A team of researchers led by University of Central Florida Planetary Scientist Charles Schambeau captured an extraordinary glimpse of an ancient icy object that may be transforming into an active comet. The findings could help scientists better understand how primitive objects from the outer solar system transition over time, offering new clues about the origins and evolution of comets. As America’s Space University, UCF continues to advance planetary science by leading research that uncovers the history and evolution of our solar systems through observations from the world’s most powerful telescopes. 

Astronomers from The University of Manchester and the University of the Western Cape have directly detected an extremely faint radio signal from hydrogen gas billions of light years away, opening up a powerful new way to map the large-scale structure of the Universe.

The Europlanet Science Congress (EPSC) 2026 will be held in hybrid format at the Amare arts venue in The Hague, Netherlands, and online, from 6–11 September 2026. EPSC2026 covers the full spectrum of planetary research and technology across over 125 scientific sessions, keynotes, debates and community events. Around 1200 planetary scientists from over 40 countries in Europe and around the world are expected to attend the conference.

SAN ANTONIO — August 31, 2026 — A Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) study of data from the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Solar Orbiter gives the most detailed view of the heliospheric current sheet (HCS) to date. The HCS is a sprawling undulating surface emanating from the Sun to beyond the solar system, which serves as the boundary between the Sun’s north and south magnetic field hemispheres.

An international team of researchers led by Kavli IPMU have used the JWST to uncover growing black holes that existed approximately 12.5 to 12.8 billion years ago, which are heading toward a merger.

Humans have been observing the sky for thousands of years. Our ancestors were undoubtedly fascinated by it, but observing the heavens also had practical uses: it helped people measure time, both over the course of the day and through the changing seasons, and became especially important with the spread of agriculture. What we now see as scientific frontiers, such as cosmology and astrophysics, are in fact only the latest chapter in an evolving history of observing and interpreting the sky. This is one of the points to emerge from a recent practice insight published in the Journal of Science Communication (JCOM). In the study, South African researcher Anton Binneman reflects on around ten years of meetings with elders and knowledge holders from Indigenous communities descended from the San. The work developed in the context of the construction of MeerKAT and the development of SKA-Mid, two telescopes in the South African Karoo, and as part of the environmental and social impact assessment required for these projects. The research highlights that Indigenous and traditional knowledge is not frozen in time, as is sometimes wrongly assumed, but continuously incorporates elements of the contemporary world, including scientific research.

Hyperbolic phonon polaritons (HPhPs) are hybrid light–matter waves that can confine infrared electromagnetic fields to spatial scales far below the corresponding free-space wavelength. Controlling HPhPs on femtosecond timescales could provide a foundation for future ultrafast and ultracompact nanophotonic devices. However, directly imaging such ultrafast dynamics has remained challenging because HPhPs are strongly dispersive and their wavelength changes markedly with frequency. Broadband femtosecond laser pulses therefore excite HPhPs over a range of wavelengths, causing their interference patterns to overlap and wash out in real-space images. In this study, researchers developed an ultrafast infrared near-field optical microscopy technique that combines nanoscale spatial resolution and an approximately 150-femtosecond temporal resolution with a spectral resolution of about 10 cm⁻¹. By using a diffraction grating to spectrally resolve the light scattered from the microscope tip before detection, the technique enables frequency-selective imaging without sacrificing ultrafast time resolution. Applying the new technique to a van der Waals heterostructure composed of tungsten disulfide (WS₂) and hexagonal boron nitride (hBN), the researchers revealed how photoexcited charge carriers generated in WS₂ transiently modulate HPhPs propagating in the adjacent hBN. The researchers observed changes in the HPhP electric-field amplitude and, in structures containing a relatively thick WS₂ layer, a change in the HPhP wavelength. The researchers say, “The results establish a new platform for observing and controlling nanoscale light propagation on femtosecond timescales, opening new opportunities for ultrafast nanophotonics”.