computational techniques. https://phys.org/news/2026-02-quantum-entanglement-link-distant-telescopes.html Optics & Photonics Fri, 20 Feb 2026 08:00:05 EST news690725074 For life to develop on a planet, certain chemical elements are needed in sufficient quantities. Phosphorus and nitrogen are essential. Phosphorus is vital for the formation of DNA and RNA, which store and transmit genetic information, and for the energy balance of cells. Nitrogen is an essential component of proteins, which are needed for the formation, structure, and function of cells. Without these two elements, no life can develop out of lifeless matter. https://phys.org/news/2026-02-small-planets-suitable-life.html Astrobiology Mon, 09 Feb 2026 13:12:42 EST news689865122