• Faintest exoplanet imaged from Earth hid in Beta Pictoris data for 11 years

    ByReet Kaur

    Two independent teams announced the discovery of Beta Pictoris d on July 15, 2026, a gas giant orbiting the 23-million-year-old Beta Pictoris system about 63 light-years from Earth. The planet is the faintest exoplanet ever directly imaged from Earth after correcting for distance; a VLT team traced it through observations spanning 11 years, while a JWST team independently identified it through the molecular signature of its atmosphere.

  • New Horizons awakens after longest hibernation, resumes science mission 9.5 billion km from Earth

    ByReet Kaur

    NASA announced on July 7, 2026, that its New Horizons spacecraft has resumed active operations after completing its longest hibernation period to date. The spacecraft emerged from a 321-day hibernation in good health, allowing mission controllers to begin retrieving spacecraft telemetry and science data gathered while it continued its journey through the Kuiper Belt, approximately 9.5 billion km (5.9 billion miles) from Earth.

  • Euclid uncovers 31 ancient quasars, including the most distant ever observed

    ByReet Kaur

    A study published in Astronomy & Astrophysics on July 6, 2026, reports that the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Euclid space telescope has discovered 31 quasars dating to the Universe’s first billion years. The discoveries include the two most distant quasars ever observed and provide astronomers with their first large sample of these rare objects from the epoch of reionisation, offering new insight into how the earliest supermassive black holes and galaxies formed.

  • Hidden ancient magma systems reshaped Mars’ evolution

    ByReet Kaur

    Mars may have been far more geologically sophisticated than scientists once believed. A study published in Nature Astronomy on June 26, 2026 concludes that the Red Planet once sustained enormous interconnected magma plumbing systems capable of recycling and evolving molten rock throughout its crust, despite never developing Earth’s plate tectonics. The findings challenge one of the long-standing assumptions in planetary science and suggest that rocky planets may be able to build complex crust, and potentially environments favourable for life, without following Earth’s geological blueprint.

  • Rare plutonium isotope preserved in Pacific seabed points to an ancient cosmic explosion

    ByReet Kaur

    Tiny traces of radioactive plutonium locked inside a slow-growing crust on the floor of the Pacific Ocean have helped scientists solve a cosmic mystery dating back more than 100 million years. In a study published on June 15, 2026, in Nature Astronomy, an international team reports that the last nearby event capable of forging many of the Universe’s heaviest elements occurred long before the supernovae whose signatures have already been found on Earth.

  • New study links Atlantic “cold blob” to declining ocean heat transport

    ByReet Kaur

    The Atlantic “cold blob” — a persistent cooling anomaly in the subpolar North Atlantic south of Greenland and Iceland — is primarily caused by reduced ocean heat transport into the region rather than increased heat loss to the atmosphere, according to a study published in Geophysical Research Letters on May 28, 2026. The findings add to growing evidence of a long-term weakening of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC).

  • 40-year solar record reveals solar-cycle changes beneath the Sun’s surface

    ByRishav Kothari

    A 40-year record of solar observations has revealed that structural changes linked to the Sun’s 11-year activity cycle are becoming increasingly concentrated near the solar surface. The finding is based on helioseismic measurements spanning Solar Cycles 22 through 25 and offers a new view of how solar magnetic activity evolves beneath the visible surface.

  • Stress along Southern California faults reaches highest level in 1 000 years

    ByRishav Kothari

    More than 160 years after the M7.9 Fort Tejon earthquake, tectonic stress along Southern California’s two dominant fault systems has reached record levels, according to a new study that reconstructs 1 000 years of earthquake activity across the southern San Andreas and San Jacinto faults.

  • Noctilucent cloud season begins: How glowing night clouds form near the edge of space

    ByRishav Kothari

    Noctilucent cloud season is underway across the Northern Hemisphere, bringing one of Earth’s most unusual atmospheric phenomena back to twilight skies. Composed of microscopic ice crystals suspended near the edge of space, these clouds shine with a distinctive silver-blue glow when conditions in the upper atmosphere become cold enough for them to form.

  • New analysis sheds light on unexpected reversal in Earth’s molten outer core beneath the Pacific

    ByTeo Blašković

    A new analysis of geomagnetic observations from 1997 to 2025 shows that the unexpected reversal in Earth’s outer-core flow beneath the equatorial Pacific around 2010 has weakened since 2020, refining scientists’ understanding of one of the most unusual deep-Earth changes detected in recent decades.