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Category: space

Many mini-Neptunes once thought to be lava worlds may actually have solid surfaces

As telescopes have become more powerful, it’s turned out our solar system is not the only game in town: There are millions of other planets out there in the galaxy. But we’re still teasing out clues about what they are actually like.

One of the puzzles is a kind of planet that appears to be one of the most common types in the universe. Known as “mini-Neptunes” because they run a little smaller than Neptune in our , these planets are made of some mix of rock and metal, with thick atmospheres mostly made of hydrogen, helium, and perhaps water. Strangely, despite their abundance elsewhere, they have no analog in our own solar system, making the population something of an enigma.

But a new study published Nov. 5, led by Prof. Eliza Kempton with the University of Chicago, adds a new wrinkle to our best picture yet of these distant worlds. The research is published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Paradox of rotating turbulence finally tamed with ‘hurricane-in-a-lab’

From stirring milk in your coffee to fearsome typhoon gales, rotating turbulent flows are everywhere. Yet, these spinning currents are as scientifically complex as they are banal. Describing, modeling, and predicting turbulent flows have important implications across many fields, from weather forecasting to studying the formation of planets in the accretion disk of nascent stars.

Two formulations are at the heart of the study of turbulence: Kolmogorov’s universal framework for small-scale turbulence, which describes how energy propagates and dissipates through increasingly small eddies; and Taylor-Couette (TC) flows, which are very simple to create yet exhibit extremely complex behaviors, thereby setting the benchmark for the study of the fundamental characteristics of complex flows.

For the past many decades, a central contradiction between these potent formulations has plagued the field. Despite extensive experimental research and despite being found universal to almost all turbulent flows, Kolmogorov’s framework has apparently failed to apply to turbulent TC flows.

Oldest Known Maya Monument Could Be a Map of The Universe

A monumental complex built by the Maya around 3,000 years ago was modeled on a map of the cosmos, new fieldwork has revealed.

A detailed survey of the Aguada Fénix site reveals that not only was the monument significantly larger than initial surveys suggested – laid out in the shape of a cross with axes measuring 9 and 7.5 kilometers (5.6 and 4.7 miles) – but it was also designed as a cosmogram, an architecture symbolizing the cosmos.

What’s even more remarkable about the structure is that the site contains none of the trappings of social inequality, such as elite residences or sculptures of rulers.

No Clear Cometary Tail in Post-Perihelion Images of 3I/ATLAS

On November 5, 2025, two new images of the interstellar object 3I/ATLAS were released. They show a compact source of light without a clear cometary tail. The coma is not very different in morphology than its appearance in the Hubble Space Telescope on July 21, 2025 (accessible here).

This is surprising in view of NASA’s JPL report here of a non-gravitational acceleration — normalized at a heliocentric value of 1 au:

1. A radial acceleration away from the Sun of 1.1x10^{-6} au per day squared.

Post Perihelion Data on 3I/ATLAS

Reports from the Minor Planet Center (here) and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (here) just released new data on the interstellar object 3I/ATLAS following its perihelion passage on October 29, 2025. The new data covers the period between October 31 and November 4.

When compared to previous data obtained on October 5–8, it appears that 3I/ATLAS brightened by a factor of ~5 in the Green-band which is centered at a wavelength of 0.464 micrometers.

The value of the non-gravitational acceleration was reduced by a third relative to the value reported on October 29. This reduction is within the uncertainties. The net detection is now more robust, standing at a level of 3.7 standard deviations.

Novel memristor wafer integration technology paves the way for brain-like AI chips

A research team led by Professor Sanghyeon Choi from the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at DGIST has successfully developed a memristor, which is gaining recognition as a next-generation semiconductor device, through mass-integration at the wafer scale.

The study, published in the journal Nature Communications, proposes a new technological platform for implementing a highly integrated AI semiconductor replicating the , overcoming the limitations of conventional semiconductors.

The human brain contains about 100 billion neurons and around 100 trillion synapses, allowing it to store and process enormous amounts of information within a compact space.

Physicists Just Ruled Out The Universe Being a Simulation

A question that has vexed physicists for the past century may finally have a solution – but perhaps not the one everyone was hoping for.

In a new, detailed breakdown of current theory, a team of physicists led by Mir Faizal of the University of British Columbia has shown that there is no universal “Theory of Everything” that neatly reconciles general relativity with quantum mechanics – at least, not an algorithmic one.

A natural consequence of this is that the Universe can’t be a simulation, since any such simulations would have to operate algorithmically.

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