In the past decade, the European Space Agency’s Gaia space telescope has revealed the nature, history, and behaviour of billions of stars. Our pioneering stargazer has reshaped our view of the skies around us like no other, revealing that star clusters are more connected than expected over vast distances.

On August 8, 2024, the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope captured the sharpest-ever images of a solar flare at the H-alpha wavelength (656.28 nm), revealing dark coronal loop strands in unprecedented detail. The observations, made during the decay phase of an X1.3-class flare, measured loop widths averaging 48.2 km, with some even half as narrow. By using the Inouye Solar Telescope to isolate light at the H-alpha wavelength, emitted by hydrogen atoms, solar physicists can identify fine structures in the lower solar atmosphere too small to observe in the past—offering a potential breakthrough in determining the fundamental scale of coronal loops and advancing solar flare modeling. By improving researchers’ ability to model solar flares, these observations will also improve forecasting for space weather events that are hazardous to satellites, power grids, and communications on Earth.

Liquids can provide some especially tricky challenges for space travelers, but new research could help engineer smarter, more efficient fluid control in zero- and low-gravity environments. 

Scientists have devised a new method for mapping the spottiness of distant stars by using observations from NASA missions of orbiting planets crossing their stars’ faces. The model builds on a technique researchers have used for decades to study star spots. By improving astronomers’ understanding of spotty stars, the new model — called StarryStarryProcess — can help discover more about planetary atmospheres and potential habitability using data from telescopes like NASA’s upcoming Pandora mission.

Key takeaways:

— Astronomers at UC Santa Cruz have developed a new model to better understand “steam worlds,” or water-rich sub-Neptunes – some of the most common planets in the universe.

— These planets are too hot for surface oceans and are thought to have atmospheres consisting of exotic phases of water. They are also 10 to 100 times more massive than the icy moons in our solar system that have historically served as models.

— The James Webb Space Telescope has already detected steam on several sub-Neptunes, and the new models will help scientists interpret what telescopes observe from the atmospheric data collected.

Four and a half billion years ago Jupiter rapidly grew to its massive size. Its powerful gravitational pull disrupted the orbits of small rocky and icy bodies similar to modern asteroids and comets, called planetesimals. This caused them to smash into each other at such high speeds that the rocks and dust they contained melted on impact and created floating molten rock droplets, or chondrules, that we find preserved in meteorites today. Now, researchers at Nagoya University in Japan and the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF) have for the first time determined how these droplets formed and accurately dated the formation of Jupiter based on their findings. Their study, published in Scientific Reports, shows how the characteristics of chondrules, particularly their sizes and the rate at which they cooled in space, are determined by the water contained in the impacting planetesimals. This explains what we observe in meteorite samples and proves that chondrule formation was a result of planet formation.