Category Astronomy/Space

Uranus and Neptune may not be the icy worlds we’ve long imagined. A new Swiss-led study uses innovative hybrid modeling to reveal that these planets could just as easily be dominated by rock as by water-rich ices. The findings also help explain their bizarre, multi-poled magnetic fields and open the door to a wider range of possible interior structures. But major uncertainties remain, and only future space missions will The Solar System is commonly grouped by planetary composition: four rocky terrestrial planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars), two massive gas giants (Jupiter and Saturn), and a pair of ice giants (Uranus and Neptune)...

Knotted structures once imagined by Lord Kelvin may actually have shaped the universe’s earliest moments, according to new research showing how two powerful symmetries could have created stable “cosmic knots” after the Big Bang. These exotic objects may have briefly dominated the young cosmos, unraveled through quantum tunneling, and produced heavy right-handed neutrinos whose decays tipped the balance toward matter over antimatter.

In 1867, Lord Kelvin pictured atoms as tiny knots in an invisible medium called the ether...

Astronomers have captured images of two stellar explosions—known as novae—within days of their eruption and in unprecedented detail. The breakthrough provides direct evidence that these explosions are more complex than previously thought, with multiple outflows of material and, in some cases, dramatic delays in the ejection process.

The international study, published in the journal Nature Astronomy, used a cutting-edge technique called interferometry at the Center for High Angular Resolution Astronomy (CHARA Array) in California. This approach allowed scientists to combine the light from multiple telescopes, achieving the sharp resolution needed to directly image the rapidly evolving explosions.

“The images give us a close-up view of how material is ejected away from the sta...