“This was a serendipitous discovery,” said Imad Pasha.

How many rings can galaxies have? This is what a recent study published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters hopes to address as an international team of researchers discovered a unique galaxy with nine rings, possessing six more rings than any known galaxy, that they aptly named the Bullseye Galaxy. This study has the potential to help researchers better understand the formation and evolution of galaxies throughout the universe, potentially resulting in identifying where we could find life.

The Bullseye Galaxy is known as a collisional ring galaxy (CRG) and whose radius is approximately 70 kiloparsecs (228,309 light-years), which is two and a half times larger than our Milky Way Galaxy, which is known as a spiral galaxy. After significant image analysis from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and the W. M. Keck Observatory, the researchers estimate the Bullseye Galaxy was created approximately 50 million years ago when a smaller blue dwarf galaxy collided with the center of the former, resulting in nine giant rings like ripples being created when a pebble is dropped in a water.

The advent of quantum simulators in various platforms^{8,9,10,11,12,13,14} has opened a powerful experimental avenue towards answering the theoretical question of thermalization^5,6, which seeks to reconcile the unitarity of quantum evolution with the emergence of statistical mechanics in constituent subsystems. A particularly interesting setting is that in which a quantum system is swept through a critical point^15,16,17,18, as varying the sweep rate can allow for accessing markedly different paths through phase space and correspondingly distinct coarsening behaviour. Such effects have been theoretically predicted to cause deviations^19,20,21,22 from the celebrated Kibble–Zurek (KZ) mechanism, which states that the correlation length ξ of the final state follows a universal power-law scaling with the ramp time t_r (refs. ^{3, 23,24,25}).

Whereas tremendous technical advancements in quantum simulators have enabled the observation of a wealth of thermalization-related phenomena^{26,27,28,29,30,31,32,33,34,35}, the analogue nature of these systems has also imposed constraints on the experimental versatility. Studying thermalization dynamics necessitates state characterization beyond density–density correlations and preparation of initial states across the entire eigenspectrum, both of which are difficult without universal quantum control³⁶. Although digital quantum processors are in principle suitable for such tasks, implementing Hamiltonian evolution requires a high number of digital gates, making large-scale Hamiltonian simulation infeasible under current gate errors.

In this work, we present a hybrid analogue–digital^37,38 quantum simulator comprising 69 superconducting transmon qubits connected by tunable couplers in a two-dimensional (2D) lattice (Fig. 1a). The quantum simulator supports universal entangling gates with pairwise interaction between qubits, and high-fidelity analogue simulation of a U symmetric spin Hamiltonian when all couplers are activated at once. The low analogue evolution error, which was previously difficult to achieve with transmon qubits due to correlated cross-talk effects, is enabled by a new scalable calibration scheme (Fig. 1b). Using cross-entropy benchmarking (XEB)³⁹, we demonstrate analogue performance that exceeds the simulation capacity of known classical algorithms at the full system size.

Matter in intergalactic space is distributed in a vast network of interconnected filamentary structures, collectively referred to as the cosmic web. With hundreds of hours of observations, an international team of researchers has now obtained an unprecedented high-definition image of a cosmic filament inside this web, connecting two active forming galaxies—dating back to when the universe was about 2 billion years old.

A pillar of modern cosmology is the existence of dark matter, which constitutes about 85% of all matter in the universe. Under the influence of gravity, dark matter forms an intricate cosmic web composed of filaments, at whose intersections the brightest galaxies emerge. This cosmic web acts as the scaffolding on which all visible structures in the universe are built: within the filaments, gas flows to fuel star formation in galaxies. Direct observations of the fuel supply of such galaxies would advance our understanding of galaxy formation and evolution.

However, studying the gas within this cosmic web is incredibly challenging. Intergalactic gas has been detected mainly indirectly through its absorption of light from bright background sources. But the observed results do not elucidate the distribution of this gas. Even the most abundant element, hydrogen, emits only a faint glow, making it basically impossible for instruments of the previous generation to directly observe such gas.

This find could unlock insights into dark matter and galaxy evolution.

Astronomers have discovered ‘Bullseye,’ a record-breaking galaxy with nine rings—six more than any other known galaxy.

An international team of scientists has modeled the formation and evolution of the strongest magnetic fields in the universe.

Led by scientists from Newcastle University, University of Leeds and France, the paper was published in the journal Nature Astronomy. The researchers identified the Tayler-Spruit dynamo caused by the fall back of supernova material as a mechanism leading to the formation of low-field magnetars. This new work solves the mystery of low-field magnetar formation, which has puzzled scientists since low-field magnetar discovery in 2010.

The team used advanced numerical simulations to model the magneto-thermal evolution of these stars, finding that a specific dynamo process within the proto-neutron star can generate these weaker magnetic fields.

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Dive into the captivating realm of Biopunk Science Fiction in our latest video! Discover what Biopunk is, from genetic engineering to human augmentation, and explore the ethical dilemmas it presents in our modern world. We’ll discuss its evolution through literature and film, touching on iconic works like \.

Treating hair loss may be as simple as developing therapies to flip a molecular “switch,” according to a new study by researchers from Penn State; the University of California, Irvine; and National Taiwan University.

The researchers reviewed the biological and social evolution of human scalp hair. Based on their analysis, they proposed a novel theory that points to a molecular basis underlying the ability to grow long scalp hair.

In short, human ancestors may have always had the ability to grow long scalp hair, but the trait remained dormant until certain environmental and biological conditions — like walking upright on two legs — turned on the molecular program. The team published their findings, which they said could serve as the basis for future experimental work, in the British Journal of Dermatology.

New observations from the National Science Foundation National Radio Astronomy Observatory’s (NSF NRAO) Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (NSF VLA) provide compelling evidence supporting a universal mechanism for the collimation of astrophysical jets, regardless of their origin.

The new study, published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, reveals the presence of a helical magnetic field within the HH 80–81 protostellar jet, a finding that mirrors similar structures observed in jets emanating from supermassive black holes.

Jets, powerful, highly collimated outflows of matter and energy, are observed across a vast range of scales in the universe. From the supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies to the young stars in our own Milky Way, these jets play a crucial role in the evolution of their host systems. However, the precise mechanism that guides these jets and prevents them from dispersing into space has remained a long-standing puzzle.

Could tiny grains from asteroid Bennu unlock the secrets of life in our solar system?

Does life exist beyond Earth and have the building blocks of life existed in our solar system for billions of years? This is what a recent study published in Nature Astronomy hopes to address as a team of international researchers analyzed dust samples obtained from the asteroid Bennu, which is hypothesized to have broken off from a larger parent body, to ascertain if it contains the building blocks of life as we know it. This study has the potential to help scientists better understand the early conditions of the solar system, along with the formation and evolution of the planets and moons that comprise it, as well.

For the study, the researchers used a transmission electron microscope at Goethe University to analyze grains that were part of the 122 grams (0.27 pounds) of dust samples returned to Earth by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission in September 2024. The goal of the study was to ascertain what components comprise Bennu, which existed since the early days of the solar system more than 4 billion years ago.

In the end, the researchers identified greater amounts of nitrogen, carbon, and ammonia than were obtained from asteroid Ryugu by Japan’s Hayabusa2 spacecraft in 2020. Additionally, this study identified 14 of the 20 amino acids that comprise Earth-based biology, along with all five nucelobases that comprise DNA and RNA. These findings indicate that the building blocks of life potentially existed in the solar system billions of years ago and could comprise some of the planetary bodies of astrobiological interest today, including Saturn’s moon Enceladus and dwarf planet Ceres.