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Icy moons circling the outer planets may be far more dynamic—and explosive—than they appear. New research suggests that when heat from tidal forces melts their ice shells from below, the sudden drop in pressure could cause hidden oceans to boil beneath the surface. On smaller moons like Enceladus, Mimas, and Miranda, this process may help […]

NYU researchers have found a way to use light to control how microscopic particles assemble into crystals, effectively turning illumination into a tool for shaping matter. By adding light-sensitive molecules to a liquid filled with tiny particles, they can adjust how strongly the particles attract or repel one another simply by changing the light’s intensity

Inverted perovskite solar cells offer strong potential for scalable, low-cost solar power, but a hidden interface inside the device has limited their performance and durability. Researchers have now introduced crystal-solvate nanoseeds that guide crystal growth and release solvent in a controlled way during heating, improving film quality at this buried layer. The result is smoother,

Twisting atomically thin magnetic layers does more than reshape their electronics—it can create giant, topological magnetic textures. In chromium triiodide, researchers observed skyrmion-like patterns stretching far beyond the expected moiré scale, reaching hundreds of nanometers. Even more surprising, their size doesn’t simply follow the twist pattern but peaks at a specific angle. This twist-controlled magnetism

Researchers at Nagoya University have created a more efficient iron-based photocatalyst that could reduce the need for rare and expensive metals in advanced chemistry. Unlike earlier designs, the new catalyst uses far fewer costly chiral ligands while still precisely controlling the three dimensional structure of molecules.

For the first time ever, scientists have uncovered a vast field of tektites in Brazil — mysterious glassy fragments forged when a powerful extraterrestrial object slammed into Earth about 6.3 million years ago. Named “geraisites” after Minas Gerais, where they were first found, these dark, aerodynamic droplets of natural glass stretch across more than 900

Engineers at UC Davis have built a remarkable device that creates power at night by tapping into something we rarely think about: the vast cold of outer space. Using a special type of Stirling engine, the system links the warmth of the ground to the freezing depths above us, generating mechanical energy simply from the

Astronomers have long known the universe is expanding—but exactly how fast remains one of the biggest mysteries in cosmology. Different techniques for measuring the Hubble constant stubbornly disagree, creating the so-called “Hubble tension.” Now researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and the University of Chicago have unveiled a bold new way to weigh in

Scientists have pulled off a feat long considered out of reach: getting light to mimic the famous quantum Hall effect. In their experiment, photons drift sideways in perfectly defined, quantized steps—just like electrons do in powerful magnetic fields. Because these steps depend only on nature’s fundamental constants, they could become a new gold standard for

Jupiter’s icy moons may have been seeded with the chemical ingredients for life from the very beginning. An international team of scientists modeled how complex organic molecules—essential building blocks for biology—could have formed in the swirling disk of gas and dust around the young Sun and later been carried into Jupiter’s own moon-forming disk. Their