SAN ANTONIO — September 3, 2025 — Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) has completed a mission study detailing how a proposed spacecraft could fly by an interstellar comet, providing remarkable insights into the properties of bodies originating beyond our solar system. The internally funded SwRI project developed the mission design, scientific objectives, payload and key requirements based on previous interstellar object (ISO) detections. Using the recent discovery of 3I/ATLAS, the team validated the mission concept, determining that 31/ATLAS could have been intercepted and observed by the proposed spacecraft.

Europlanet has announced the winners of its inaugural Career Medals, which are designed to honour outstanding contributions from planetary scientists at three stages of their careers. Dr Tim Lichtenberg is awarded the Europlanet Early-Career Medal, Dr Benoit Carry is awarded the Europlanet Mid-Career Medal and Prof Jean Schneider is awarded the Europlanet Lifetime Achievement Medal.

A powerful new particle detector, sPHENIX, just passed a critical test in its goal to decipher the ingredients of the early universe. The detector made a key measurement that proves it has the precision to help piece together the primordial properties of quark-gluon plasma.

New research from the University of St. Andrews has proposed that particles in solar flares are 6.5 times hotter than previously thought and provided an unexpected solution to a 50-year-old mystery about our nearest star. The research, published today in Astrophysical Journal Letters, looked at evidence of how flares heat solar plasma to greater than 10 million degrees. This solar plasma is made up of ions and electrons. The new research argues that solar flare ions, positively charged particles that make up half of the plasma, can reach over 60 million degrees. 

The Machine Intelligence and Neural Discovery (MIND) Institute at Wits University has been awarded core funding of US$1 million by Google.org. Led by Professor Benjamin Rosman (TIME100 AI 2025 influencer), the Wits Mind Institute is home to some of Africa’s leading fundamental AI researchers, and this landmark investment will supercharge its research and drive next-generation breakthroughs in natural and artificial intelligence.