Simple laboratory model for cosmic flows developed: A water tornado enables a realistic simulation of the dynamics of gas and dust in planet-forming discs.

Kepler’s laws confirmed in a water tank: The orbits of floating particles follow the same physical rules as celestial bodies in a gravitational field.

Potential for experiments on planet formation: The cost-effective and versatile setup opens up new ways to study interactions between dust and gas under laboratory conditions.

Astronomers may have caught a still-forming planet in action, carving out an intricate pattern in the gas and dust that surrounds its young host star. Using ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), they observed a planetary disc with prominent spiral arms, finding clear signs of a planet nestled in its inner regions. This is the first time astronomers have detected a planet candidate embedded inside a disc spiral.

Four EU projects – AD4GD, B-Cubed, FAIRiCUBE and USAGE –  have explored and documented the requirements for successfully building the GDDS and have published a joint policy brief, presenting a set of recommendations on data harmonisation, semantic interoperability, metadata management, data exchange and governance.

This is the first confirmed case of a star that survived an encounter with a supermassive black hole and came back for more. This discovery upends conventional wisdom about such tidal disruption events and suggests that these spectacular flares may be just the opening act in a longer, more complex story.

In a paper published in Earth and Planetary Physics, researchers propose a semi-empirical model combining Burton's empirical Dst formula with global magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulations to predict geomagnetic storm intensity. The hybrid approach demonstrates higher accuracy than pure empirical models when tested against moderate-to-intense storm events, while maintaining computational efficiency for operational space weather forecasting. This advancement enables more reliable Dst index estimation within global magnetosphere simulations.

Immune responses rely on the efficient movement of immune cells within the complex and geometrically unpredictable three-dimensional tissues that make up our bodies. Recent research by the Sixt group at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA) unveils how immune cells use their cytoskeleton to exert forces on their surrounding environment to push their way through tissues. The findings were published in Nature Immunology.