Researchers are at a loss for why people across cultures and ages, regardless of their dominant hand, have a natural bias toward wandering in a counterclockwise direction.
DEDURU OYA, Sri Lanka – On April 16, eight members of Priyantha Kumara’s family including his wife, son, brother, father-in-law, and four other relatives were swept away by strong currents in the Deduru Oya, a river in Sri Lanka’s North Western province. Sri Lanka Police reported more than 30 drowning deaths between April 12 and 21 this year, underscoring the risks posed by flooding rivers. Sri Lanka Police media spokesperson Udaya Kumara Wootler told Mongabay that 376 individuals have died due to drowning in rivers last year while 595 fatalities were reported in 2024. Buddhika Sampath, spokesperson for the Sri Lanka Navy told Mongabay that the Navy Diving Unit recovered 148 bodies of people between May 2022 and May 2023. While the police are yet to disclose official statistics of deaths due to drowning from January to May 2026, the number of reported incidents show over 50 fatalities. Kumara is a resident of Gopallawa in the northwestern district of Kurunegala. His son had requested that they all go for a bath in the river. The group had been bathing at a popular spot named Kuriyagas Mankada when they met the tragedy. “My son was only 13 years old, and he was a bright student,” Kumara told Mongabay. “My brother was about to hold a housewarming ceremony at his newly built house. But all these dreams were shattered within seconds. My father used to take us to this same spot to bathe when we were young. But the river has changed…This article was originally published on Mongabay
The aurora australis crowns Earth’s atmosphere above the Indian Ocean as the Canadarm2 robotic arm extends from a power and data grapple fixture attached to the Harmony module.
NASA/Chris Williams
Scientific hardware installations and biomedical monitoring topped the research schedule aboard the International Space Station on Wednesday. The Expedition 74 crew members also adjusted a spacesuit to prepare for a spacewalk and explored space physics to round out their day.
A series of shoebox-sized CubeSats will soon be deployed outside the Kibo laboratory module into Earth orbit for public and private research. One of the satellites, Hokushin-1 CubeSat, will test space technologies such as radio frequency, propulsion, and solar arrays. NASA flight engineer Jack Hathaway finished installing a small satellite orbital deployer, packed with the CubeSats, into Kibo’s airlock where it will soon be placed in the vacuum of space and grappled by the Japanese robotic arm. The deployer will be maneuvered with the robotic arm and positioned away from the orbital outpost to safely release the tiny satellites into Earth orbit.
Onboard the orbital outpost are a variety of research freezers—large, small, portable, and permanent—that house and preserve station research samples for analysis both on Earth and in space. One of them, a smaller glovebox freezer, is being installed inside Kibo’s Life Science Glovebox (LSG) by NASA flight engineer Jessica Meir for upcoming experiment operations. The freezer’s location inside the LSG allows the samples to be stowed and frozen immediately after processing to prevent degradation and preserve integrity during sensitive biology research.
Meir also assisted flight engineer Sophie Adenot of ESA (European Space Agency) as she set up wearable devices for a pair of biomedical tests on Wednesday. Adenot first measured her blood pressure to calibrate the PhysioTool technology demonstration gear. Next, she wore head and body sensors that measured her brain oxygen and blood flow levels as she performed cognitive and mental tasks on a computer. Researchers are testing the portable device onboard the station to potentially monitor crew health on missions to the Moon, Mars, and beyond.
Meir also had time to help NASA flight engineer Chris Williams pack cargo inside a SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft that will undock from the Harmony module’s forward port and soon return to Earth. Williams then maneuvered into the Quest airlock and adjusted a spacesuit’s legs, arms, and helmet, then ensured the suit’s switches and valves were correctly configured ahead of an upcoming spacewalk.
On May 27, during routine operations of the International Space Station’s Canadarm2, the system demonstrated an elevated motor current in a wrist joint and arm motion did not occur as expected. NASA worked alongside CSA (Canadian Space Agency) to understand the issue and determined a spacewalk will be required to replace the joint using a spare already aboard the orbital complex. The Canadarm2, which is designed to be repaired in orbit, is in a safe configuration and standard operations using the arm have been paused. In the coming weeks, NASA will host a news conference to discuss the repair and preview the planned Tuesday, June 30 spacewalk. NASA will share more on the spacewalkers closer to the activity.
Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikaev joined each other and explored space physics in the Zvezda service module. The duo observed how two different sized spheres drift freely in microgravity with no pushing movement from the crew. Results may lead to the design of newer space tools, improved robotics, and a deeper understanding of crew motion. Roscosmos flight engineer Andreu Fedyaev focused primarily on maintenance testing computer operations, cleaning ventilation systems, and transferring water between station tanks.
Finally, the space station is orbiting higher today after the Progress 95 cargo spacecraft fired its thrusters for over eight minutes early Wednesday raising its altitude by 1.9 miles. This adjusts the orbital outpost’s altitude ahead of the launch and docking of the Soyuz MS-29 crew spacecraft planned for mid-July.
NASA Webb Finds Strongest Evidence Yet for ‘Black Hole Stars’
While the primary purpose of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s observations of galaxy cluster Abell S1063 was to look for a certain population of stars, scientists obtained a detailed spectrum of GLIMPSE-17775 from the dataset. This little red dot is located behind Abell S1063.
Credits: Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, Vasily Kokorev (UT Austin); Image Processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI)
The complex puzzle known as little red dots has become more complete since their initial discovery by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope in 2022. Now a particular little red dot’s spectrum is helping connect many of the pieces.
A team of astronomers led by Vasily Kokorev at the University of Texas at Austin identified the lucky dot in question: GLIMPSE-17775. By carefully analyzing the dot’s spectrum captured by Webb — the deepest spectrum to date of a little red dot — the research team has identified multiple lines of evidence, all of which support the interpretation that GLIMPSE-17775 is a supermassive black hole enveloped in a dense cocoon of partially ionized gas, a model referred to as the BH* (black hole star) scenario. A paper describing the results was published today in The Astrophysical Journal.
“I think part of the scientific community is converging on a singular picture — that little red dots can be explained by black hole star models. But none of the previous little red dots have all of the pieces of evidence in the same place,” said Kokorev, lead author of the study. “With GLIMPSE-17775 we can test these models because of how deep and amazing this source’s spectrum is.”
Image: Abell S1063 with Pullout of GLIMPSE-17775 (NIRCam Image)
While the primary purpose of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s observations of galaxy cluster Abell S1063 was to look for a certain population of stars, scientists obtained a detailed spectrum of GLIMPSE-17775 from the dataset. This little red dot is located behind Abell S1063.
Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, Vasily Kokorev (UT Austin); Image Processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI)
Connecting puzzle pieces
Soon after Webb first began science operations, it discovered a new, mysterious type of object in the very early universe – abundant red objects that emerged about 600 million years after the big bang. Scientists have explored multiple explanations for these little red dots, including the black hole star scenario.
A set of fortunate circumstances brought about this new, elaborate spectrum of a little red dot. The little red dot that would come to be known as GLIMPSE-17775 was fortunately included in Webb’s imaging and spectroscopy efforts for a project that sought to look for Population III stars and faint galaxies in galaxy cluster Abell S1063. This little red dot is more distant than the galaxy cluster and magnified by gravitational lensing. (GLIMPSE-17775 has a cosmological redshift of 3.5, meaning it existed about 1.8 billion years after the big bang.)
While Webb provided a 30-hour spectrum of the little red dot, the effect of gravitational lensing made it equivalent to 80 hours of telescope time. This combination of Webb’s infrared sensitivity and nature’s own “magnifying glass” amplified the amount of detail that could be gleaned from GLIMPSE-17775. The result was more than 40 spectral lines from this small, red source, which is the most detailed little red dot spectrum to date.
“When we saw the spectrum for the first time, it was like having all the pieces of a puzzle scattered on the floor,” said Kokorev. “We picked up each piece of the puzzle, measured the lines, and started combining the different pieces into a mosaic. Maybe a few pieces looked like nothing at first, but then a couple of them came together, and we realized that there was something there.”
The spectroscopic data collected by Webb contains multiple lines of evidence that support the interpretation that little red dot GLIMPSE-17775 is a black hole star: a rapidly accreting, or growing, black hole enveloped in a dense gas cocoon, which is reprocessing the light emitted from near the black hole and producing the features seen in the spectrum.
Image: Evidence of a ‘Black Hole Star’
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope captured the deepest spectrum to date of a little red dot. More than 40 spectral lines have been discerned from the data, many of which independently support the theory that GLIMPSE-17775 is a black hole enshrouded by a hot, dense gas cocoon.
Illustration: NASA, ESA, CSA, Vasily Kokorev (UT Austin); Designer: Leah Hustak (STScI)
Lines of evidence
Among the 40-plus lines that the team detected in GLIMPSE-17775’s spectrum were various independent indicators that all align with the BH* scenario. For example, the team found that many of the spectral lines, such as hydrogen, oxygen, and helium, do not fit a simple model of a rotating gas cloud. Instead, the best fit model includes a broadening effect known as electron scattering, a telltale sign that a dense, layered gas cocoon is enshrouding this source.
The strength and ratios of certain lines to each other, most notably the 16 iron lines that compose what the team has dubbed an “iron forest” and certain oxygen lines, require a high-energy source to produce them, like a rapidly accreting black hole. Additionally, astronomers noted the fluorescence and absorption of helium in the spectrum, both of which individually suggest that there is a dense medium enveloping a powerful source.
The BH* scenario not only fits GLIMPSE-17775; it also accounts for why most little red dots are faint in X-rays, since any such emission is likely absorbed by the dense gas cocoon.
One missing element of the GLIMPSE-17775 puzzle piece is the part of the spectrum that would reveal what’s known as a Balmer break, or a strong dip in the emitted light that’s a signature characteristic of little red dots. To build a more comprehensive understanding of this little red dot, the team incorporated ancillary data from two observing programs that used NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope: the Frontier Fields and BUFFALO (Beyond Ultra-deep Frontier Fields And Legacy Observations) programs.
The Webb and Hubble data together help explain why the Balmer break is weaker than what typically is found in other little red dots: A giant host galaxy is surrounding GLIMPSE-17775. Although a little red dot’s host galaxy is not something that has been usually seen at such scale before, it isn’t inconsistent with the dense gas cocoon model. The black hole star model of little red dots attributes excess blue light to stars in the host galaxy.
When Webb first discovered little red dots, some researchers thought these objects had “broken cosmology,” unsure how galaxies could have grown so big so quickly in the early universe to account for all this light coming from their stars. However, the team believes the GLIMPSE-17775 puzzle piece fits nicely in the existing framework of the universe’s evolutionary history, because black hole masses don’t need to be as high in order to explain the broad emission lines.
“Everything fits, nothing is broken, and I think that makes the puzzle that is our universe even better,” said Kokorev. “Looking ahead, I’m eager to dive deeper and learn about what is powering the central engines of little red dots. While we think it’s a black hole, there are some other interesting theories being proposed, which is exciting. Maybe in a year or two, we’ll have the final answer to what powers these sources.”
The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s premier space science observatory. Webb is solving mysteries in our solar system, looking beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probing the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency).
The following sections contain links to download this article’s images and videos in all available resolutions followed by related information links, media contacts, and if available, research paper and Spanish translation links.
Related Images & Videos
Abell S1063 with Pullout of GLIMPSE-17775 (NIRCam Image)
While the primary purpose of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s observations of galaxy cluster Abell S1063 was to look for a certain population of stars, scientists obtained a detailed spectrum of GLIMPSE-17775 from the dataset. This little red dot is located behind Abell S1063.
Evidence of a ‘Black Hole Star’
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope captured the deepest spectrum to date of a little red dot. More than 40 spectral lines have been discerned from the data, many of which independently support the theory that GLIMPSE-17775 is a black hole enshrouded by a hot, dense gas cocoon.
A compact, multifrequency radar built by a team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory will make it easier to collect information about dynamic cloud systems. Called CloudCube, this new instrument simultaneously probes the atmosphere with three radar signals, spanning 36 to 240 GHz, for optimized sensitivity to a wide range of water droplet and ice particle sizes.
Figure 1: A prototype of CloudCube’s G-band channel was installed at Cape Grim, Tasmania, as a guest instrument for the Department of Energy’s Cloud and Precipitation Experiment at Kennaook (CAPE-K)
Credit: Raquel Rodriguez Monje / JPL
Built with funding from NASA’s Earth Science Technology Office Instrument Incubator Program, CloudCube transmits and receives Ka-, W-, and G-band signals, making it the first compact radar system capable of simultaneously probing meteorological targets at wavelengths spanning approximately one to ten millimeters. Researchers will be able to combine information from the three signals to learn more about the initiation and evolution of precipitation, as well as cloud microphysics and radiative properties.
“We’re making a low-power, low-mass instrument to facilitate new cost-efficient missions for atmospheric observations. Building a multi-frequency radar, especially at G-band, is very novel,” said Raquel Rodriguez Monje, a systems engineer at JPL and principal investigator for CloudCube.
Each of CloudCube’s three signals observes a different element of cloud physics. Ka-band radar signals are ideal for collecting precipitation profiles; W-band radar signals are preferred for measuring cloud particles that give rise to precipitation; and G-band radar signals, which have never been collected from a space-based instrument, are ideal for measuring ice and liquid water content inside very light clouds (a paper describing this measurement can be found here).
Probing the atmosphere simultaneously with three signals allows researchers to collect data on all these cloud features at once, which is valuable for improving weather forecasts and especially climate modeling. CloudCube leverages innovations in millimeter-wave hardware to pack three radar modules–one for each signal–within a single compact system.
Figure 2. A photo of the radar electronics for CloudCube’s compact G-band radar. Producing G-band radar signals requires a large amount of energy, and CloudCube is one of the first instruments to produce those signals effectively from a compact platform.
Credit: Raquel Rodriguez Monje / NASA JPL
One CloudCube innovation concerns the specialized components required to transmit G-band power from a compact, low-power instrument. The detection of cloud signals requires high transmit power, which CloudCube achieves by combining the outputs of multiple high-efficiency frequency-multiplication devices that allow the instrument to generate hundreds of milliWatts at 240 GHz. Another innovation of CloudCube is that it was designed to use as few radio frequency components as possible to reduce its mass and power consumption, which could lower the cost of future Earth-observing orbital instruments.
Flying an instrument equipped with G-band radar in space will be a new capability and will allow researchers to achieve greater spatial resolution and sensitivity in the study of cloud microphysical processes.
“Basically, we’re weighing clouds using these combinations of frequencies in a way that we couldn’t do before we had the G-band,” said Matt Lebsock, a researcher at JPL and co-investigator for CloudCube.
The instrument has been tested in the field. A ground-based prototype of CloudCube’s G-band channel operated continuously for 11 months during the Department of Energy’s Cloud and Precipitation Experiment at Kennaook (CAPE-K) campaign. CloudCube also participated in the Eastern Pacific Cloud Aerosol Precipitation Experiment, a ground campaign sponsored by the Department of Energy. A paper describing the results of that experiment can be foundhere.
Most recently, CloudCube successfully operated all three frequency bands from NASA’s Gulfstream III aircraft and collected its first airborne observations of snowfall as part of the North American Upstream Feature-Resolving and Tropopause Uncertainty Reconnaissance Experiment campaign—a NASA-funded campaign designed to improve forecasts of high-impact winter weather. The CloudCube team is currently calibrating and processing the data for public release.
For additional details, see the entry for this project onNASA TechPort.
NASA Webb Finds Strongest Evidence Yet for ‘Black Hole Stars’
While the primary purpose of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s observations of galaxy cluster Abell S1063 was to look for a certain population of stars, scientists obtained a detailed spectrum of GLIMPSE-17775 from the dataset. This little red dot is located behind Abell S1063.
Credits: Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, Vasily Kokorev (UT Austin); Image Processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI)
The complex puzzle known as little red dots has become more complete since their initial discovery by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope in 2022. Now a particular little red dot’s spectrum is helping connect many of the pieces.
A team of astronomers led by Vasily Kokorev at the University of Texas at Austin identified the lucky dot in question: GLIMPSE-17775. By carefully analyzing the dot’s spectrum captured by Webb — the deepest spectrum to date of a little red dot — the research team has identified multiple lines of evidence, all of which support the interpretation that GLIMPSE-17775 is a supermassive black hole enveloped in a dense cocoon of partially ionized gas, a model referred to as the BH* (black hole star) scenario. A paper describing the results was published today in The Astrophysical Journal.
“I think part of the scientific community is converging on a singular picture — that little red dots can be explained by black hole star models. But none of the previous little red dots have all of the pieces of evidence in the same place,” said Kokorev, lead author of the study. “With GLIMPSE-17775 we can test these models because of how deep and amazing this source’s spectrum is.”
Image: Abell S1063 with Pullout of GLIMPSE-17775 (NIRCam Image)
While the primary purpose of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s observations of galaxy cluster Abell S1063 was to look for a certain population of stars, scientists obtained a detailed spectrum of GLIMPSE-17775 from the dataset. This little red dot is located behind Abell S1063.
Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, Vasily Kokorev (UT Austin); Image Processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI)
Connecting puzzle pieces
Soon after Webb first began science operations, it discovered a new, mysterious type of object in the very early universe – abundant red objects that emerged about 600 million years after the big bang. Scientists have explored multiple explanations for these little red dots, including the black hole star scenario.
A set of fortunate circumstances brought about this new, elaborate spectrum of a little red dot. The little red dot that would come to be known as GLIMPSE-17775 was fortunately included in Webb’s imaging and spectroscopy efforts for a project that sought to look for Population III stars and faint galaxies in galaxy cluster Abell S1063. This little red dot is more distant than the galaxy cluster and magnified by gravitational lensing. (GLIMPSE-17775 has a cosmological redshift of 3.5, meaning it existed about 1.8 billion years after the big bang.)
While Webb provided a 30-hour spectrum of the little red dot, the effect of gravitational lensing made it equivalent to 80 hours of telescope time. This combination of Webb’s infrared sensitivity and nature’s own “magnifying glass” amplified the amount of detail that could be gleaned from GLIMPSE-17775. The result was more than 40 spectral lines from this small, red source, which is the most detailed little red dot spectrum to date.
“When we saw the spectrum for the first time, it was like having all the pieces of a puzzle scattered on the floor,” said Kokorev. “We picked up each piece of the puzzle, measured the lines, and started combining the different pieces into a mosaic. Maybe a few pieces looked like nothing at first, but then a couple of them came together, and we realized that there was something there.”
The spectroscopic data collected by Webb contains multiple lines of evidence that support the interpretation that little red dot GLIMPSE-17775 is a black hole star: a rapidly accreting, or growing, black hole enveloped in a dense gas cocoon, which is reprocessing the light emitted from near the black hole and producing the features seen in the spectrum.
Image: Evidence of a ‘Black Hole Star’
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope captured the deepest spectrum to date of a little red dot. More than 40 spectral lines have been discerned from the data, many of which independently support the theory that GLIMPSE-17775 is a black hole enshrouded by a hot, dense gas cocoon.
Illustration: NASA, ESA, CSA, Vasily Kokorev (UT Austin); Designer: Leah Hustak (STScI)
Lines of evidence
Among the 40-plus lines that the team detected in GLIMPSE-17775’s spectrum were various independent indicators that all align with the BH* scenario. For example, the team found that many of the spectral lines, such as hydrogen, oxygen, and helium, do not fit a simple model of a rotating gas cloud. Instead, the best fit model includes a broadening effect known as electron scattering, a telltale sign that a dense, layered gas cocoon is enshrouding this source.
The strength and ratios of certain lines to each other, most notably the 16 iron lines that compose what the team has dubbed an “iron forest” and certain oxygen lines, require a high-energy source to produce them, like a rapidly accreting black hole. Additionally, astronomers noted the fluorescence and absorption of helium in the spectrum, both of which individually suggest that there is a dense medium enveloping a powerful source.
The BH* scenario not only fits GLIMPSE-17775; it also accounts for why most little red dots are faint in X-rays, since any such emission is likely absorbed by the dense gas cocoon.
One missing element of the GLIMPSE-17775 puzzle piece is the part of the spectrum that would reveal what’s known as a Balmer break, or a strong dip in the emitted light that’s a signature characteristic of little red dots. To build a more comprehensive understanding of this little red dot, the team incorporated ancillary data from two observing programs that used NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope: the Frontier Fields and BUFFALO (Beyond Ultra-deep Frontier Fields And Legacy Observations) programs.
The Webb and Hubble data together help explain why the Balmer break is weaker than what typically is found in other little red dots: A giant host galaxy is surrounding GLIMPSE-17775. Although a little red dot’s host galaxy is not something that has been usually seen at such scale before, it isn’t inconsistent with the dense gas cocoon model. The black hole star model of little red dots attributes excess blue light to stars in the host galaxy.
When Webb first discovered little red dots, some researchers thought these objects had “broken cosmology,” unsure how galaxies could have grown so big so quickly in the early universe to account for all this light coming from their stars. However, the team believes the GLIMPSE-17775 puzzle piece fits nicely in the existing framework of the universe’s evolutionary history, because black hole masses don’t need to be as high in order to explain the broad emission lines.
“Everything fits, nothing is broken, and I think that makes the puzzle that is our universe even better,” said Kokorev. “Looking ahead, I’m eager to dive deeper and learn about what is powering the central engines of little red dots. While we think it’s a black hole, there are some other interesting theories being proposed, which is exciting. Maybe in a year or two, we’ll have the final answer to what powers these sources.”
The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s premier space science observatory. Webb is solving mysteries in our solar system, looking beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probing the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency).
The following sections contain links to download this article’s images and videos in all available resolutions followed by related information links, media contacts, and if available, research paper and Spanish translation links.
Related Images & Videos
Abell S1063 with Pullout of GLIMPSE-17775 (NIRCam Image)
While the primary purpose of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s observations of galaxy cluster Abell S1063 was to look for a certain population of stars, scientists obtained a detailed spectrum of GLIMPSE-17775 from the dataset. This little red dot is located behind Abell S1063.
Evidence of a ‘Black Hole Star’
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope captured the deepest spectrum to date of a little red dot. More than 40 spectral lines have been discerned from the data, many of which independently support the theory that GLIMPSE-17775 is a black hole enshrouded by a hot, dense gas cocoon.
A compact, multifrequency radar built by a team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory will make it easier to collect information about dynamic cloud systems. Called CloudCube, this new instrument simultaneously probes the atmosphere with three radar signals, spanning 36 to 240 GHz, for optimized sensitivity to a wide range of water droplet and ice particle sizes.
Figure 1: A prototype of CloudCube’s G-band channel was installed at Cape Grim, Tasmania, as a guest instrument for the Department of Energy’s Cloud and Precipitation Experiment at Kennaook (CAPE-K)
Credit: Raquel Rodriguez Monje / JPL
Built with funding from NASA’s Earth Science Technology Office Instrument Incubator Program, CloudCube transmits and receives Ka-, W-, and G-band signals, making it the first compact radar system capable of simultaneously probing meteorological targets at wavelengths spanning approximately one to ten millimeters. Researchers will be able to combine information from the three signals to learn more about the initiation and evolution of precipitation, as well as cloud microphysics and radiative properties.
“We’re making a low-power, low-mass instrument to facilitate new cost-efficient missions for atmospheric observations. Building a multi-frequency radar, especially at G-band, is very novel,” said Raquel Rodriguez Monje, a systems engineer at JPL and principal investigator for CloudCube.
Each of CloudCube’s three signals observes a different element of cloud physics. Ka-band radar signals are ideal for collecting precipitation profiles; W-band radar signals are preferred for measuring cloud particles that give rise to precipitation; and G-band radar signals, which have never been collected from a space-based instrument, are ideal for measuring ice and liquid water content inside very light clouds (a paper describing this measurement can be found here).
Probing the atmosphere simultaneously with three signals allows researchers to collect data on all these cloud features at once, which is valuable for improving weather forecasts and especially climate modeling. CloudCube leverages innovations in millimeter-wave hardware to pack three radar modules–one for each signal–within a single compact system.
Figure 2. A photo of the radar electronics for CloudCube’s compact G-band radar. Producing G-band radar signals requires a large amount of energy, and CloudCube is one of the first instruments to produce those signals effectively from a compact platform.
Credit: Raquel Rodriguez Monje / NASA JPL
One CloudCube innovation concerns the specialized components required to transmit G-band power from a compact, low-power instrument. The detection of cloud signals requires high transmit power, which CloudCube achieves by combining the outputs of multiple high-efficiency frequency-multiplication devices that allow the instrument to generate hundreds of milliWatts at 240 GHz. Another innovation of CloudCube is that it was designed to use as few radio frequency components as possible to reduce its mass and power consumption, which could lower the cost of future Earth-observing orbital instruments.
Flying an instrument equipped with G-band radar in space will be a new capability and will allow researchers to achieve greater spatial resolution and sensitivity in the study of cloud microphysical processes.
“Basically, we’re weighing clouds using these combinations of frequencies in a way that we couldn’t do before we had the G-band,” said Matt Lebsock, a researcher at JPL and co-investigator for CloudCube.
The instrument has been tested in the field. A ground-based prototype of CloudCube’s G-band channel operated continuously for 11 months during the Department of Energy’s Cloud and Precipitation Experiment at Kennaook (CAPE-K) campaign. CloudCube also participated in the Eastern Pacific Cloud Aerosol Precipitation Experiment, a ground campaign sponsored by the Department of Energy. A paper describing the results of that experiment can be foundhere.
Most recently, CloudCube successfully operated all three frequency bands from NASA’s Gulfstream III aircraft and collected its first airborne observations of snowfall as part of the North American Upstream Feature-Resolving and Tropopause Uncertainty Reconnaissance Experiment campaign—a NASA-funded campaign designed to improve forecasts of high-impact winter weather. The CloudCube team is currently calibrating and processing the data for public release.
For additional details, see the entry for this project onNASA TechPort.
Expedition 74 crew members (from left) Sophie Adenot, Jack Hathaway, Jessica Meir, and Chris Williams congratulate the Artemis III crew in a recorded video message.
NASA
Microbiology and human research were the main scientific focus aboard the International Space Station on Tuesday to protect health on and off the Earth. The Expedition 74 crew members also worked on advanced research hardware and sent down a congratulatory message to the Artemis III crew, who were named during an announcement from the Johnson Space Center in Houston.
Some common bacteria have shown an increased resistance to antibiotics in the space environment potentially affecting an astronaut’s ability to fight an infection. Flight engineers Jack Hathway of NASA and Sophie Adenot of ESA (European Space Agency) explored the antibiotic-resistant organisms inside the Kibo laboratory module’s Life Science Glovebox and the Harmony module’s maintenance work area by processing the microbial samples and preparing them for DNA extraction and analysis. Doctors will use the data to understand how microbes adapt to microgravity possibly informing countermeasures to reduce the risk to astronaut health and protect patients on Earth.
NASA flight engineers Jessica Meir and Chris Williams partnered together loading a CubeSat-packed small satellite orbital deployer into Kibo’s airlock that will soon be placed into the vacuum of space. The Japanese robotic arm will grapple the deployer and point it away from the orbital outpost where it will safely deploy the shoebox-sized satellites into Earth orbit. A series of tiny satellites will be released for public and private research, including the Hokushin-1 CubeSat that will test space technologies such as radio frequency, propulsion, and solar arrays.
Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Andrey Fedyaev worked on a pair of different investigations on Tuesday to continuously monitor how weightlessness affects the human body. Kud-Sverchkov, the orbital outpost’s commander, strapped an acoustic sensor around his neck that recorded his rapid exhalation to learn how living in space affects the respiratory system. Fedyaev wore a set of cuffs attached to his arms, wrist, and fingers measuring his blood pressure for a microgravity cardiac experiment. Roscosmos flight engineer Sergei Mikaev was back on artificial intelligence research studying new tools to boost crew efficiency and communications aboard a spacecraft.
Four of the station’s astronauts also sent down a message congratulating the four new Artemis III crew members commander Randy Bresnik of NASA, pilot Luca Parmitano of ESA, and NASA mission specialists Frank Rubio and Andre Douglas. The four flight engineers each spoke a few inspiring words with Meir stating, “Congratulations, Artemis III and godspeed on the journey ahead.” Watch the crew message on @Space_Station X.
In a new study, fossilized droppings suggested that ancient ground squirrels ate the meat of much larger animals, including mammoths, bison and saber-toothed cats.
Deep in Taiwan’s misty mountains, researchers have confirmed the tallest tree in the country: a thousand-year-old fir tree higher than a 20-story building, which they’ve named “the heaven sword of the Da’an River.” Climbers scaled the tree and dropped a measuring tape from the top to the forest floor during the Lunar New Year holiday in January 2023. The tree measured 84.1-meters (276-feet). The findings have been published in Frontiers in Forests and Global Change. A team of ecologists, geologists, remote-sensing specialists, professional climbers and Indigenous people that calls itself the “Taiwan tree seekers” began the search in 2014. “The common characteristics [of the team] are probably that we are all tree lovers and like adventures,” Rebecca Chia-Chun Hsu, lead author from Division of Forest Ecology, Institute of Taiwan Forestry Research, told CNN. ‘The Heaven Sword’, Taiwan’s tallest tree, measures 84.1 meters. Photo courtesy of Steven Pearce. Taiwan is one of the few places on Earth where trees can grow this tall. The island sits where the tropics meet the subtropics, and its mountains host several giant conifer species. The species behind the new record, Taiwania cryptomerioides, is known to the Indigenous Rukai people as “the tree that hits the moon.” Although nearly 60% of Taiwan is covered in forest, loggers cleared much of the island’s old-growth forest between 1912 and 1991. However, its steep slopes were too dangerous to reach, and pockets of ancient forest survived. Still, finding the tallest tree amid the rugged terrain was a task. Taiwan…This article was originally published on Mongabay
Expedition 74 crew members (from left) Sophie Adenot of ESA (European Space Agency), NASA astronauts Jack Hathaway and Chris Williams, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergey Kud‑Sverchkov pose for a portrait together inside the International Space Station’s cupola and Tranquility module.
ESA/Sophie Adenot
Expedition 74 began the week bioprinting human cartilage tissue and harvesting alfalfa plants aboard the International Space Station to advance health and promote self-sustainable space crews. The orbital residents also retrieved materials exposed to the external space environment and conducted their own ultrasound vein scans to continuously learn how living in space affects physics and biology.
NASA flight engineer Jessica Meir opened up the Kibo laboratory module’s Life Science Glovebox on Monday and set up a bioprinter to produce viable cartilage tissues aboard the orbiting laboratory. NASA flight engineer Chris Williams assisted Meir collecting the frozen cartilage samples for thawing then mixing the living cells with a gel-like bioink for placement in a printing cartridge. The biotechnology study tests the manufacturing of cartilage in weightlessness to increase its stability for printing on demand implants using a patient’s own cells to treat a range of health conditions.
Earlier, Williams began his shift with NASA flight engineer Jack Hathaway harvesting alfalfa plants inside the Columbus laboratory module’s Veggie facility. The astronauts collected the plants and roots for photographing, placed the botanical samples inside foil, then stowed them inside a science freezer for later analysis for the Veg-06 study. Insights may lead to the development of advanced methods to grow plants for food on future space missions.
Afterward, Hathaway scanned Williams neck, shoulder, and leg veins using the Ultrasound 3 biomedical device as doctors on the ground monitored in real time. Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikaev also took turns scanning each other’s veins with the Ultrasound 3. The ultrasound imagery will help researchers protect crew members from space-caused blood clots.
Flight engineer Sophie Adenot of ESA (European Space Agency) and Meir joined each other during the first half of their shift retrieving containers of samples from Kibo’s airlock that were placed outside the orbital outpost for a materials exposure test. The samples included radiation shields, crew suit fabrics, optical fibers, and more to help engineers build robust technologies that can survive harsh environments both on Earth and in space.
Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikaev, the orbiting lab’s commander and flight engineer, spent the majority of their shift inspecting and servicing the Zvezda service module’s treadmill. The space station’s other treadmill, COLBERT, is located in the Tranquility module.
Roscosmos flight engineer Andrey Fedyaev spent the first half of his shift locating and identifying computer components and video gear in the Zarya module to update the station’s inventory management system. Fedyaev wrapped up his day studying using artificial intelligence tools to boost crew efficiency and communications.
The International Space Station is pictured from the SpaceX Crew Dragon Endeavour during a flyaround on Nov. 8, 2021.
The Zvezda service module’s transfer tunnel, known as the PrK, on the International Space Station has experienced cracks since 2019 that have resulted in small atmosphere leaks and prompted ongoing monitoring and repair efforts by Roscosmos. NASA and Roscosmos have worked together to identify the root cause while Roscosmos has been applying leak mitigation measures, including temporary and permanent sealants.
The week of June 1, during Progress 95 spacecraft cargo operations, Roscosmos noted an increase of the previous leak rate to two pounds per day and identified new suspected leak areas in the PrK. Following this observation, Roscosmos made the decision to begin work toward a more extensive inspection and structural repair effort Friday morning. This revised approach involved cutting a bracket to better access an area identified as a possible leak source for further inspection, using a method that could have resulted in elevated risk to the structure in the area. In response, NASA directed the four SpaceX Crew-12 members and NASA astronaut Chris Williams, who flew to station aboard the Soyuz MS-28 spacecraft, to take a heightened safety posture, known as a safe haven, inside the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft during the procedure.
Later Friday morning, Roscosmos paused and did not perform the structural repair work in favor of conducting additional measurements and data assessments, which included inspection of suspected areas of interest and review of areas where sealant was previously applied. NASA strongly supported that decision, and as a result, following that decision, Crew-12 and Williams ended their safe haven activities and returned to normal operations aboard the orbiting laboratory.
NASA will continue to work with our Russian counterparts, along with the rest of the international partners that support the space station, to assess and ensure a resolution to this matter.
For millions of years, male great bowerbirds have wooed their mates with flowers and seeds. But in today’s urban world, such humble fare may not cut it.
The search for a ninth planet in our solar system could reach a turning point as soon as this year, according to a planetary scientist involved in the hunt for a mysterious object believed to be lurking in the outer reaches of the Solar System.
For the past decade, astronomers around the world have been searching for evidence of another resident in our planetary neighborhood. As far back as 2016, there were already hints that something might be out there, given the odd orbits of distant objects like Sedna, discovered in 2003.
Now, two astronomers—California Institute of Technology (Caltech) researchers Konstantin Batygin, a professor of planetary science, and his colleague, Dr. Michael E. Brown—believe there is a high probability that the confirmation of a ninth planet in our solar system could be on the horizon.
Batygin and Brown’s findings suggest Planet Nine may have a mass roughly 5 to 10 times that of Earth and orbit, on average, about 20 times farther from the Sun than Neptune, which circles the Sun at an average distance of 2.8 billion miles. If it exists, the distant world would take between 10,000 and 20,000 years to complete a single orbit around the Sun.
“This would be a real ninth planet,” says Brown, the Richard and Barbara Rosenberg Professor of Planetary Astronomy, in a 2016 statement. “There have only been two true planets discovered since ancient times, and this would be a third. It’s a pretty substantial chunk of our solar system that’s still out there to be found, which is pretty exciting.”
Evidence for Planet Nine comes from a small group of distant Kuiper Belt objects whose highly elongated orbits appear clustered in the same direction and share similar orbital tilts relative to the plane of the known planets.
Researchers argue that this type of alignment is unlikely to occur by chance. Alternative explanations involving the Kuiper Belt itself have also been explored, but models suggest the belt would require far more mass than has been observed to produce the effect.
Brown’s excitement shines through: “It’s almost like having six hands on a clock all moving at different rates, and when you happen to look up, they’re all in exactly the same place,” he says, adding that the odds of having that happen are something close to one in 100.
Computer simulations suggest that a large, unseen planet in the outer Solar System could maintain these orbital alignments through its gravitational influence. The models also demonstrate how mean-motion resonances could keep the distant objects in stable orbits while preventing collisions with the proposed planet.
The hypothesis may also explain the unusual trajectories of objects such as Sedna and 2012 VP113, whose highly elongated orbits do not bring them close to Neptune.
Konstantin Batygin, astronomer and Professor of Planetary Sciences at Caltech.
Japanese Scientists Find More Evidence
In July, additional data relevant to the Planet Nine debate emerged with the discovery of a newly identified object nicknamed “Ammonite,” found by Japanese astronomers using the Subaru Telescope on Maunakea, Hawaii. The object is only the fourth known sednoid, joining a rare class of distant celestial bodies with unusual orbits beyond Pluto.
“The fact that Ammonite’s current orbit does not align with those of the other three sednoids lowers the likelihood of the Planet Nine hypothesis,” said Dr. Yukun Huang of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, who conducted simulations of Ammonite’s orbit in a July interview with The Debrief.
“It is possible that a planet once existed in the Solar System but was later ejected, causing the unusual orbits we see today,” says Huang.
How Planet Nine Could be Found This Year
Astronomy is often a science of probabilities and competing hypotheses, but Planet Nine presents a relatively rare case where new observations may soon provide a clear answer. The Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile recently began scientific operations and could provide the data needed to confirm—or rule out—the existence of Planet Nine.
Perched atop a mountain in Chile, the NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory observes the night sky in extraordinary detail. Equipped with the largest digital camera ever built for astronomy, it will repeatedly survey the sky over ten years, producing an unprecedented time-lapse record of the Universe.
In a recent podcast interview, Batygin told The Debrief how his and Brown’s theory could soon be tested.
“The Planet Nine hypothesis is kind of readily refutable, right? I find that to be quite important,” says Batygin. “There’s a new telescope that came online called the Vera Rubin Observatory, and as it collects data this year, we will, I think, know one way or another whether Planet Nine is really out there or not.”
Batygin says Rubin’s greatest strengths are its survey efficiency and extensive sky coverage. By repeatedly imaging vast portions of the sky, Rubin is uniquely suited to detecting a faint, distant, and slowly moving object like Planet Nine.
“If Rubin detects an object at hundreds of astronomical units from the Sun, and its orbit is consistent with the predicted Planet Nine parameter space, that would essentially be it,” Batygin explained, in terms of what kind of observation would provide a definitive answer regarding Planet Nine’s existence.
“At that distance, anything visible to Rubin would have to be very large, so a direct detection would be the decisive confirmation,” he added, although suggesting that “whenever you find some interesting pattern in the data, the first thing you have to ask is, ‘will it hold up to additional scrutiny from [some] fresh kind of unbiased data?”
He points to this summer being a turning point in his research: “We will get that new batch of discoveries basically starting this summer, starting summer twenty twenty-six. It will be a direct test of all lines of evidence that we have for the existence of Planet Nine.”
“ You can imagine Vera Rubin comes online, looks at the sky for a few months, finds an object that it can see that is far away, that is hundreds of astronomical units away, meaning hundreds of times the distance between the Earth and the Sun, as far away from the Sun as the Earth,” adds Batygin. “That’s Planet Nine. Like, that’s direct confirmation, right? Then you close the book and move on to the more interesting question of like characterization.”
Batygin suggests it would solidify many of the lines of evidence for Planet Nine, even if his team does not discover the object itself. “Nevertheless, that would lend support to its existence because, if the solar system is structured in this way, then something must be sculpting that structure.”
Although he has devoted years to the Planet Nine hypothesis, Batygin says he remains open to the possibility that the planet does not exist and believes the data must ultimately determine the outcome.
“It would definitely suck,” Batygin told The Debrief of this possibility, though noting that scientists have to “go where the data takes you, right?”
Planet Nine and Nibiru, “The Destroyer” Sumerian Folklore
Over the decades, the Planet Nine hypothesis has inevitably drawn comparisons to “Nibiru,” a supposed hidden world popularized in modern pseudoscientific interpretations of ancient Mesopotamian texts.
The idea gained widespread attention through the writings of Zecharia Sitchin, who argued that ancient Sumerian records described a rogue planet that periodically enters the inner Solar System and causes catastrophic events on Earth. However, mainstream historians and archaeologists reject these interpretations, noting that ancient Mesopotamian flood traditions, including the story of Utnapishtim in the Epic of Gilgamesh, do not identify Nibiru as the cause of a global catastrophe.
When asked on the podcast whether Planet Nine could pose any threat to Earth, Batygin dismissed the idea.
“The important thing to understand about Planet Nine is that if you’re worried about Planet Nine’s gravity destroying things, I would encourage you to revisit the inverse square law of gravity, right?
He explains that gravity increases with mass and falls off as the distance between objects squared, and that Planet Nine is estimated to be five Earth masses, and at a distance of 500-600 astronomical units away. By comparison, Jupiter is 300 Earth masses and only around four astronomical units away.
“So if you’re worried about Planet Nine, you should really, really worry about Jupiter,” Batygin says. “I mean, this is one of the intriguing, frankly humbling things about learning celestial mechanics and understanding how the solar system works at a large scale,” Batygin added.
How Planet Nine Could Change Astronomy and CULTURE
The confirmation of Planet Nine would be one of the most significant astronomical discoveries of the century, reshaping our understanding of the Solar System and its formation. Textbooks, educational materials, and scientific models would need updating to account for a previously unknown major planet residing far beyond Pluto. More importantly, its discovery could reveal new insights into how planetary systems form and evolve.
Batygin also thinks the influence of such a discovery also might impact science in ways we haven’t yet considered.
“Until we really take a look, we don’t know what kind of awesome and exciting information we’ll discover. This has been true along the way in all planetary exploration. We have been surprised time and time again,” says Batygin.
Batygin also surmises that astronomers “will discover interesting constraints about the birth environment of the Sun itself by studying Planet Nine.”
An exciting future may indeed lie ahead if Planet Nine is soon discovered. Astronomers could eventually determine whether it is a gas giant, an icy world, or something entirely unexpected. Future observations may even reveal details about its atmosphere and composition.
When Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 returned the first close-up images of the outer planets, it marked one of humanity’s greatest scientific achievements. For the first time, people saw distant worlds in remarkable detail rather than as tiny points of light in the night sky.
Now, in 2026, humanity may once again stand on the brink of a major planetary discovery, thanks to the Vera C. Rubin Observatory.
Fundamentally, confirmation of a ninth planet would not only be a cosmic discovery: it would also offer a reflection of humanity, and a reminder of how much remains unknown, even within our own cosmic backyard.
Chrissy Newton is a PR professional and the founder of VOCAB Communications. She currently appears on The Discovery Channel and Max and hosts the Rebelliously Curious podcast, which can be found on YouTube and on all audio podcast streaming platforms. Follow her on X: @ChrissyNewton, Instagram: @BeingChrissyNewton, and chrissynewton.com. To contact Chrissy with a story, please email chrissy @ thedebrief.org.
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