EverythingScience

Engines of light: New study suggests we could increase useful energy obtained from sunlight Physicists from Trinity College Dublin believe new insights into the behavior of light may offer a new means of solving one of science's oldest challenges—how to turn heat into useful energy. Their theoretical leap forwards, which will now be tested in the lab, could influence the development of specialized devices that would ultimately increase the amount of energy we can capture from sunlight (and lamps and LEDs) and then repurpose to perform useful tasks. The work has just been published in the journal, Physical Review A. When photons (particles of light) are trapped in microscopic optical devices, they can undergo a form of condensation, where they behave collectively rather than as independent particles. In practice, this concentrates light energy into a small, intense beam of a single very pure color, similar to the output of a laser. This phenomenon has been seen in experiments, but only when the energy input is already in the concentrated form provided by a laser. Now though, thanks to the new theoretical analysis, the physicists think it can be achieved using input energy in a diffused form, like that readily provided by sunlight, lamps, or LEDs. Paul Eastham, Naughton Associate Professor, School of Physics, Trinity, is the senior author of the study. He said, "We modeled the behavior of devices which trap light in a small region of space and found that this behavior is related to the general properties of heat engines: machines that convert disorganized energy, which we physicists call 'heat,' into a useful form, which we call 'work.'" "In this way, the same laws that limit steam engines and power plants determine whether photons condense or not. Beyond the conceptual appeal of this work, we believe it could influence the development of optical devices which rely on channeling the flow of light energy at the quantum level, from solar cells to microscopic engines powered by radiation." Source:Phys.org @EverythingScience

Jupiter ocean moon Europa likely lacks tectonic activity, reducing its chances for life Europa might not be the best place to look for alien life in the solar system after all. A new study modeling what the floor of the Jupiter moon's hidden ocean is like concluded that tectonic activity — and the complex chemical reactions that such activity facilitates — is probably negligible. "Ultimately, without fracturing and faulting, it's not clear to us how fresh rock would be exposed to the ocean to allow for the kinds of continued chemical reactions that microbes would need to sustain themselves," study lead author Paul Byrne, associate professor of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Science at Washington University in St. Louis, told Space.com. Source:Space.com @EverythingScience

NASA Evacuating ISS Crew After Unprecedented Medical Situation In a rare move, NASA is cutting a mission aboard the International Space Station short after an astronaut had a medical issue. The space agency said Thursday the U.S.-Japanese-Russian crew of four will return to Earth in the coming days, earlier than planned. NASA canceled its first spacewalk of the year because of the health issue. The space agency did not identify the astronaut or the medical issue, citing patient privacy. The crew member is now stable. NASA officials stressed that it was not an onboard emergency, but are "erring on the side of caution for the crew member," said Dr. James Polk, NASA's chief health and medical officer. Polk said this was NASA's first medical evacuation from the space station although astronauts have been treated aboard for things like toothaches and ear pain. Source:ScienceAlert @EverythingScience

Fusion Physicists Found a Way Around a Long-Standing Density Limit Experiments inside a fusion reactor in China have demonstrated a new way to circumvent one of the caps on the density of the superheated plasma swirling inside. At the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST), physicists successfully exceeded what is known as the Greenwald limit, a practical density boundary beyond which plasmas tend to violently destabilize, often damaging reactor components. For a long time, the Greenwald limit was accepted as a given and incorporated into fusion reactor engineering. The new work shows that precise control over how the plasma is created and interacts with the reactor walls can push it beyond this limit into what physicists call a 'density-free' regime. Fusion reactors are designed to replicate the intense nuclear fusion that occurs in the heart of the Sun, generating vast amounts of energy. There are a number of significant barriers to overcome – one of which is plasma density. Source:ScienceAlert @EverythingScience

Why People Still Eat Bacteria Taken From The Poop Of A First World War Soldier In 1917, a group of German soldiers arrived at a military hospital near Freiburg after returning from a campaign in Dobrudja, a region of the Balkans that had been riddled with disease. All of the troops had been struck down with a nasty case of dysentery caused by the Shigella group of bacteria – except for one soldier, who was remarkably unaffected by the deadly illness that struck down his comrades. The case caught the attention of Professor Alfred Nissle, a physician at the hospital who had grown increasingly interested in the bacterial contents of the human intestine. Source:IFLScience @EverythingScience

For these cheetahs, even a successful hunt can still end in failure. Source: @NatGeo @EverythingScience

For First Time, Three Radio-Emitting Supermassive Black Holes Seen Merging Into One Galaxies might be separated by hundreds of thousands of light-years at the very least, but they do occasionally merge. During those collisions, the supermassive black holes that sit at the center of those galaxies can become active, entering a feeding frenzy thanks to fresh supplies of gas being thrown towards the core by the merger. For the first time, researchers report a three-way merger with all three supermassive black holes active and emitting in radio waves at the same time. The system is known as J1218/1219+1035, and is located 1.2 billion light-years from us. The three nuclei of the three galaxies, where the supermassive black holes reside, have a separation of roughly 22,000 and 97,000 light-years. The merger is not imminent on human timescales, but they are getting there. Large spiral galaxies like the Milky Way have grown in size thanks to interactions with smaller companions. Large elliptical galaxies are the product of collisions between spiral galaxies; likely how it will happen between the Milky Way and Andromeda in several billion years. Getting three galaxies merging is a lot less common, and getting all three of them active is rarer still. “Triple active galaxies like this are incredibly rare, and catching one in the middle of a merger gives us a front-row seat to how massive galaxies and their black holes grow together,” lead author Dr Emma Schwartzman of the US Naval Research Laboratory said in a statement. Source:IFLScience @EverythingScience

Watch Rare Footage Of The Giant Phantom Jellyfish, A 10-Meter-Long "Ghost" That's Only Been Seen Around 100 Times Plunge 1,000 meters (3,300 feet) below the ocean’s surface, and there can be found the midnight zone, where the complete lack of sunlight and extreme cold and pressure have led to the evolution of all manner of ethereal weirdos. One of the rarest members of the gang? The giant phantom jellyfish (Stygiomedusa gigantea). Read more Source:IFLScience @EverythingScience

How did life begin on Earth? New experiments support 'RNA world' hypothesis RNA, which is one of life's most crucial molecules dealing with the synthesis of proteins, could be common in the universe, according to a new experiment that shows how RNA could easily have formed on Earth 4.3 billion years ago. RNA (short for ribonucleic acid) is a simpler cousin of DNA, which is the molecule that contains the genetic information for our cellular biology. RNA comes in a trio of guises. There is messenger RNA (mRNA) that is produced from DNA and contains the genetic instructions for forming proteins. Then there's ribosomal RNA (rRNA) that creates ribosomes vital for producing proteins, and finally transfer RNA (tRNA) that does the actual synthesizing of the proteins from mRNA. Because it is a simpler molecule than DNA, RNA is thought to have formed first, and thanks to its ability to carry genetic information and create other molecules, RNA has even been heralded as a possible main player in the story of the origin of life on Earth in a hypothesis colloquially known as "RNA world." In this scenario, the first single-celled lifeforms would have used RNA rather than DNA for self-replicating and copying their genetic information. Understanding how RNA formed has, however, been challenging. What prompted RNA's ingredients to come together just so and undergo the correct series of chemical reactions? On the face of it, the odds of RNA forming just by chance seem astronomical. So chemists look for pathways that could inevitably lead to the formation of molecules like RNA. One pathway is known as the six-step Discontinuous Synthesis Model (DSM). However, one of the stumbling blocks on this pathway is borate, which is a family of common compounds found in seawater. Borates are oxyanions; if ions are atoms or molecules that have a positive electrical charge, then anions have an overall negative electrical charge. Further, borates contain atoms of both boron and oxygen. The problem is that it had been thought that borates hinder some of the reactions on the chemical pathway to RNA. Now, a team of biochemists led by Yuta Hirakawa of Tohoku University in Japan and the Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution in Florida say that chemists have been getting it wrong and that borates are actually beneficial to the formation of RNA. Source:Space.com @EverythingScience

Congress rejects President Trump's deep NASA budget cuts, proposes $24.4 billion for the agency Congress is not on board with President Donald Trump's deep NASA budget cuts. The White House allocated just $18.8 billion to the space agency — a 24% decrease from the previous year's funding — in its 2026 federal budget request, which was released last spring. The cuts were particularly harsh toward NASA's science portfolio, which was given just $3.9 billion — a drop of about 75%. However, the federal budget request is just that: a request. Congress controls the nation's purse strings, and lawmakers just threw NASA a lifeline. On Monday (Jan. 5), the House of Representatives and the Senate released a budget plan that would give the agency $24.4 billion in fiscal year 2026, which started on Oct. 1. Much of the restored funding would go to NASA science programs. "The bill rejects the administration’s devastating proposal to cut NASA Science by 47% and terminate 55 operating and planned missions. It instead provides $7.25 billion," a Senate bill summary states. The budget plan is not the last word, however. The House and the Senate still need to vote on the bill — actions that could take place as soon as this week and the week after, respectively, according to Ars Technica's Eric Berger. President Trump would then need to sign it. Source:Space.com @EverythingScience

Hubble found Cloud Nine! ☁️ This is a "failed galaxy": a starless, gas-rich, dark-matter cloud considered a remnant of early galaxy formation. Nicknamed “Cloud-9,” this is the first confirmed detection of such an object in the universe: go.nasa.gov/4svSJtm Source: @NASAHubble @EverythingScience

Moon rush: These private spacecraft will attempt lunar landings in 2026 2026 is shaping up to be a spectacular year for lunar exploration, with a growing fleet of commercial missions set to attempt to land on Earth's celestial neighbor. It will be a huge year for the moon overall. NASA plans to send humans back to the vicinity of the moon with the Artemis 2 mission no earlier than February, while China, in the second half of the year, aims to land at the lunar south pole and seek out water ice with its robotic Chang'e 7 spacecraft. But it's not only national agencies targeting Earth's companion, as commercial companies are also taking aim with a series of robotic landers at what could be the start of a sustained, more market-driven lunar presence for humanity. Source:Space.com @EverythingScience