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  1. 1

    Japan Prepares to Launch Spacecraft to Collect Samples From Martian Moon Phobos

    Japan's space agency JAXA is set to launch the MMX spacecraft on a new H-3 rocket, aiming to make the world's first attempt to bring samples back from Phobos, one of Mars' two small moons. Scientists hope the mission will reveal how Phobos and its sibling Deimos formed, and perhaps shed light on the origins of life in the solar system. The launch comes as the United States, China and others consider sending astronauts to Mars. MMX project manager Yasuhiro Kawakatsu said the samples could help scientists judge whether a Martian moon could serve as a base for a future crewed mission. Some scientists think the moons are debris from a large object that struck Mars, while others say they are asteroids from elsewhere.

    Key facts

    • The mission is expected to take five years in total.
    • The spacecraft reaches the Mars region a year after launch, then studies Phobos for three years.
    • MMX is due to return to Earth in 2031 with samples in a heat-protected capsule.
    • JAXA aims to collect at least 10 grams of soil from two sampling attempts.
    • Material from Mars is expected to make up about 0.1% of the Phobos material collected.

    Commentary

    The novelty lies in the return, not the launch: Japan would be first to bring Phobos material home, and that soil could settle whether the moons are impact debris or asteroids from elsewhere. The mission's design shows the team expects the landing to be the hardest part, with a rover scouting ahead and landing gear built to limit bouncing in weak gravity.

    Sources: U.S. News & World Report

  2. 2

    NASA's Roman Space Telescope Performs Nearly 30% Better Than Predicted

    NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is performing better than scientists anticipated after engineers completed a series of tests and precision adjustments. Following the activation of the Wide Field Instrument in September, teams checked its detectors, filter wheel, calibration LEDs, alignment mechanism and thermal control system, then refined the telescope's overall optical alignment. Goddard engineers said the mirrors were already positioned with remarkable accuracy before launch, so only minor corrections were needed. The sharper focus matters because the Wide Field Instrument underpins the surveys needed for the mission's dark matter and dark energy goals. Work on the Coronagraph Instrument, which had been slightly out of focus, is continuing, with a light-blocking test planned in the coming weeks.

    Key facts

    • The Wide Field Instrument's image quality is nearly 30% better than engineers predicted.
    • Optical error was measured at 63 nanometers RMS, below the 90-nanometer pre-launch requirement.
    • The Wide Field Instrument has 18 detectors, each roughly the size of a sticky note.
    • Engineers moved the secondary mirror by about one-sixteenth of a human hair's diameter.
    • Roman launched on August 30 with optics that were already closely aligned before the adjustments.

    Commentary

    What moved is less the sharper focus than the evidence that ground testing held up, as Roman needed only small corrections after launch. That suggests pre-launch modelling can be trusted for spacecraft optics, leaving the coronagraph's light-blocking test in coming weeks as the real measure of its readiness for faint targets.

    Sources: Science Daily

  3. 3

    NASA data reveals hidden El Niño-driven fires burning beneath the Amazon rainforest

    Severe drought linked to El Niño is fuelling wildfires across the Brazilian Amazon, with smoke engulfing Manaus, where schools shut down, public events were canceled and children's sports leagues suspended activities. NASA's Douglas Morton describes the fires as a cascade of tropical blazes that began with peat fires in Indonesia and has now reached the Amazon, which he called the second domino to fall. Many of the larger Amazon blazes began as deliberate land-management fires that escaped into the parched understory. NASA's Shane Coffield is using VIIRS satellite data to find fires that standard monitoring misses, particularly on smoky days when detections fall even as burning continues.

    Key facts

    • Manaus rainfall was 95 percent below normal in August and 60 percent below in September, per Brazil's meteorology institute.
    • Coffield says satellites identified about 40 percent more fires near Santarém than FIRMS active fire counts show.
    • Fine particulate matter in Manaus exceeded 135 micrograms per cubic meter, city officials reported.
    • Lightning causes less than 1 percent of fires in the Amazon region, according to Morton.
    • Fire activity is expected to shift northward in November and December 2026, then southward by August and September 2027.

    Commentary

    The unfamiliar part is not the outbreak but its repetition: forests hit in 2015 and 2023 are burning again, weakened trees may burn harder, and the monitoring needed to gauge the damage is missing fires. Since nearly all these blazes start from human activity, the outcome depends as much on how land is burned in the coming months as on the drought.

    Sources: Science Daily

  4. 4

    Webb telescope reveals extreme weather on brown dwarf SIMP 0136, 20 light-years away

    Researchers at Trinity College Dublin used NASA's James Webb Space Telescope to study SIMP 0136, a brown dwarf about 20 light-years from Earth previously associated with northern-lights-like phenomena. Using Principal Component Analysis on how the object's light changed as it rotated, the team found that nearly all of its atmospheric variability could be explained by two dominant components, consistent with temperature changes and the vertical structure of clouds. They also identified three recurring weather states that come into and out of view as the object turns, forming a shifting patchwork of hotter, thinner-cloud regions and cooler, thicker-cloud regions. The findings, published in Astronomy & Astrophysics, suggest the atmosphere follows a consistent underlying set of processes. Lead author Merle Schrader said the drivers persist over more than a dozen rotations. The team says the method could help astronomers prioritise features for more complex modelling of brown dwarfs and giant exoplanets.

    Key facts

    • Trinity College Dublin researchers used NASA's James Webb Space Telescope to study SIMP 0136.
    • Two dominant components explain nearly all of SIMP 0136's observed atmospheric variability.
    • Researchers identified three recurring weather states that appear and disappear as the brown dwarf rotates.
    • The findings were published in Astronomy & Astrophysics.
    • SIMP 0136 lies about 20 light-years from Earth.

    Commentary

    The headline event is the predictable part; what matters is that the method extracts order from a single unresolved point of light, so faint brightness changes can be sorted before costly modelling. That makes the technique a cheaper screening tool for exoplanet atmospheres, which is where the real payoff lies. The study's reach beyond one brown dwarf will depend on whether it holds for objects with less data.

    Sources: Science Daily

  5. 5

    Researchers synthesise diamondiyne, a porous 3D carbon material proposed 35 years ago

    A team from the University of Gothenburg, Chalmers University of Technology and Stockholm University has synthesised diamondiyne, a porous three-dimensional carbon material first described theoretically 35 years ago. The team reported the work in Angewandte Chemie International Edition on September 14, 2026. The material combines single and triple carbon-carbon bonds in a diamond-like network, and forms as crystalline regions within amorphous carbon films. The researchers made it with a cascade reaction at the interface between two liquids, using a protected precursor and copper(II) fluoride. The team says the method establishes a route to making this elusive structure, while its practical uses remain to be explored and have not been demonstrated.

    Key facts

    • Diamondiyne was synthesised by researchers from the University of Gothenburg, Chalmers and Stockholm University.
    • The study was published in Angewandte Chemie International Edition on September 14, 2026.
    • The material was first described theoretically 35 years ago and combines single and triple carbon bonds.
    • Films reached up to 2.5 centimetres in diameter, with thickness from a few to tens of nanometres.
    • A separate computational study predicted Young's moduli of 19.1 GPa and 75.5 GPa for the experimentally realised 2f-unsym phase.

    Commentary

    The synthesis is the predictable part; the open question is whether the film's crystalline regions can be made uniform, since the researchers concede they are not uniform across the material. The stiffness figures come from theory, not from the film itself, so any device case rests on measurements not yet taken. Until those exist, the cost of the advance falls on applications that remain unproven.

    Sources: The Times of India

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