A new paper led by Carey Lisse (accessible here) reports large-scale images of the gas plume around the interstellar object 3I/ATLAS after perihelion, based on data collected last month by the SPHEREx space observatory. The data show enhanced mass loss of dust and gas around 3I/ATLAS.
The new images of 3I/ATLAS were taken in the wavelength range of 0.75–5.0 microns between the 8 and 15 of December, 2025. Each image spans 30,000 kilometers on a side. On these large scales, the brightness maps of dust and organics were found to be pear-shaped, with an anti-tail elongation in the direction of the Sun. All six other gas plumes were found to be nearly round. The major gas species were identified as: cyanide (CN, at a wavelength of 0.93 microns), water (H2O, in the wavelength range of 2.7–2.8 microns), Organics (C-H, between 3.2–3.6 microns), carbon-dioxide (CO2, 4.2–4.3 microns), and carbon-monoxide (CO, 4.7–4.8 microns). The CO2 gas-plume continues to extend out to a few hundreds of thousands of kilometers. The dust spectrum can be described as the sum of scattered sunlight and thermal emission.
Most notably, the signature of sub-micron dust particles that would have enhanced the blue color via Rayleigh scattering are absent. Moreover, these small particles would have also been subjected to a strong solar radiation-pressure and would have formed the standard cometary tail, extending away from the Sun — which is not observed — as I argued in an essay, posted here on December 25, 2026.
Sometimes to truly study something up close, you have to take a step back. That’s what Andrea Donnellan does. An expert in Earth sciences and seismology, she gets much of her data from a bird’s-eye view, studying the planet’s surface from the air and space, using the data to make discoveries and deepen understanding about earthquakes and other geological processes.
“The history of Earth processes is written in the landscapes,” Donnellan said. “Studying Earth’s surface can help us understand what is happening now and what might happen in the future.”
Donnellan, professor and head of the Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences in Purdue’s College of Science, has watched Earth for a long time. Her original research was studying and tracking glaciers in Antarctica.
Scientists have long understood that plants take in air through tiny openings on their leaves known as stomata. These microscopic pores act like adjustable valves, letting carbon dioxide enter the leaf for photosynthesis while allowing water vapor to escape into the air. Until now, closely tracking this balancing act as it happens has been extremely difficult.
Researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have now created a powerful new system that makes this possible. Their study, published in the journal Plant Physiology, introduces a tool called “Stomata In-Sight.” It overcomes a major obstacle in plant science by allowing scientists to observe the minute movements of stomata while also measuring, at the same time, how much gas the leaf is exchanging with the atmosphere under carefully controlled conditions.
Professor Dallas Trinkle and colleagues have provided the first quantitative explanation for how magnetic fields slow carbon atom movement through iron, a phenomenon first observed in the 1970s but never fully understood. Published in Physical Review Letters, their computer simulations reveal that magnetic field alignment changes the energy barriers between atomic “cages,” offering potential pathways to reduce the energy costs and CO2 emissions associated with steel processing.
An alloy of iron and carbon, steel is one of the most-used building materials on the planet. Engineering its microstructure requires high temperatures; as a result, most steel processing consumes significant energy. In the 1970s, scientists noted that some steels exhibited better properties when heat treated under a magnetic field—but their ideas explaining this behavior were only conceptual. Understanding the mechanism behind this phenomenon could improve engineers’ ability to control heat treatment, improving material processing and potentially lowering energy costs.
“The previous explanations for this behavior were phenomenological at best,” said Trinkle, the Ivan Racheff Professor of Materials Science and Engineering and the senior author of the paper. “When you’re designing a material, you need to be able to say, ‘If I add this element, this is how (the material) will change.’ And we had no understanding of how this was happening; there was nothing predictive about it.”
In a nonrandomized phase 2 trial of adults with advanced dMMR/MSI-H noncolorectal cancers, combined nivolumab/ipilimumab showed an objective response rate of 63% and 6-month progression-free survival rate of 71%.
Main Outcomes and Measures The co-primary end points were objective response rate (ORR) and 6-month progression-free survival (6-PFS) as assessed by Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors (RECIST) version 1.1, with the secondary end points being median overall survival (mOS), progression-free survival (PFS), and treatment-related toxic effects.
Results Overall, 52 participants were included. The median (range) age of participants was 62 (29−84) years; 41 (79%) were female individuals and 11 (21%) were male individuals. Overall, 52 patients representing 17 tumor types were enrolled, with the most common tumor type being endometrial cancer (26 [50%]). Twenty-seven patients (52%) were pretreated for metastatic disease. ORR was 63% (95% CI, 50% to 75%) with the median duration of response not being reached and 79% of responses being ongoing. The median PFS and OS have not been reached and the 6-month PFS was 71% (95% CI, 57%-81%). Overall, 12 patients (23%) experienced a grade 3/4 immune-related adverse event.
Conclusions and Relevance This nonrandomized clinical trial found that combined anti–PD-1/CTLA-4 blockade was associated with a high rate of durable responses in dMMR/MSI-H noncolorectal cancers, comparing favorably to published trials using anti–PD-1/programmed cell death ligand 1 monotherapy. Anti–PD-1/CTLA-4 blockade using nivolumab and ipilimumab may represent an alternative treatment option to monotherapy in this patient population.