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Dual spacecraft capture both hemispheres of interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS at once

The Southwest Research Institute-led Ultraviolet Spectrograph (UVS) instruments aboard ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice) spacecraft and NASA’s Europa Clipper made unique observations of interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS in late 2025. SwRI leads the UVS instruments on both spacecraft, simultaneously imaging both hemispheres of the comet and detecting the comet’s ultraviolet emissions.

Only the third recognized interstellar object, 3I/ATLAS, entered our solar system in July of 2025.

“As the comet passed between Juice and Europa Clipper, we were able to informally coordinate observations between the two spacecraft,” said Dr. Kurt Retherford, the principal investigator of Juice-UVS and Europa-UVS. “Crucially, we observed hydrogen, oxygen and carbon emissions. These elements are produced when gases escaping the comet’s nucleus break apart into atoms when exposed to sunlight.”

Quantum geometry provides theoretical limits on measurable properties of solids

Two RIKEN physicists have established new theoretical limits for experimentally measurable quantities by viewing solids through a lens of quantum geometry. Their results shed light both on the physics of solids and on quantum mechanics.

The usual approach to studying a solid in physics is to consider all the interactions acting between its atoms or molecules and then use the laws of quantum mechanics to determine the solid’s properties. But a new methodology involves considering the “quantum geometry” of a solid. It entails studying the geometric structures that arise not in physical space, but in the space of quantum states.

One of the key concepts in this approach is the quantum geometric tensor—a matrix that contains information about the distances and curvatures of quantum states.

Torpedo bats may shift baseball’s sweet spot, acoustic analysis shows

In the spring of 2025, baseball fans were treated to a surprise when the New York Yankees began the season with a unique style of bat. Termed “torpedo bats,” these new designs tapered slightly toward the end, so the widest points of the bats were closer to the “sweet spot”—the optimal place to hit to send the ball flying. In theory, this shape was more ergonomic, giving the Yankees an advantage at the plate.

But for all its fanfare, one question remains: Is the torpedo bat actually better?

Dan Russell from Pennsylvania State University presented his acoustic analysis of torpedo bats at the 190th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, running May 11–15.

Tiny forces, big effects: How particle interactions control the flow of soft materials

Sitting in a restaurant, you reach for the ketchup bottle, eyeing the basket of fries in front of you. You give the bottle a shake, then a tap. For a moment, nothing happens—the ketchup clings stubbornly to the glass. Then, all at once, it lets go and rushes out, sometimes in a steady stream, sometimes in a messy surge that threatens to flood the basket.

That awkward moment when ketchup stops behaving like a solid and suddenly starts flowing like a liquid is called “yielding.” Scientists see the same kind of behavior in many everyday and advanced materials, from toothpaste, paints and concrete to 3D-printing inks and electrodes used in next-generation batteries. Yet, what actually causes a material to hold its shape one moment and suddenly let go the next has been surprisingly hard to pin down, especially deep inside dense, opaque fluids where particle motion is difficult to see.

3D atomic rearrangement creates 40,000 quantum defects in 40 minutes

It’s been 37 years since scientists first demonstrated the ability to move single atoms, suggesting the possibility of designing materials atom by atom to customize their properties. Today there are several techniques that allow researchers to move individual atoms in order to give materials exotic quantum properties and improve our understanding of quantum behavior.

But existing techniques can only move atoms across the surface of materials in two dimensions. Most also require painstakingly slow processes and high-vacuum, ultracold lab conditions.

Now a team of researchers at MIT, the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and other institutions has created a way to precisely move tens of thousands of individual atoms within a material in minutes at room temperature. The approach uses a set of algorithms to carefully position an electron beam at specific locations of a material, then scan the beam to drive atomic motions.

Scientists Uncover the Surprising Source of Strange Clouds Near the Milky Way’s Supermassive Black Hole

New observations and simulations by a research team led by MPE show that a massive binary star near the center of our Galaxy is creating a series of enigmatic gas clouds, compact clumps that help feed the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A*.

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