SAN ANTONIO — January 20, 2026 —While Io, the most volcanically active moon in the solar system, appears completely dry and devoid of water ice, its neighbor Europa is thought to harbor a vast global ocean of liquid water beneath its icy crust. A new international study co-led by Aix-Marseille University and Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) reveals that this striking contrast was established at birth, as they formed around Jupiter, not from later evolutionary processes.

Researchers at Aarhus University have demonstrated that peptides – key precursors to proteins and life – can form spontaneously in interstellar space. By simulating the extreme conditions of cold, vacuum and radiation found in cosmic dust clouds, the team showed that simple amino acids readily bond into more complex molecules. The findings suggest that essential building blocks of life may be far more widespread in the universe than previously believed.

In a paper published in Earth and Planetary Physics, a scientific team presents a good correlation between temporal variations of the core magnetic field and the gravity field after separating the core mass transfer contributions in GRACE global gravity data combined with various global hydrological models. The correlation analysis between the main principal components of core magnetic and gravity signals reveals that the changes in the second time derivative of the core magnetic field coincide in trend with changes in the gravity field.

New research shows how Jupiter and Saturn developed dramatically different vortices at their north poles. The findings may elucidate not only the planets’ surface weather patterns but also what lies beneath the clouds, within the planetary interiors. 

An international team from Kanazawa University (Japan), Tohoku University (Japan), LPP (France), and partners has demonstrated that chorus emissions, natural electromagnetic waves long studied in Earth’s magnetosphere, also occur in Mercury’s magnetosphere exhibiting similar chirping frequency changes. Using the Plasma Wave Investigation instrument aboard BepiColombo’s Mercury orbiter Mio, six Mercury flybys between 2021 and 2025 detected plasma waves in the audible range. Comparison with decades of GEOTAIL data confirmed identical instantaneous frequency changes. This provides the first reliable evidence of intense electron activity at Mercury, advancing understanding of auroral processes across the solar system.