Paleontologists revealed a fossil from the Jurassic period that provides the clearest evidence yet of how ancient dinosaurs evolved into modern birds by losing their long tails. The specimen, discovered in China's Liaoning Province, shows a transitional species with a shortened tail structure and early flight feather attachments. Separately, the James Webb Space Telescope detected an unknown carbon-based molecule in a distant exoplanet atmosphere, and NASA faces criticism for scaling back Mars life detection missions.
University of Minnesota biologists have built SpudCell, a synthetic cell made entirely from non-living chemical components that can complete a full life cycle. NASA's Perseverance rover found complex organic matter on Mars, and astronomers discovered a potentially habitable super-Earth just 25 light-years away.
Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope have analyzed the atmosphere of WD 1856b, a Jupiter-sized exoplanet orbiting a white dwarf star 80 light-years away. The gas giant circles its dead star 50 times closer than Earth orbits the Sun, offering a preview of what may happen to Jupiter and Saturn when the Sun dies in about 5 billion years.
NASA successfully launched a rescue mission on July 3 to save its aging Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, which was slowly falling back to Earth after more than 20 years in orbit. A refrigerator-sized spacecraft called Link, built by startup Katalyst Space Technologies, will attempt to grab Swift and push it into a higher orbit. Without the intervention, the telescope would have burned up in the atmosphere within months. The mission cost $30 million.
Astronomers at the University of California, Irvine have confirmed that the nearby super-Earth GJ 3378b, located just 25 light-years away, is more Earth-like than previously believed. New analysis using the Hobby-Eberly Telescope refined the planet's mass estimate from 5.3 down to 2.3 Earth masses, making it far more likely to have a rocky composition. The planet sits firmly in the habitable zone of its red dwarf star, receiving similar starlight to Earth.
Astronomers have discovered a rocky exoplanet about twice Earth's size orbiting in the habitable zone of its parent star, Gliese 3378, just 25 light-years from our solar system. The planet, designated Gliese 3378b, orbits a red dwarf star and sits in the region where liquid water could potentially exist on its surface. The discovery was made by a team of astronomers and adds to the growing catalog of nearby potentially habitable worlds.
Physicists at CERN's Large Hadron Collider have detected the elusive Omega_cc+ baryon, a particle containing two charm quarks and one strange quark, completing a family of particles first predicted over 50 years ago. Separately, the James Webb Space Telescope mapped 16.5 million stars in the Cigar Galaxy.
The James Webb Space Telescope has resolved approximately 16.5 million stars in the Cigar Galaxy (Messier 82), offering astronomers an unprecedented look inside a galaxy undergoing an intense burst of star formation. The edge-on spiral galaxy, located 12 million light-years away, is producing new stars at a rate ten times faster than the Milky Way. Webb's infrared capabilities allowed it to peer through dust clouds that had obscured previous observations, revealing individual stars in the galaxy's turbulent core.
Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope have discovered that the Pink Planet, a mysterious world 57 light-years away, has an atmosphere filled with exotic salt clouds — a phenomenon theorized for 15 years but never before observed. The planet, formally known as GJ504b, was discovered in 2013 and sits near the boundary between giant planets and brown dwarfs. At roughly 550 degrees Fahrenheit, it is one of the coldest directly imaged planetary-mass objects, and its pink color has puzzled scientists for over a decade.
Researchers developed a nondestructive method to extract DNA from ancient parchment manuscripts up to 1,300 years old. The technique, published in Manuscript Studies, analyzed 351 samples from England, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, revealing new insights into medieval livestock farming, trade routes, and animal husbandry practices.