Science

Saturn’s South Pole Is Apparently Decagon-Shaped

Saturn’s South Pole Is Apparently Decagon-Shaped

Saturn’s north pole captured by Cassini in 2013. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI/CICLOPS/Kevin M. Gill) Although some would argue that the hexagon is the bestagon, astronomers have found that Saturn appears to favor the ten-sided decagon at its south pole. This comes as its south pole has recently been confirmed to show a pattern that is strangely ten-sided, … Read more

Enceladus is just 504 kilometres across — roughly half the length of Great Britain — yet a 2026 study traced its electromagnetic Alfvén-wave wake at least 504,000 kilometres downstream through Saturn’s magnetosphere, farther than the Moon ever travels from Earth.

Enceladus is just 504 kilometres across — roughly half the length of Great Britain — yet a 2026 study traced its electromagnetic Alfvén-wave wake at least 504,000 kilometres downstream through Saturn’s magnetosphere, farther than the Moon ever travels from Earth.

Enceladus is small enough to fit comfortably within the length of Great Britain. Its electromagnetic influence, however, reaches a distance greater than the usual maximum separation between the Earth and the Moon. A peer-reviewed analysis of Cassini data in 2026 has traced disturbances associated with Saturn’s icy moon to at least 504,000 kilometers downstream. This … Read more

Triton likely formed in the outer solar system before Neptune captured it, largely destroying the planet’s original moon system. JWST observations published in July 2026 suggest today’s inner moons reassembled from the wreckage — although Nereid may be one original survivor.

Triton likely formed in the outer solar system before Neptune captured it, largely destroying the planet’s original moon system. JWST observations published in July 2026 suggest today’s inner moons reassembled from the wreckage — although Nereid may be one original survivor.

Neptune has 16 known moons, but hardly any conventional lunar system. Triton alone contains more than 99 percent of the satellite system’s mass, traveling backwards around the planet and leaving only a compact collection of small inner moons, faint rings and distant, irregular companions. That peculiar architecture has long signaled an ancient catastrophe. Triton probably … Read more

The only spacecraft ever to visit Uranus arrived during solar-wind conditions seen just 4% of the time, compressing the dayside volume of its magnetosphere by up to 78% — meaning textbook descriptions of Uranus’s magnetic environment may be based on a very bad day, not its normal state.

The only spacecraft ever to visit Uranus arrived during solar-wind conditions seen just 4% of the time, compressing the dayside volume of its magnetosphere by up to 78% — meaning textbook descriptions of Uranus’s magnetic environment may be based on a very bad day, not its normal state.

Voyager 2 arrived at Uranus on January 24, 1986 and remains the only spacecraft to have visited the planet. Its brief passage discovered Uranus’s magnetic field and provided the in situ measurements behind almost all subsequent accounts of the planet’s magnetosphere. There was always the danger of turning a flyby into a permanent portrait. A … Read more

Fruit Fly Brain Simulated Inside Minecraft / X

Fruit Fly Brain Simulated Inside Minecraft / X

Last updated on September 6, 2026 Evan Smith used the newly released connectome of an adult male fruit fly (which mapped 166,000 neurons from HHMI Janelia and Google Research) to run a real-time spike network in Minecraft. The game’s sensory inputs activate clusters of neurons, driving actions like flying or grooming, while emphasizing that it’s … Read more

Scientists found an estimated 5.5 million wild bees living beneath a New York cemetery — millions of solitary insects packed into underground burrows across just 1.5 acres, creating one of the largest nesting aggregations ever recorded at a site where the species has quietly survived for generations

Scientists found an estimated 5.5 million wild bees living beneath a New York cemetery — millions of solitary insects packed into underground burrows across just 1.5 acres, creating one of the largest nesting aggregations ever recorded at a site where the species has quietly survived for generations

A woman took a shortcut through a cemetery to avoid a parking fee and ended up in a scientific paper. Rachel Fordyce worked as a technician in an entomology laboratory at Cornell University. To avoid paying for a parking spot on campus, I used to park in a nearby plaza and walk the last stretch … Read more

China unveils plans to beat US in retrieving Mars samples

China unveils plans to beat US in retrieving Mars samples

(NewsNation) — China has set a timeline for recovering samples from the surface of Mars within the next half-decade, while similar ambitions in the US have been sidelined by funding issues. The Tianwen-3 robotic mission launching in 2028 would travel to the Red Planet, collect 500 grams (1.1 pounds) of samples and return them to … Read more

In 1879, Edwin Hall discovered an electrical effect thought to need a perpendicular magnetic field; 147 years later, scientists have shown it can work with the field in-plane

In 1879, Edwin Hall discovered an electrical effect thought to need a perpendicular magnetic field; 147 years later, scientists have shown it can work with the field in-plane

An atomic force microscopy scan of a nanometer-sized device developed by Carnegie Mellon scientists demonstrating a new form of the Hall effect. For more than a century, the Hall effect has been taught with a simple picture of electricity flowing through a material, a magnetic field pushing moving charges sideways, and a voltage appearing across … Read more

Is There Alien Debris on the Moon? Some Scientists Plan to Find Out.

Is There Alien Debris on the Moon? Some Scientists Plan to Find Out.

Imagine an alien civilization powered by dazzling technologies far more advanced than ours. Imagine city-sized spaceships, planetary mines, or swarms of solar panels harvesting energy directly from a star. As these aliens go about their supernatural business, the erosive forces of space wear away at their infrastructure, releasing small pieces of debris that break off … Read more

The same scientists who reported water erupting from Europa in 2014 have now reanalysed 14 years of Hubble data and cut their confidence from 99.9% to below 90%. The signal may have been statistical noise, leaving Europa’s famous geysers physically plausible—but never conclusively observed, and never proven to connect with the ocean below.

The same scientists who reported water erupting from Europa in 2014 have now reanalysed 14 years of Hubble data and cut their confidence from 99.9% to below 90%. The signal may have been statistical noise, leaving Europa’s famous geysers physically plausible—but never conclusively observed, and never proven to connect with the ocean below.

Europa’s water plumes became one of planetary science’s most memorable images without ever becoming a secure photograph. Illustrations showed white geysers rising from fractures in the ice. Hubble data were translated into views of a south-polar eruption reaching roughly 200 kilometres above the moon. Mission concepts began to discuss flying through the material rather than … Read more