science wire

Brown dwarfs get a bad rap in the stellar world, often labeled as "failed stars" for their inability to sustain nuclear fusion at their cores. The mass of these objects falls between planets and stars, ranging from 13 to 80 times the mass of Jupiter. Because they aren't massive enough to sustain fusion, they are far fainter and cooler than their stellar comrades.

How does fine dust aggregate into building blocks that ultimately form entire planets like our Earth? A research team led by the University of Bern, with the participation of ETH Zurich, the University of Zurich and the National Center of Competence in Research (NCCR) PlanetS has provided the first experimental evidence - obtained during parabolic flights in zero gravity - that a key physical process, known as shear-flow instability, actually occurs under conditions similar to those in planet formation regions.

Under the EPFL-led ADOPT project, researchers are combining AI satellite-image recognition with drift prediction models to improve the collection of plastic debris in the ocean. The technology has passed the proof-of-concept stage and is ready for field testing. Being able to identify and track floating masses of debris is critical to ocean clean-up efforts.

When the densest objects in the universe collide and merge, the violence sets off gravitational waves that reverberate across space and time over hundreds of millions and even billions of years. By the time they pass through Earth, such cosmic ripples are barely discernible.

When you look up at the sky at night, at the endless amounts of stars and constellations, you might begin to wonder about the origins of the Universe.

A team of international astronomers including researchers from The Australian National University (ANU) have observed the central region of the Milky Way in unprecedented detail, revealing an intricate, turbulent network of cosmic gas filaments. The area captured by the image stretches more than 650 light-years and surrounds the supermassive black hole at the heart of our galaxy.

Thanks to Fink, a software founded by two CNRS 1 engineers, it is now possible to track millions of transient celestial phenomena observed in the sky by the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile, in real time and with unprecedented precision.

An international collaboration using the Low Frequency Array (LOFAR) has unveiled an exceptionally detailed radio sky map, revealing 13.7 million cosmic sources and delivering the most complete census yet of actively growing supermassive black holes.

The LOFAR radio telescope has delivered the most detailed radio map of the northern sky to date. It provides new insights into active galaxies, star formation and rare cosmic objects. For more than ten years, an international research team observed the northern sky with the LOFAR radio telescope. The results of this sky survey have now been published in the scientific journal "Astronomy & Astrophysics".

Researchers at The University of Manchester have developed a new way to design Earth-observation satellite missions that could help protect the space environment while continuing to deliver vital data for tackling global challenges, such as climate change, food production, supply chain vulnerabilities and environmental degradation.

Scientists sifting through archival data captured by NASA's former NEOWISE mission found an unusual star that quickly disappeared, fading to nothing more than a wispy shell.

Astronomers have, for the first time, captured a gallery of detailed snapshots of planetary systems during their "teenage years," an era long shrouded in mystery.

While popular AI models such as ChatGPT are trained on language or photographs, new models created by researchers from the Polymathic AI collaboration are trained using real scientific datasets.

Researchers from the Institute of Cosmos Sciences of the University of Barcelona (ICCUB) and the Institute of Space Studies of Catalonia (IEEC), in collaboration with the Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands (IAC), have led the most extensive observational study to date of runaway massive stars, which includes an analysis of the rotation and binarity of these stars in our galaxy.

A new collaboration between University of Glasgow engineers and the European Space Agency (ESA) has showcased the potential of nomadic mobile communications networks to enable remote healthcare.

The latest results from the Dark Energy Survey (DES) collaboration, which involves UCL researchers, combined four methods for measuring the expansion of the universe for the first time. Dark energy is the mysterious force that is accelerating the expansion of the universe and represents about 70% of the total content of the universe.

New astronomical survey captures previously unknown growing pains in the lives of planets New Discoveries: Astronomers have captured detailed images of young planetary systems, revealing their growth stages and complexities. Significant Findings: The ALMA survey provides insights into debris discs, which represent the formative phase of planet formation, akin to the teenage years of planetary systems.

A Simon Fraser University cosmologist believes his team's new research may bring them a step closer to cracking one of science's biggest questions - the Hubble tension. The quest to determine how fast the universe is expanding has irked cosmologists for decades, leading it to be dubbed the Hubble tension - or even the Hubble crisis.

A mysterious bar-shaped cloud of iron has been discovered inside the iconic Ring Nebula by a European team led by astronomers at UCL and Cardiff University.

Astronomers have spotted one of the oldest 'dead' galaxies yet identified, and found that a growing supermassive black hole can slowly starve a galaxy rather than tear it apart. The researchers, led by the University of Cambridge, used data from the James Webb Space Telescope and the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA), to study a galaxy in the early universe - about three billion years after the Big Bang.

Climate change, trust in science and health were among the most popular topics covered by UZH media releases and articles in 2025. As in past years, our stories about research at UZH resonated all'over the world. Last year, the UZH media relations team published over 70 media releases and articles about the university's research findings and institutional developments.

In May 2024, the strongest solar storm in twenty years raged. An international team led by ETH Zurich observed it. Their findings are now helping to improve space weather forecasts. Our sun rotates around its axis once every 28 days. From earth, therefore, active regions of the sun can only be observed for up to two weeks at a time.

Through Carnegie Mellon University's Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship program, junior physics major Joao Passos is learning how stars and solar systems form by studying brown dwarfs - objects bigger than planets but smaller than stars.

SPACE The University of Copenhagen will lead Denmark's first lunar mission. The mission aims to map the Moon's surface in unprecedented detail to make it safer to land on the Moon and construct bases in the future.

CRC at the University of Bonn involved in satellite mission to observe the Earth The largest contributions in the history of the European Space Agency, €22.3 billion, have been approved at its Council meeting at Ministerial level in Bremen, Germany.

Space technology Using AI, advanced camera technology, and navigation developed by DTU Space, satellites can now all by themselves maneuver and maintain formation with extreme precision - without any assistance from Earth.

Astronomers have observed the longest gamma-ray burst - a powerful, extragalactic explosion that lasted more than seven hours.

The LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) collaboration involving UCL researchers has achieved a new record in its search for dark matter and for the first time picked up signals from neutrinos produced in the Sun's core, a milestone in sensitivity. Analysing data from the world's most sensitive dark matter detector collected over 417 days, the international research team put the best-ever limits on weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs), a leading candidate for what makes up our universe's invisible mass.

The Würzburg-led research unit "Relativistic Jets in Active Galaxies" has been investigating the powerful plasma beams emitted by supermassive black holes since 2021.

A new research collaboration which fuses fashion and science is set to send bacteria into space - and the outcomes could create radiation-sensitive fabrics capable of preventing skin cancer on Earth and protecting space explorers on the Moon.

At its Ministerial Council meeting, the European Space Agency (ESA) has approved the RAMSES mission.

The unique data from ESA's Solar Orbiter spacecraft aims to explain why the Sun's activity fluctuates in an 11-year cycle. South pole data: In March, ESA's spacecraft Solar Orbiter had its first clear view of the Sun-s south pole. A first analysis has now been published. It shows supergranulation, i.e., huge cells of hot plasma that cover the Sun and create the large-scale, net-like structure of the magnetic field on its surface.

A University of Manchester astronomer is set to build the most detailed and accurate model of the radio sky ever built, offering new insights into the first stars, galaxies, and possibly new physics.

Scientists, including Waterloo's Professor Lisa Dang from the physics and astronomy department, have discovered a huge cloud of helium gas is escaping from the atmosphere of the exoplanet WASP-121 b, an "ultra-hot Jupiter.