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Category: space

Webb telescope discovers hidden planet in famous star system

Astronomers using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope have discovered a giant planet outside our solar system, called an exoplanet, hiding within one of the most intensely studied planetary systems in the Milky Way galaxy.

The young, nearby star Beta Pictoris was already known to host two giant planets: Beta Pictoris b, one of the first exoplanets ever directly imaged, and Beta Pictoris c. The newly identified Beta Pictoris d makes it only the second planetary system known to contain at least three imaged planets.

Unlike Beta Pictoris b and c, however, Beta Pictoris d was discovered not by identifying a bright point of light but by detecting the unique chemical fingerprint of its atmosphere, a technique that could transform the search for worlds around other stars.

Some agentic AI browsers may come with major cybersecurity risks

In the last year or so, artificial intelligence companies have rolled out a spate of web browsers equipped with AI agents. A user might ask one of these agents to plan a vacation, and it will open browser tabs to research routes and restaurants, then make reservations and add events to the user’s calendar. How well it does any of this varies.

New research from the University of Washington found that the most powerful of these browsers also open users up to significant cybersecurity risks. A UW team studied seven popular agentic browsers and found that four create ways for malicious actors to bypass a fundamental cybersecurity protocol called the “same-origin policy,” which makes websites that are open in a browser unable to interact with each other’s information.

Researchers ran a successful proof-of-concept cyberattack on one browser, ChatGPT Atlas. They had a website steal information from another site embedded within it—as if an ad on an email site could snatch sensitive information from the user’s emails. Researchers also found the right conditions for similar attacks in three other browsers: Chrome with Gemini, Claude for Chrome and Perplexity Comet. The browsers that gave agents fewer permissions were generally safer.

Graphene nanoribbons survive gamma radiation, revealing potential sensors for fusion reactors

University of Arizona researchers have demonstrated a promising new application for graphene nanoribbons, a nanoscale semiconductor material with the potential to withstand extreme environments. The team’s findings could help clear a key hurdle to bringing fusion energy to the electric grid.

For the proof-of-concept study, published in the journal ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, the researchers integrated the nanoribbons, known as GNRs, into semiconductor devices and exposed them to gamma radiation. Their results suggest that the ribbons could serve as radiation sensors for fusion reactors and in deep space, where intense radiation challenges existing technologies and close monitoring of material degradation could help keep critical systems operating reliably.

“The devices survive the exposure and still respond, but their electrical performance changes dramatically,” said principal investigator Zafer Mutlu, an assistant professor of materials science and engineering at the University of Arizona College of Engineering. “That’s exactly the behavior we want from a sensor.”

Plasma agriculture makes strides toward super-seeding conventional methods

Occasionally, the sun unleashes powerful flares and coronal mass ejections, which hurl plasma and energetic particles into space. On the infant Earth, this solar activity drove cascades of atmospheric chemical reactions that may have helped form the building blocks of life. More recently, scientists have discovered that applying plasma to seeds in a controlled way can trigger similar activity, making them faster-growing and more resilient. Researchers at Nagoya University and Kyushu University in Japan have compiled a comprehensive review of this new field—termed “plasma agriculture”—as a potential sustainable solution to address global food shortages.

The word plasma brings to mind a hot, ionized inferno that makes up the fourth state of matter. But the plasma used here is different. By applying high voltage to air or any gas, electrons are stripped from a tiny fraction of its molecules and gain very high energies. These electrons zipping around can effectively mimic the behavior of plasma even though the bulk of the gas remains at room temperature.

This low-temperature plasma can be applied directly to seeds without burning them. Excessive use of chemicals and genetic modification of plants cause concern for many people. Instead, plasma agriculture can offer similarly high crop yields without invasive intervention.

Astronomers find nearby planets to be small, strange, and utterly uninhabitable

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.

Discovered in 2025, the four planets orbiting Barnard’s Star are all smaller than Earth and Venus but larger than Mars—a type of planet not found anywhere in our own solar system.

By analyzing the chemical makeup of the star, the researchers from the University of Cambridge found that its planets are rich in a rare mineral called periclase, which on Earth is found only hundreds of kilometers (hundreds of miles) below the surface.

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