Duke Energy is poised to receive $28.4 million in federal taxpayer funding to upgrade two aging coal-fired power units at its Roxboro plant in Person County, North Carolina. The federal grant would be supplemented by an additional $44 million from ratepayer funds, bringing the total investment to over $72 million for the coal facility improvements.

The funding announcement comes as Person County residents are already grappling with significant energy infrastructure changes in their community. The area is simultaneously dealing with the construction of new natural gas power plants, pipeline development, and a proposed Microsoft data center that would dramatically increase local energy demand.

The Roxboro plant upgrades are part of a broader national initiative, with similar coal plant improvement projects planned across 13 locations nationwide. This federal investment in coal infrastructure represents a notable shift toward supporting fossil fuel facilities at a time when many utilities are transitioning away from coal-fired power generation due to environmental concerns and economic factors.

The timing of these coal plant upgrades has raised questions among environmental advocates about the long-term energy strategy for the region, particularly given the concurrent natural gas development and the growing energy needs from technology companies establishing data centers in North Carolina. The combination of these projects signals a continued reliance on fossil fuel infrastructure despite ongoing climate commitments at state and federal levels.

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What would you grab if you had just minutes to evacuate your home before a wildfire or hurricane struck? Your family photos? A beloved pet? That handmade quilt from your grandmother?

This deeply personal question lies at the heart of the Museum of Unnatural Disasters, a powerful new pop-up exhibit that has opened in Washington DC. The interactive display forces visitors to confront the human reality behind climate change statistics by focusing on the impossible choices people face when extreme weather threatens everything they hold dear.

The museum brings together an unlikely coalition of voices – disaster survivors sharing their harrowing experiences, lawmakers grappling with policy responses, and activists demanding urgent action. Through personal stories and immersive displays, visitors experience what it means to lose a lifetime of memories to rising floodwaters or watch irreplaceable family heirlooms turn to ash in a wildfire.

The exhibit arrives at a critical moment as extreme weather events become increasingly frequent and severe across the United States. By transforming abstract climate data into visceral, emotional experiences, the museum aims to bridge the gap between scientific warnings and public understanding. Rather than overwhelming visitors with statistics about global temperature rise, the display asks them to imagine their own most treasured possessions at risk, making the climate crisis intensely personal and immediate.

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Editor’s Note: Astrobites is a graduate-student-run organization that digests astrophysical literature for undergraduate students. As part of the partnership between the AAS and astrobites, we occasionally repost astrobites content here at AAS Nova. We hope you enjoy this post from astrobites; the original can be viewed at astrobites.org.

Title: A Panchromatic JWST Spectrum of a Giant Starspot on the Fully Convective M Dwarf TOI-3884
Authors: C. A. Murray et al.
First Author’s Institution: University of Colorado Boulder
Status: Published in ApJ

We often picture stars as smooth, glowing spheres, as if they’ve been run through an Instagram filter. But real stars have spots: cooler, darker regions on a star’s surface caused by strong magnetic fields.

Annoyingly, these spots can seriously interfere with how we study exoplanet atmospheres.

How to Probe a Planetary Atmosphere

Planetary atmospheres are often probed through transmission spectroscopy. When a planet transits its star, some starlight passes through the planet’s atmosphere before reaching us. We can distinguish the light that has passed through the planet’s atmosphere by comparing the star’s light in transit versus out of transit. In doing so, we can isolate the atmospheric spectrum and look for absorption features of species like water or oxygen.

Easy, right?

How Starspots Get in the Way

Things get more complicated once we stop thinking of the star as if it’s been smoothed out by an Instagram filter. Starspots are cooler than the surrounding stellar surface, which means they emit a different spectrum. They are also constantly changing: new spots can form, old ones can disappear, and the star’s rotation carries them in and out of view. This changes things.

First of all, your star’s spectrum changes over time, which could mean that the star’s spectrum out of transit is not the same as the star’s spectrum during transit. On the other hand, the planet may transit across a starspot instead of a “normal” stellar region. In this case, the light we measure during the transit is affected by the spot, and it is no longer accurate to directly compare it with the overall stellar light outside the transit.

Ultimately, absorption features that we thought were from the planetary atmosphere could actually be coming from starspot contamination instead.

Starspot Models: Our Solution?

To deal with this, astronomers build starspot models, where they vary the spots in terms of the following:

• The surface covering fraction: this parameter tells us how much of the stellar surface is covered in spots
• The temperature contrast: this parameter tells us how much cooler (in ratio) the spot is compared to the rest of the stellar surface, and by proxy how much dimmer

These models are promising, but how do we know that we have chosen the right parameters?

A Unique Laboratory: TOI-3884

The TOI-3884 system is a unique laboratory for testing our starspot models. As seen in Figure 1, it has very convenient starspot geometry, with a large starspot located close to its pole. On top of that, we observe this star almost completely pole-on, which means that we always see this starspot, no matter how much the star rotates. To top this all off, the star hosts a close-in planet, which orbits the star from pole to pole.

The planet transits the star, and as it does so, it always passes over the polar starspot. This gives us a rare opportunity to probe the spectrum of a starspot. Similar to how we can use normal in/out of transit observations to probe a planetary atmosphere, we can now compare the observations during/after a “starspot transit” to probe the starspot region. Today’s authors do exactly this using six different transit observations from JWST.

So… How Good Are Our Models?

From the JWST observations, the authors extract a starspot spectrum for the first time. Figure 2 shows this as the spot contrast (how much dimmer the spot is than the surrounding stellar surface) plotted across different wavelengths. To see how well our models are doing, they compare this observed spectrum to two commonly used starspot models. The difference between the data and the models (the residual) is plotted in the lower panel.

At wavelengths longer than about 1 micron, in the near-infrared regime, things look good! The residuals stay small, meaning the models do a solid job reproducing the observations. But move left into shorter wavelengths, in the optical regime, and the agreement quickly falls apart. The residuals grow, and it becomes clear that the models are missing something.

There’s still work to be done before we can confidently probe planetary atmospheres at optical wavelengths without worrying about stellar contamination, and this observed starspot spectrum provides a unique benchmark to test future starspot models. For now, the near-infrared remains a safer and more reliable window for planet atmosphere studies.

Original astrobite edited by Natalie Price.

About the author, Elise Koo:

I’m a PhD student at the University of Amsterdam, working to detect magnetic interactions between stars and their planets using radio and spectroscopic observations. Outside of research, I like to try out a variety of sports.

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The fastest spinning pulsars in the universe are often quite difficult to detect. Leveraging multiple observations from the largest single-dish telescope in the world, researchers have discovered six previously undetected pulsars.

Millisecond Pulsars in Globular Clusters

Globular clusters, compact collections of tens of thousands to millions of stars, are highly dense and rife with dynamical interactions. These active environments are ideal factories for the formation of millisecond pulsars — the extremely fast-spinning cores of once-massive stars, shining beams of radio emission from their poles. One way millisecond pulsars are thought to form is when a pulsar in a binary system steals mass from its companion star, transferring angular momentum and causing the pulsar to spin up. The densely packed environment in a globular cluster provides ample opportunity for a pulsar to acquire a companion to siphon.

However, millisecond pulsars in distant globular clusters are notoriously difficult to detect. Traditional pulsar searches that rely on a single observation tend to miss millisecond pulsars, many of which have signals too faint to be distinguished from noise or radio interference. Instead, researchers must rely on a different method to find these fast-spinning pulsars.

Stack Search Success

To find faint millisecond pulsars, researchers have developed the stack search method, in which multiple radio observations are combined to tease out faint signals and decrease noise. Reliably stacking observations across epochs requires stability; isolated millisecond pulsars, now no longer spinning up after losing their companion, have very stable rotation periods, making them ideal targets for the stack search method. To date, the stack search method has successfully identified nine isolated globular cluster millisecond pulsars using data from the Arecibo, Parkes, and Green Bank radio telescopes.

In hopes of recovering more of these faint fast-spinning pulsars, Yinfeng Dai (Beijing Normal University) and collaborators used archival data obtained with the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST), the world’s largest single-dish telescope. Targeting two specific globular clusters, NGC 6517 and M15, the team applied the stack search method to 23 and 19 observations of the globular clusters, respectively. From their search, the authors discovered six previously unidentified isolated millisecond pulsars: four in NGC 6517 and two in M15.

While previous studies identified brighter pulsars in the targeted globular clusters, the authors confirmed that all six newly discovered pulsars are too weak to be reliably recovered from single-epoch searches, underscoring the importance of the stack search method. In particular, this search increased the known pulsar populations of NGC 6517 and M15 by 27% and 18%, respectively, suggesting that a meaningful fraction of globular cluster pulsars are easily missed in traditional pulsar searches. Future studies employing this stack search method will continue to detect faint millisecond pulsars, unlocking this elusive population for further exploration.

Citation

“The Stack Search Tests on FAST Data: Discovery of Six Faint Isolated Millisecond Pulsars in NGC 6517 and NGC 7078 (M15),” Yinfeng Dai et al 2026 ApJL 1002 L31. doi:10.3847/2041-8213/ae5dbb

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Editor’s Note: Astrobites is a graduate-student-run organization that digests astrophysical literature for undergraduate students. As part of the partnership between the AAS and astrobites, we occasionally repost astrobites content here at AAS Nova. We hope you enjoy this post from astrobites; the original can be viewed at astrobites.org.

Title: Retrieving the Red Edge on Earth-Like Planets with Heterogeneous Clouds and Surfaces
Authors: Zachary Burr et al.
First Author’s Institution: Jet Propulsion Laboratory; ETH Zurich
Status: Published in ApJ

In the next 25 years, astronomers could find signs of life on other planets with the launch of the Habitable Worlds Observatory. Atmospheric signs of life, known as atmospheric biosignatures, are how astronomers currently search for life on other planets. Figure 1 shows examples of atmospheric biosignatures with pictures of each chemical’s origin on Earth. Before E.T. can phone home, though, we have to understand what chemicals make up a planet’s atmosphere. To do this, astronomers can use spectroscopy to observe a planet’s atmosphere in different wavelengths and measure the types and quantities of chemicals present.

There are many ways to observe the spectrum of a planet, but the one you’re probably most familiar with is transmission spectroscopy. You can learn more about transmission spectroscopy of exoplanet atmospheres and how to model transmission spectra with these bites: 1, 2, 3. However, all of the current techniques for exoplanet spectroscopy (including transmission spectroscopy) measure the star’s light and how the planet affects the star’s light. This means it’s heavily dependent on how we model the star’s light to indirectly observe the planet’s light. The only way to take the spectrum of a planet directly is with direct imaging: the technique that the future Habitable Worlds Observatory will use to find signs of life in planetary spectra.

But are atmospheric biosignatures the only way to tell if life exists on other planets? Short answer: absolutely not. Let’s take Earth as an example. If we imagine Earth as a directly imaged exoplanet and take spectra of the light it reflects, you’ll find that around near-infrared wavelengths (~700 nanometers or just past the red part of the visible light spectrum), the light reflected off of Earth increases sharply. This sharp increase is called the vegetation red edge and is caused by plant and ocean life on Earth’s surface as shown in Figure 2. This is made possible because chlorophyll (the thing that makes plants green) absorbs nearly all visible light but reflects near-infrared light. The vegetation red edge is an example of a surface biosignature. In today’s article, the authors determine if the vegetation red edge will be visible in spectra of Earth-like exoplanets!

Snapshots

Planets rotate; that’s how we have morning, noon, and night in 24 hours guaranteed. This means that different parts of the surface will be visible at different times when we take spectra. Sometimes, we may see more ocean than land, other times not. To determine if the vegetation red edge would be visible at all points in Earth’s day, the authors simulated nine different spectra of modern-day Earth representing nine snapshots of Earth’s rotation. Additionally, they also simulated a time-averaged spectrum that shows an entire Earth day in one snapshot without the time variability. These spectra are shown in Figure 3.

The authors then run retrieval models on all nine spectra to see if the vegetation red edge would be detectable in each spectrum, including the time-averaged one. Retrieval models take into account characteristics of the planet that would affect how light moves through its atmosphere, such as the atmospheric chemicals present and the surface gravity. They then use this information to generate possible spectral models that could fit the data. The best-fit model allows astronomers to infer what the atmosphere is made of and properties of the planet such as surface gravity. Because we are looking at Earth in visible light, much of the light from the planet is reflected. Typically, models of Earth-like planets in visible wavelengths only include atmospheric albedo: the measure of how reflective a planet’s atmosphere is. However, surface biosignatures can also be reflective as shown by the vegetation red edge. The authors use this to their advantage and introduce a surface albedo into their model that changes with the amount of desert, vegetation, and ocean visible on Earth’s surface at that time. They then further divide the nine spectra into three different types based upon the visible surface: majority land; 50% land, 50% ocean; and majority ocean. Check out the article online to see a cool animation of the Earth rotating and how the spectrum looks different at each time!

Arr! There Be… Vegetables?

After running the models, the authors were able to detect a sharp increase in the surface albedo value in every spectrum, including the time-averaged one. This result is shown in Figure 4. The authors take this result one step further in order to validate that the vegetation red edge is actually a result of surface variation of vegetation. They re-run models on each of their spectra but instead include a constant surface albedo instead of a time-varying one. This resulted in incorrectly measured radii, chemicals, and surface gravity in nearly all of the models. Without the vegetation red edge and surface features, the models could not accurately determine if life was present on Earth.

For the first time (to the author’s knowledge), the vegetation red edge has been shown to be a promising and observable biosignature in Earth-like atmospheres. This study has also laid the groundwork for future work on other surface biosignatures and their potential impact on spectra of habitable planets. Confirming signs of life in multiple different ways, both on the surface and in the atmosphere, will finally allow astronomers to say we are not alone in the universe. In fact, life likes to live on the (red) edge!

Original astrobite edited by Madison VanWyngarden.

About the author, Kaz Gary:

I am a fourth-year PhD candidate at The Ohio State University with a passion for planets. My current work focuses on modeling exoplanet observations for the Habitable Worlds Observatory and understanding planetary atmospheres. Outside of research, I help develop planetarium shows and love all forms of science communication. In my free time, I enjoy playing tabletop RPGs, painting, watching terrible reality TV, and hanging out with my pet hedgehog.

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Editor’s Note: Astrobites is a graduate-student-run organization that digests astrophysical literature for undergraduate students. As part of the partnership between the AAS and astrobites, we occasionally repost astrobites content here at AAS Nova. We hope you enjoy this post from astrobites; the original can be viewed at astrobites.org.

Title: Shocks, Winds, and a Torus: The Large Binocular Telescope Interferometer (LBTI) Resolves the Active Nucleus of NGC 4151
Authors: Jacob W. Isbell et al.
First Author’s Institution: University of Arizona
Status: Published in ApJ

At the centre of nearly every galaxy lies a supermassive black hole that dominates this innermost region. Not only is there this millions-of-solar-masses dark beast, but usually too a whole bunch of stuff — stars, gas, dust, and more — which is often quite bright! When there is plenty of this material quite close to the black hole, we believe physics takes control to flatten it into a family of disk and toroidal structures in what we call the unified model of active galactic nuclei (AGNs; see Figure 1).

When astronomers look at different active galaxies (read: galaxies with active supermassive black holes at their core), we see a range of phenomenologies related to their brightness, spectra, morphologies, and more. The unified model of AGNs seeks to explain these different AGN appearances simultaneously by positing that they all have the same physical structure, and we are just viewing them from different angles, hence seeing different features.

The cores of AGNs are often imaged at the smallest scales (e.g., their accretion disks, viewed with interferometers like the Very Large Telescope Interferometer) and the largest scales (e.g., their relativistic jets, viewed with radio interferometers), but comparatively less effort has gone to directly observing the predicted dusty tori in the mid-infrared. That is exactly what today’s authors set out to do using the Large Binocular Telescope Interferometer (LBTI) — a pair of 8.4-metre-aperture mirrors separated by just over 14 metres and combined to simulate a telescope effectively 29 metres wide. This lets astronomers take direct images at a much higher resolution than a smaller-aperture telescope, and hence directly peer into the region around AGNs where this dusty torus should lie.

Today’s authors turn the LBTI towards NGC 4151, a medium-luminosity AGN. With the large effective aperture of the LBTI, they were able to resolve scales in the AGN region as small as 4.4–9.1 pc, about 14–30 light-years depending on the wavelength (see Figure 2), in the mid-infrared. These observations revealed warm dust emission in a complex structure around the central supermassive black hole. The authors note a central bar at all wavelengths, with a significant extension of cool dust arcing to the west (right in the image) and warmer dust localised to the centre (as evident by 3.7- and 4.8-micron emission only nearest to the supermassive black hole and its accretion disk).

To explain the observed morphology in Figure 1, the authors compare three different interpretations based on this new high-resolution imagery together with the results of previous studies looking at other scales and the spectrum of the AGN core. Each interpretation is illustrated and briefed in Figure 3. The first interpretation is in keeping with the unified model of AGNs: a geometrically and optically thick torus of dust surrounds the inner region. In this interpretation, the surface of the dusty torus re-radiates light from the accretion disk to produce most of the mid-infrared emission. Additional mid-infrared emission could come from localised concentrations of gas or interactions between the outflow and the jet. The authors immediately disfavour this explanation, as other studies have shown bright ionised emission at the location of the would-be torus, which is not expected if an optically thick torus were to be present. Hence, these new observations somewhat challenge the one “flavour” of the unified model of AGNs.

The second interpretation aligns with a different version of the unified model: one in which a geometrically thin disk replaces a thick torus around the AGN core. Provided the disk is optically thin too, the authors favour this approach as it is consistent with the geometry of ionised emission that worked against the first interpretation. While other studies suggest that this thin disk should be optically thick, this morphology is at least better aligned with what we see in other AGNs.

The third interpretation suggests that the emission comes from only the radiation pressure–driven wind emanating from the AGN core. The authors disfavour this explanation, citing previous radiative transfer simulations that show that the flux should fall off with distance from the core too quickly to be consistent with the observations.

No matter the interpretation, these LBTI observations are an important glimpse into the future of mid-infrared AGN studies that will be done with 30-metre-class telescopes (such as the European Southern Observatory’s Extremely Large Telescope). This article, together with the group’s similar study on NGC 1068, is challenging and refining an accepted view of AGN morphology — the consequences of which apply to galaxies near and far — and poses new questions perfect for sophisticated hydrodynamic and radiative simulations.

Original astrobite edited by Margaret Verrico.

About the author, Ryan White:

I am a first-year PhD student at Macquarie University in Australia, working mainly on binary/multiple systems with massive stars (Wolf–Rayets in particular!). Outside of study, I’m probably drinking coffee, baking, reading, or going for a run. You can also find me procrastinating on Bluesky @astroryan.bsky.social.

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