For the first time, astronomers have managed to capture a radio image showing two black holes orbiting each other. The observation confirmed the existence of black hole pairs. In the past, astronomers have only managed to image individual black holes.

By fitting its sunshield and solar panels, engineers have completed the construction of Plato, the European Space Agency’s mission to discover Earth-like exoplanets. Plato is on track for the final key tests to confirm that it is fit for launch.

On Mars, dust devils and winds reach speeds of up to 160 km/h and are therefore faster than previously assumed: This shows a study by an international research team led by the University of Bern. The researchers analyzed images taken by the Bernese Mars camera CaSSIS and the stereo camera HRSC with the help of machine learning. The study provides a valuable data basis for a better understanding of atmospheric dynamics, which is important for better climate models and future Mars missions.

Combing through 20 years of images from the European Space Agency’s Mars Express and ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter spacecraft, scientists have tracked 1039 tornado-like whirlwinds to reveal how dust is lifted into the air and swept around Mars’s surface.

Published today in Science Advances, their findings – including that the strongest winds on Mars blow much faster than we thought – give us a much clearer picture of the Red Planet’s weather and climate.

And with these ‘dust devils’ collected into a single public catalogue, this research is just the beginning. Besides pure science, it will be useful for planning future missions, for example incorporating provisions for the irksome dust that settles on the solar panels of our robotic rovers.

An analysis of more than 1,000 Martian dust devils over two decades has revealed new details about the planet’s tumultuous atmospheric dust cycle. The work describes how near-surface horizontal winds – not just vertical ones – influence dust lifting and dust devil initiation, offering insights that could be useful for planetary exploration. Mars experiences whirling dust devils just like those seen on Earth. The planet’s dust cycle drives these events, producing vertical and horizontal winds that alter the surface weather and climate. By examining dust devil development, duration, and severity, scientists can work backwards to learn about the planet’s wind dynamics and anticipate dangers spacecraft might encounter. “[NASA’s] most recent Mars Exploration Program specifically calls out the need for a better understanding of the dynamics and interactions of Mars’ dusty surface and atmosphere in the context of sustainable, future exploration,” Valentin Bickel and colleagues note. Here, they evaluate longitudinal patterns of seasonal, global, and diurnal Martian dust devil migration, focusing on the less-understood impact of horizontal, near-surface winds. They applied deep learning to parse spacecraft imaging data of 1,039 dust devils that occurred from 2004 to 2024. Doing so enabled Bickel et al. to reconstruct the planet’s near-surface, straight-line wind patterns over two decades. They observed that global circulation models for Mars generally underestimated the planet’s actual wind forces, or shear stresses. In contrast to results from previous models, the researchers found that these forces frequently surpassed the strength threshold necessary to lift dust from the ground into the atmosphere. The team corroborated the results with additional thermophysical and atmospheric records, global weather maps, and the Mars Climate Database model. Overall, the work underscores the need to consider straight-line wind stresses in projections about dust activity in the lowermost part of the Martian atmosphere.

For reporters interested in the complex Martian atmosphere, a 2025 Science Advances study presented spacecraft images depicting puff pastry-esque layers in the Martian atmosphere: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adu0859