A remarkable discovery has been made in East Africa’s Lake Malawi, one of the deepest bodies of water on the African continent.

Africa’s impressive lakes have long remained a focus of speculation for naturalists, involving folklore about strange creatures—including supposed holdovers from prehistoric times—alleged to inhabit some of their waters.

However, a much smaller discovery made by a team of researchers with the Department of Zoology at the University of British Columbia (UBC) at Vancouver, Canada, is nonetheless challenging our past thinking on what kinds of life forms can be found lurking in the depths of some of Africa’s storied lakes.

In a remarkable discovery, a variety of lake fly larvae have been found descending into the very oxygen-deprived depths of Lake Malawi, where they hide more than 650 feet below the surface to avoid predators.

After spending their days in this deep-water “dead zone,” the larvae reemerge at night and feed—or at least some of them do, if they are lucky enough to escape the fish searching for a dinner of their own, while these tiny insects are commuting back to the surface.

A Surprising Discovery Deep in Lake Malawi

To chart the unusual daily cycle of these larvae, UBC researchers Dr. Philip Matthews and Dr. Evan McKenzie used sonar technologies, which were positioned deep within the lake.

While this provided an idea about where these tiny insects were going, it was dissecting the larvae that revealed how these remarkable little creatures have somehow evolved a respiratory system that contains two pairs of small air sacs, which function like ballast tanks, allowing the larvae to control their buoyancy.

Within these sacs, they discovered the presence of resilin, a material that can either expand or contract in proportion to changes in the pH of the sac’s walls. As a result, the larvae can change the volume of these unique air sacs, thereby controlling their buoyancy.

It is an unusual capability these creatures display, to say the least. Curious about how deep they might be able to go, the researchers placed several of the larvae within small pressure chambers to simulate the depths they might travel to before the sacs imploded.

Much to the team’s surprise, these natural buoyancy systems held out under conditions that would match depths of 400 meters (1,312 feet), which is much deeper than what the sonar data reveals about the larvae’s daily descents into Lake Malawi.

While it has long been assumed that insects, which often thrive in freshwater environments, do not live in open oceans due to such pressures associated with the depths of the world’s largest bodies of water, these African insect larvae reveal that such creatures can survive under such conditions.

Based on their findings, the UBC researchers hope to work on finding ways of simulating such capabilities, perhaps by creating pH-powered resilin smart materials, or even artificial systems that emulate the way muscles operate.

The team’s findings appeared in the new study, “Crush-resistant air sacs allow insect larvae to exploit aquatic habitats at extreme depth,” published in the journal Science.

Micah Hanks is the Editor-in-Chief and Co-Founder of The Debrief. A longtime reporter on science, defense, and technology with a focus on space and astronomy, he can be reached at micah@thedebrief.org. Follow him on X @MicahHanks, and at micahhanks.com.

Welcome to this edition of The Intelligence Brief… This week, the Pentagon’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) finally released its long-delayed Fiscal Year 2025 report on unidentified anomalous phenomena, revealing the latest findings from the Office’s growing number of UAP cases. In our analysis, we’ll be looking at 1) what the latest report reveals about AARO’s growing database of nearly 2,000 UAP reports, 2) why satellite flares continue to account for many recent sightings, 3) the report’s intriguing references to unresolved incidents near sensitive military installations and critical infrastructure, and 4) what AARO’s latest findings suggest about the challenges investigators still face in explaining a small but persistent number of UAP reports.

Quote of the Week  

“AARO seeks to capitalize on a diverse set of sensor technology capabilities and intelligence analytic tradecraft…  to improve the USG’s effort to investigate and respond to UAP in the air, maritime, and space domains at scale and speed.”

– AARO FY 2025 ANNUAL REPORT

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• Get all the latest stories from The Debrief, with more breaking stories at the end of this week’s newsletter.

Pentagon’s AARO Releases Long-Delayed UAP Report

This week, the Pentagon’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) finally released its 2025 annual report on unidentified anomalous phenomena, or UAP.

You read that correctly: the long-delayed report for fiscal year (FY) 2025 has been MIA since its expected release date last October, and finally appeared at AARO’s website just three months (or so) ahead of the scheduled release date for its next annual report. Hey, better late than never.

According to AARO’s latest findings, there were no cases it resolved that point to advanced foreign technology or extraordinary capabilities exhibited by UAP, but close to 200 reports from its latest batch remain unexplained due to insufficient data.

AARO also reiterated two conclusions that have remained consistent across previous reports: investigators have found no evidence that the U.S. government or any private organization has recovered or exploited materials derived from UAP, and the office has received no verified reports of adverse health effects directly associated with UAP encounters.

Beyond that, here’s a look at some of the report’s primary findings.

Key Findings in AARO’s 2025 Report

Offering an overview of the office’s investigations of cases collected between June 2, 2024, and May 30, 2025, the new report conveys that AARO received 319 new UAP cases during the reporting period, bringing its total case holdings to 1,870 since the office’s creation.

274 incidents occurred in the air domain, while 44 involved objects observed in space, and one occurred in the maritime domain. “The single maritime domain UAP case AARO received involved a report from U.S. Navy assets operating off the coast of Virginia,” AARO’s report states. “The report described approximately 100 airborne UAP and two, likely uncrewed, surface systems. AARO is actively investigating this event in coordination with the reporting unit.”

The brief description of this single maritime incident AARO received is intriguing, although very little context is provided, and it is unclear whether it may be describing UAVs and uncrewed launch platforms observed at sea, which might be attributable to a U.S. foreign adversary.

A Whole Lotta Satellites

As for those “objects observed in space,” AARO’s report makes it clear that none of the space-domain cases originated from space-based sensors, but instead mostly came from civilian pilots reporting through the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). The other two originated from U.S. Space Command ground-based sensors.

“AARO applied all-source analysis techniques and three-dimensional modeling to render a high confidence assessment for each of these cases as being attributable to satellite flaring,” the report reads.

The fact that satellite flaring has significantly contributed to recent alleged UAP sightings is nothing new. In 2022, following a series of sightings by pilots involving what were characterized as “racetrack UAPs,” it was determined that the sightings resulted from an optical illusion created by SpaceX Starlink satellites.

While 114 of the 319 new cases AARO has received have been resolved, it says that 191 cases have been placed into AARO’s “active archive,” which involves reports that presently lack sufficient data required to make an assessment.

“UAP cases held in active archive inform AARO’s locational and trend analyses and remain open to future resolution should further information or improved analytical techniques enable a more conclusive resolution,” the report states. Additionally, there were nine cases referred to members of the Intelligence Community and AARO’s science and technology partners for further technical analysis.

Trends in the Data

The report also identifies several trends among the incoming reports. In terms of appearance, spherical shapes remain the winning category, comprising close to 40 percent of reported UAP morphologies, with lights representing around 33 percent. Around 25 percent of sightings lacked enough information to give any clear indication of shape at all.

In terms of altitude, most airborne sightings occurred between 10,000 and 35,000 feet, while reports above 45,000 feet declined significantly from the previous reporting period; notably, AARO attributes this to its progress in identifying satellite flares.

Fortunately, no flight safety-related incidents were reported for the period discussed in the FY 2025 report, although there were two cases that “contained descriptions of electronic or avionic interference reported as attributable to UAP in proximity to an operational aircraft.” AARO says it remains unclear whether those effects were directly related to the observed UAP.

UAP Near Critical Infrastructure?

Perhaps one of the most significant elements of the new report is that there were reportedly several new cases logged near sensitive military installations and critical infrastructure. “Some narrative reports were suggestive of phenomena whose performance characteristics exceed the known state-of-the-art within a given domain,” the report states, though adding that “No technical data accompanied these reports.”

“If validated, the attendant phenomena underlying these reports may represent a currently unmitigated threat vector,” the report states. “Part of AARO’s mission is to provide data and analysis that helps mitigate potential UAP-related national security threats or operational hazards.”

The report additionally documents a significant increase in reports involving unmanned aerial systems operating near U.S. nuclear infrastructure, with 50 incidents referred to AARO by the National Nuclear Security Administration and Nuclear Regulatory Commission—a 178 percent increase over the previous year’s total.

It is clearly stated that none of these objects were genuine UAP or exhibited anything unusual. “The reports contained descriptions of UAS morphologies ranging from small hobbyist-sized UAS to larger multi-rotor models. Quadcopters were the most reported morphology,” AARO’s report states.

As with past AARO annual reports, the FY 2025 updates leaves much to the imagination—a fact that is very in keeping with recent UAP imagery and documentation released by the Pentagon through its PURSUE initiative. Still, the report’s findings—vague as they are—do indicate one fundamental issue: objects or phenomena that remain difficult to attribute to any known sources continue to be tracked by U.S. defense personnel.

With nearly 2,000 reports in its current collection, AARO concedes that while it has found no evidence of links to any extraordinary phenomena, there are also still a good number of cases that remain unresolved, and which warrant further attention.

Perhaps that’s the real takeaway—not that AARO has found evidence of anything extraordinary, but that some reports do continue to defy straightforward explanation.

That concludes this week’s installment of The Intelligence Brief. You can read past editions of our newsletter at our website, or if you found this installment online, don’t forget to subscribe and get future email editions from us here. Also, if you have a tip or other information you’d like to send along directly to me, you can email me at micah [@] thedebrief [dot] org, or reach me on X: @MicahHanks.

Here are the top stories we’re covering right now…

In the millennia that followed the last Ice Age, early humans began making their way into the inland mountains of southern Norway as ancient glaciers receded, revealing new portions of the landscape.

However, the landscape in this region made it impossible for fish to make their way upstream into high mountain lakes, impeded by waterfalls and other barriers. Somehow, fish appeared in these upland bodies of water anyway—so how did they get there?

The natural answer to this ancient question is that humans must have carried fish from regions further downstream, populating these ancient and once-lifeless lakes with an abundant food source. The question archaeologists have been unable to answer is when, precisely, these ancient transplants of wildlife took place.

Now, archaeologists with the University of Oslo believe they have finally solved this longstanding riddle, with the discovery of the remains of 7,000-year-old fish traps that reveal the likely period during which early Mesolithic inhabitants of the region engaged in some of its earliest fish farming.

The discovery not only offers archaeological evidence for when fish were likely first introduced into the region, but also reveals that agriculture was not the only means of nature management that these early Norwegians engaged in.

“For more than 100 years, it has been known that the fish inhabiting watercourses in the Norwegian mountains are descended from specimens translocated by humans,” says Axel Mjærum, a researcher at the University of Oslo and the lead author of a new study detailing the findings.

“However, until now, it has remained unclear when people first began transporting fish upstream into lakes and rivers that originally lacked natural fish,” he adds.

A 7000-Year-Old Discovery Leads to a Breakthrough

Offering a rare opportunity to unravel some of this mystery, the discovery of ancient fish traps constructed from wood, the remnants of which were discovered in southern Norway’s Lake Tesse, provided a unique look at the period during which fish transport and harvesting likely began.

Radiocarbon dating of the wood from the traps reveals that Salmo trutta, the region’s brown trout species, were relocated to the lake during the Mesolithic period.

Growing to considerable sizes, this species of trout was an ideal, high-protein food source that could readily be harvested from the lake once a thriving population had been established.

Although agriculture would later become a major source of food for these ancient Scandinavians, the period during which the fish traps are dated to predates farming in the region, which supports the idea that these people were hunter-gatherers, and also fishermen.

Environmental Management in Ancient Scandinavia

More broadly, the findings by Mjærum and his colleagues reveal the degree to which these Mesolithic Scandinavians were managing their food supply through direct control of the natural environment, setting the pace for several more millennia of food production.

Even today, brown trout are among the many fish species sportsmen harvest—the descendants of the very same fish originally carried to southern mountain Norwegian lakes thousands of years ago.

Mjærum says that the ancient Mesolithic Norwegian’s “release of brown trout into previously fishless lakes in the Norwegian mountains around 5000 B.C. is a very clear example of humans’ general capacity to reshape entire ecosystems, even before the introduction of farming.”

The study, “The introduction of fish to the Scandinavian mountains by hunter-fisher-gatherers 5000 BC,” appeared in the journal Antiquity.

Micah Hanks is the Editor-in-Chief and Co-Founder of The Debrief. A longtime reporter on science, defense, and technology with a focus on space and astronomy, he can be reached at micah@thedebrief.org. Follow him on X @MicahHanks, and at micahhanks.com.

Scientists are sounding the alarm over a worsening situation in Earth’s oceans and freshwater systems, according to a new study that warns of “irreversible” changes our planet could be facing.

New research led by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego has revealed the rapid disappearance of oxygen from bodies of sea and fresh water, leading to environmental changes that could endure for centuries if left unmitigated.

The new study, which appeared in the journal Limnology and Oceanography, argues that widespread aquatic deoxygenation—reduced levels of dissolved oxygen in oceans and coastal waters, lakes, rivers, and streams—is increasingly becoming a problem, and one that influences nine other crucial environmental processes.

These processes are all included in what is known as the Planetary Boundaries framework, a science-based tool that outlines the requirements of a safe operating space for humanity. Introduced in 2009 by Earth system scientists led by Johan Rockström, this framework identifies nine critical environmental processes that regulate Earth’s stability.

Specifically, the nine planetary boundaries outlined in this framework are climate change, biosphere integrity, land use changes, biogeochemical flow of nutrients, ocean acidification, freshwater changes, atmospheric aerosol loading, stratospheric ozone depletion, and pollution.

Now, the Scripps researchers behind the recent study say they believe dissolved oxygen levels should also be formally included in this framework.

Aquatic Deoxygenation is a Growing Concern

Erica Ferrer, a Scripps Oceanography alumna and current postdoctoral scholar at UC Santa Barbara’s National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis and lead author of the new study, says that her team’s work “is designed to elevate the profile of aquatic deoxygenation as a global threat and show that it does not operate in isolation.”

“The health and stability of our planet depends on the health and stability of aquatic ecosystems, which need oxygen to function normally,” Ferrer said.

Driving this growing problem, the new research says, is the excessive influx of nutrient pollution into water bodies, as well as anthropogenic warming, and changes occurring in natural ventilation systems within deep ocean waters.

With depleting oxygen levels scientists are seeing, longer-term changes to chemical and biological processes that regulate our planet’s climate are expected to occur. The decline, Ferrer and her colleagues argue, is also likely to impact a diverse range of aquatic organisms and ecosystems.

Even ocean mammals that acquire air at the surface are likely to be impacted, since deoxygenation can either cause the relocation or outright depletion of the organisms that make up their diets. This, in addition to causing severe damage to habitats and alterations to the food webs they depend on.

Ferrer and her colleague, study co-author and Scripps biological oceanographer Lisa Levin, are hopeful that their findings will encourage a deeper level of engagement on the potential ramifications of aquatic oxygen loss, and how other environmental challenges outlined in the planetary boundaries framework can act as multipliers, rather than separate existential concerns.

“Adding aquatic deoxygenation to the Planetary Boundaries framework will help us understand its impacts on Earth system stability,” Ferrer said in a statement, adding that mitigation of ocean deoxygenation impacts “represents a critical component of maintaining biodiversity and climate.”

Levin, Ferrer, and their colleagues’ study, “Abundant interactions and feedbacks between aquatic deoxygenation and the other planetary boundaries suggest ‘unsafe’ levels of oxygen loss with far‐reaching impacts,” appeared in the journal Limnology and Oceanography on June 30, 2026.

Micah Hanks is the Editor-in-Chief and Co-Founder of The Debrief. A longtime reporter on science, defense, and technology with a focus on space and astronomy, he can be reached at micah@thedebrief.org. Follow him on X @MicahHanks, and at micahhanks.com.

This week in stories we’re tracking at The Debrief… in a New York laboratory, an “impossible” synthetic motion breakthrough is opening new paths toward faster-than-light speed research for extreme physics applications. Elsewhere, a new study suggests war elephants helped determine Hannibal’s route across the Alps—and survived it better than soldiers. Finally, archaeologists are investigating an unusual underwater discovery deep within Germany’s Lake Constance.

In addition to these trending stories, here’s a look at other stories we’re covering right now at The Debrief:

• “It Was a Mix of Excitement and Disbelief”: When Scientists Sent Deep-Sea Rovers to Confirm a 1960s Theory, They Made a Surprising Discovery
  Deep-sea images captured off the coast of Benin, where 1960s scientists suspected a dead coral reef existed, reveal a shocking discovery.
• Astronomers May Have Been Looking for Alien Megastructures Around the Wrong Stars
  A new study suggests astronomers may have been looking for alien structures known as Dyson spheres in the wrong places.
• “Forever Chemical” Breakthrough Rapidly Degrades Synthetic Substances Linked to Cancer and Other Health Problems
  The problem of PFAS, a group of potentially cancer-causing “forever chemicals,” may finally have a solution from German scientists.
• A New Solution to the Dinosaur-Killer Meteorite Mystery Creates Fresh Questions
  A new analysis of debris from a 66-million-year-old meteorite that scientists call the dinosaur-killer has revealed another origin mystery.
• Citizen Scientists Helped Reveal How Fatherhood Evolved in Spider Relatives
  A new study reveals harvestmen, or daddy longlegs, account for more than half of all paternal care cases documented among arthropods.
• NASA’s Psyche Mission Captures Crescents and Surface Details During Recent Martian Flyby
  New imagery released by NASA has revealed a growing “crescent” and surface details on Mars obtained by the agency’s Psyche spacecraft.
• China Clears Brain-Computer Interfaces for Commercial Use: Is It Time for a Global Coalition?
  Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) could fundamentally reshape what it means to be human. Is the formation of a global BCI coalition needed?
• Scientists May Have Finally Solved Earth’s Greatest Extinction Mystery
  A recent study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggests that differences in physiology, metabolism, and oxygen use helped determine which marine animals survived the Great Dying catastrophe.
• “A Major Milestone in the Search for Life on Other Planets”: First Ever Detection of an Atmosphere Around an Earth-Like, Habitable Zone Rocky Exoplanet
  In a major boost to the search for life, Harvard astronomers have detected an atmosphere around a habitable-zone, Earth-like rocky exoplanet.
• “This Upper Limit is an Illusion”: NASA Study Warns There May Be “No Limit” to How Solar Storms Impact Earth 
  Our modern society depends heavily on communications and power networks that are highly susceptible to interference from solar storms.
• Astronomers Uncovered a Hidden Bubble Inside the Orion Nebula
  A key component of the Orion Nebula had evaded detection by astronomers until now, according to newly published research.
• Deep Beneath the Atlantic, an Eerie “Lost City” is Feeding Legions of Lifeforms That Thrive Where Sunlight Never Reaches
  Earth’s hidden plumbing system may be feeding one of its strangest ecosystems: the Lost City hydrothermal field in the Atlantic Ocean.
• Can You See It? This Stealth Drone Deploys a Human Perception “Hack” to Become Nearly Invisible to the Eye
  The “Phantom Twist” drone disappears from view in a major new robotics advancement, offering a close-to-invisible aerial platform.
• No Sample-Return Required? Scientists Demonstrate Extraterrestrial Biosignature Detection Method Using the Mars Rover’s Existing Instruments
  A new mineral-based biosignature detection method could identify signs of life on Mars using the Perseverance Rover’s existing tools.

A three-dimensional thermal cloak that can conceal objects from heat, while also shielding them from extreme temperatures, has been developed by researchers in a breakthrough with significant potential for quantum electronics and military stealth technologies.

The breakthrough, led by University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign civil and environmental engineering professor Shelly Zhang in collaboration with colleagues at the Technical University of Denmark, differs from past thermal cloaks that only function in two dimensions, or in a single direction.

The team’s new device is capable of guiding heat around an object, regardless of the origin point of the heat source. When used with an infrared camera, the cloaked object effectively disappears, while the temperature inside the protected region remains stable.

The team’s achievement was detailed in a new study published in Nature Communications.

A Novel Approach to 3D Thermal Cloaking

Unlike previous thermal cloaks, which only worked in two dimensions or from a single direction, the new device guides heat around an object regardless of where the heat originates. To an infrared camera, the cloaked object effectively disappears, while the temperature inside the protected region remains stable.

“A real thermal cloak should work no matter where the heat comes from,” Zhang said in a recent statement. “Our device can hide a complex 3D object in an infinite number of directions while keeping the temperature inside stable and protected.”

As opposed to blocking heat, Zhang and her team’s new cloak redirects it around an object, preserving the temperature field in the surrounding area as though nothing were present.

Although the concept has existed theoretically for many years already, researchers have encountered challenges when it comes to practically leveraging such capabilities.

Redirecting Heat Around Hidden Objects

To overcome past hurdles engineers have faced, Zhang and her team designed a novel lattice-based material, which exhibits thermal properties that allow it to be “tuned” with a great degree of precision in three dimensions.

By combining a 3D-printed aluminum lattice, which serves as a good heat conductor, with a molded rubber-like material that functions as a thermal insulator, the team was able to control the flow of heat through different regions of the device. Additional lab testing helped to confirm its functionality as intended.

Placed between hot and cold environments, the cloak redirected heat around hidden objects, producing an external thermal pattern which they say appeared essentially undisturbed. Simultaneously, temperatures within the cloaked region remained largely uniform, despite the surrounding thermal gradient.

As a further demonstration of its capabilities, the researchers then successfully concealed objects with highly complex three-dimensional geometries, which included detailed head-shaped models that they say surpassed the performance of past versions of thermal cloaks.

Defense and Security Applications

Zhang says the technology could have a wide range of potential applications, especially where precise thermal control is a requirement.

“Any field that needs precise control of heat or needs to protect something from being detected thermally could benefit from this work,” Zhang said in a statement, “But we also see it more broadly: it’s about hiding and protecting information that is carried by heat.”

Additionally, the technology could have applications involving the use of similar cloaks to protect sensitive electronics and microchips from damaging heat, improve thermal management in advanced computing systems, and shield equipment from detection using infrared, which may be useful in security and defense technologies.

Going forward, the team plans on exploring more advanced designs capable of concealing objects that generate their own heat, which could pave the way toward more active thermal cloaks in the coming years that could dynamically manipulate heat and still remain effectively invisible to infrared sensors.

The team detailed their research in a recent paper, “Free-form thermal cloaks in three dimensions,” which appeared in Nature Communications.

Micah Hanks is the Editor-in-Chief and Co-Founder of The Debrief. A longtime reporter on science, defense, and technology with a focus on space and astronomy, he can be reached at micah@thedebrief.org. Follow him on X @MicahHanks, and at micahhanks.com.

An unusual underwater discovery has been revealed in Germany’s Lake Constance, where archaeologists are investigating the well-preserved remains of a medieval shipwreck.

The discovery, which dates back to the 15^th century, offers a rare look at the shipbuilding and navigation technologies once used to traverse one of the most historically important inland waterways in Europe.

Discovered near the city of Lindau, the find was made after a local recreational diver spotted what appeared to be wooden remains on the base of the lake, according to underwater archaeologist Prof. Tobias Pflederer, honorary president of the Bavarian Society for Underwater Archaeology.

The diver alerted archaeologists from the BGfU about the unusual wooden structure, who were able to confirm that the timbers belonged to the remains of a previously unknown vessel, Euro News reported.

“What was particularly exciting was that we were really able to identify the wooden remains as a wreck,” Pflederer said in a German-language statement. “But after several frames and fragments of the hull were protruding from the lakebed, the interpretation quickly became clear.”

A 15th Century Find Resurfaces

Based on the condition of the wooden ship’s remains, it is estimated that the vessel once measured between eight and twelve meters in length, with a beam of approximately three meters.

Analysis of wood samples from the wreck was undertaken with help from the Bavarian State Office for Monument Preservation, which revealed likely dates as old as 1420 AD. This makes the discovery one of just a handful of late medieval shipwrecks archaeologists have discovered in Lake Constance.

“So far we have carried out only two dives and have done just an initial survey,” Pflederer said, adding that researchers had documented the site using underwater orthophotography before collecting a small timber sample, which they used for radiocarbon dating.

What Sinks Remains Sunken

While the discovery is significant in terms of medieval sailing vessels, Pflederer and his colleagues say there are currently no plans to recover the vessel, since raising the wreck would require extensive conservation efforts that would be both technically challenging and also quite costly.

Given its current condition, the best means of preserving the wreck, for now, will be to leave it beneath the lakebed, where it is offered some degree of natural protection from sediment that has accumulated over it.

Future investigations of the centuries-old timbers that remain within Lake Constance may offer additional insights into how the vessel was constructed, and allow researchers to determine its precise dimensions, potentially adding new insights into medieval commerce and navigation on Lake Constance.

Quotes appearing in this article are translations of original German-language statements by Prof. Tobias Pflederer.

Micah Hanks is the Editor-in-Chief and Co-Founder of The Debrief. A longtime reporter on science, defense, and technology with a focus on space and astronomy, he can be reached at micah@thedebrief.org. Follow him on X @MicahHanks, and at micahhanks.com.

Researchers have revealed a microscopic engine that can convert heat into useful work while operating at temperatures only fractions of a degree above absolute zero.

Tinier than a single grain of sand, the machine marks the first demonstration of what researchers call a cyclic quantum heat engine composed of superconducting circuits, the technology behind modern quantum computers.

The findings, led by Academy Professor Mikko Möttönen, were published in Nature Communications.

A Sand-Grain-Sized Quantum Heat Engine

The tiny device, developed by researchers at Aalto University in Finland, relies on a single superconducting qubit, which represents the quantum world equivalent of a classical computer bit.

By heating, cooling, and extracting energy through quantum variations of the cycles that provide power to conventional engines by thermodynamic means, researchers say the machine’s demonstration of producing energy, while extremely small, marks a breakthrough that could one day allow for the simplification of much larger-scale quantum computers.

A flux-tunable transmon qubit—one of the most common building blocks of superconducting quantum processors—lies at the heart of the innovation. But as opposed to relying on separate hot and cold reservoirs, the Möttönen and the Aalto University research team used a single quantum circuit refrigerator capable of performing both roles.

The team guided the system through a sort of quantum version of what is known as an Otto cycle (the same essential process most gasoline engines employ) by leveraging precise control of the refrigerator and the qubit’s energy levels.

“In our experiment, we built a nanofabricated heat engine using superconducting circuits and operated it in a cryostat near absolute zero,” said lead author Tuomas Uusnäkki. “At its heart is a transmon qubit, one of the basic building blocks of modern quantum technologies.”

Single Shot Measurements on Repeat

The team also used repeated single-shot measurements to track the qubit, observing as it completed several engine cycles. This helped them calculate precisely how much heat was absorbed, as well as the amount of work produced, and the machine’s overall efficiency.

The results, they say, closely matched theoretical predictions, and now help to confirm that the device functioned as a genuine cyclic quantum heat engine.

Although this is not the first quantum heat engine, and previous demonstrations have been achieved using trapped ions, ultracold atoms, and other quantum systems, the Aalto team says this is the first that operates using superconducting circuits, which could present new possibilities for the future of quantum computing.

As quantum computers grow, such technologies could be especially helpful, since today’s superconducting processors rely on extensive networks of microwave cables connecting room-temperature electronics with processors that operate near absolute zero—the lowest temperature theoretically attainable.

These networks of cabling not only take up space, but also add to costs, while adding to the overall heat and electrical noise in systems that can also introduce interference affecting fragile quantum states.

A Look at the Future of Quantum Computing

With future refinements of their technology, the Aalto team hopes versions of their tiny engine may be able to perform control functions directly within cryogenic quantum processors, thereby reducing the need for external wiring altogether.

“Finland’s Quantum Technology Strategy envisions a quantum computer with one thousand logical qubits by 2035, which probably means hundreds of thousands of physical qubits,” Möttönen said in a statement, describing future large-scale quantum computers.

“Doing that with current technology requires millions of microwave cables costing thousands of euros each,” he added.

“The cables also introduce noise into the system,” Möttönen said. “Using autonomous devices instead would mostly eliminate the need for those cables.”

The team’s recent study, “Initial demonstration of a quantum heat engine based on dissipation-engineered superconducting circuits,” appeared in Nature Communications.

Micah Hanks is the Editor-in-Chief and Co-Founder of The Debrief. A longtime reporter on science, defense, and technology with a focus on space and astronomy, he can be reached at micah@thedebrief.org. Follow him on X @MicahHanks, and at micahhanks.com.

New NASA imagery has revealed a growing Martian “crescent” and surface details on the Red Planet as the agency’s Psyche spacecraft recently completed a flyby of Earth’s nearby planetary neighbor.

Launched on October 13, 2023, Psyche is currently on its way toward a rendezvous with a metal-rich asteroid after which the space probe was named. Now, in a series of composite images captured as the spacecraft flew past Mars during a gravity assist in early May, the growing crescent shape of the Red Planet is shown in successive views of Earth’s nearby planetary neighbor.

“After these views were captured by the spacecraft’s multispectral imager instrument, Mars began to overfill the field of view as Psyche made close approach with the planet and captured a series of high-resolution images of the surface,” read a NASA statement accompanying the imagery.

In several of the images, Mars appears as a thin sliver due to the high phase angle of approach as Psyche made its way toward the planet. In the days that followed, the crescent is shown as it appears to “grow” as more sunlight illuminates its surface.

A Detailed Glimpse of the Martian Surface Captured by Psyche

The recent crescent features weren’t all that Psyche captured during its recent near approach to Mars. In additional images released by the American space agency, the Martian surface appeared in colorful views obtained by the spacecraft’s multispectral imager instrument.

The resulting “mosaic” was created from four separate images acquired near the end of Psyche’s recent visit, shown in enhanced color that highlights several details visible on the Martian surface.

Traveling along a southwesterly path with relation to the Martian poles, the mosaic imagery appears slightly blurry, as it represents close to six minutes of travel above the planet. According to NASA, pixel scale resolution in the imagery “varies from 381 meters per pixel on the right to 440 meters per pixel on the left.”

Color enhancements to the imagery, collected with the imager’s green, blue, and near-infrared filters, reveal additional details about the various features of the volcanic region of Mars that Psyche flew over on May 15, 2026, known as the Iapygia region.

This area comprises part of the Martian southern highlands, and in the recent imagery, Fournier crater—the largest shown in the new imagery—can be seen, alongside hills, cliffs, and other features, including the irregular Oenotria Scopuli cliff system, forming one side of the boundary of a massive ancient impact feature on the Red Planet.

Additional details about the new imagery, as well as information about Psyche’s mission, can be found on NASA’s official mission page.

Micah Hanks is the Editor-in-Chief and Co-Founder of The Debrief. A longtime reporter on science, defense, and technology with a focus on space and astronomy, he can be reached at micah@thedebrief.org. Follow him on X @MicahHanks, and at micahhanks.com.