New research suggests the mysterious D layer at Earth’s core-mantle boundary might have formed from remnants of an early colossal impact, with iron-rich peroxide playing a key role in its unique and enduring features.

Deep within Earth, there lies a mysterious layer called the D layer. Located roughly 3,000 kilometers down, this zone sits just above the boundary between the planet’s molten outer core and its solid mantle. Unlike a perfect sphere, the D layer is surprisingly patchy. Its thickness varies greatly from place to place, with some regions even lacking a D layer altogether – much like continents rise above the Earth’s oceans. These intriguing variations have captured the attention of geophysicists, who describe the D layer as a heterogeneous, or non-uniform, region.

A new study led by Dr. Qingyang Hu (Center for High Pressure Science and Technology Advanced Research) and Dr. Jie Deng (Princeton University) suggests the D layer might be originated from Earth’s earliest days. Their theory hinges on the Giant Impact hypothesis, which proposes a Mars-sized object slammed into the proto-Earth, creating a planet-wide magma ocean in the aftermath. They believe the D layer may be a unique composition leftover from this colossal impact, potentially holding clues to Earth’s formation.

Described as “the most complex scientific laboratory ever to have been sent to the sun,” there are ten different scientific instruments onboard Solar Orbiter—some in situ to collect and analyze samples of the solar wind as it passes the spacecraft, and other remote sensing instruments designed to capture high quality images of activity at the sun’s surface.

By combining photographic and instrumental data, scientists have for the first time been able to identify more clearly where the slow solar wind originates. This has helped them to establish how it is able to leave the sun and begin its journey into the heliosphere—the giant bubble around the sun and its planets which protect our solar system from interstellar radiation.

Dr. Steph Yardley of Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne, led the research and explains, The variability of solar wind streams measured in situ at a spacecraft close to the sun provide us with a lot of information on their sources, and although past studies have traced the origins of the solar wind, this was done much closer to Earth, by which time this variability is lost.

A planet thought to orbit the star 40 Eridani A—host to Mr. Spock’s fictional home planet, Vulcan, in the “Star Trek” universe—is really a kind of astronomical illusion caused by the pulses and jitters of the star itself, a new study shows.

By analyzing the data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray observatory, astronomers from India and South Africa have investigated a massive galaxy cluster known as Abell 2566. They detected sloshing cold fronts in the intracluster medium (ICM) of this cluster. The finding was reported in a research paper published May 17 on the preprint server arXiv.

NGC 4,731, a barred spiral galaxy in the Virgo cluster, is this week’s Hubble Picture of the Week. Featuring detailed colors and structures, the galaxy’s study may help explain how its bar and spiral arms influence star formation and matter dynamics.

This Hubble Space Telescope image features the broad and sweeping spiral galaxy NGC 4731. This galaxy lies among the galaxies of the Virgo cluster, in the constellation Virgo, and is located 43 million light-years from Earth.

This highly detailed image was generated by using six different filters. The abundance of color illustrates the galaxy’s billowing clouds of gas, dark dust bands, bright pink star-forming regions and, most obviously, the long, glowing bar with trailing arms.

For the first time, carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide ices have been observed in the far reaches of our solar system on trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs).