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Urban landscapes can boost storms—or break them up
New work shows how different storm types are shifted by cities’ microclimates
The Scientific American guide to 2026’s total solar eclipse
Here’s everything you need to know about this eclipse, from the weather to the best viewing locations
ExoMars stretches out its legs
The footage shows the simultaneous deployment of two landing legs from the ExoMars landing platform, in two sequential pairs.
The legs travel stowed on the spacecraft through deep space, and are automatically deployed in pairs in less than a second using non-explosive actuators, just after the front shield is jettisoned. This is a crucial step in the landing module’s preparation for touchdown.
The tests used a full-scale model of the landing platform at the Thales Alenia facilities in Turin, Italy. The four legs replicate the structure and dimensions of those that will fly to Mars.
The landing legs are crucial gear for the safe touchdown of ESA’s ExoMars Rosalind Franklin rover mission in 2030, alongside parachutes and engines that will slow the spacecraft’s descent onto Mars.
While Thales Alenia Space is the industrial lead of the mission, Airbus provides the landing platform. Teams from the Sener company, based in Spain, designed and built the landing legs.
Webb opens a Treasure Chest filled with stars
This NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope Picture of the Month takes us to a fantastical realm within our home galaxy, where piercing starlight and billowing winds sculpt dust clouds into inventive shapes. This scene is from the Carina Nebula, which lies just 7500 light-years away in the constellation Carina (the Keel).
Spanning roughly 260 light-years, the nebula is home to an incredible collection of objects, including the Cosmic Cliffs revealed in the first-ever Webb image release. The Carina Nebula is also the nearest high-mass star-forming region that allows astronomers to study the full range of star formation. This nebula houses some of the most massive stars in our galaxy as well as tens of thousands of protostars, offering a valuable opportunity to understand how stars shape their neighbourhoods.
The feature highlighted in today’s image, aptly called the Treasure Chest, looks right at home in this celestial sculpture garden. The Treasure Chest is what’s known as a cometary globule. A cometary globule is an isolated cloud of gas and dust with a dense, dark head and a sweeping tail. These clouds often somewhat resemble comets, but the Treasure Chest looks distinctly like a wooden chest with its lid wide open.
However, this chest doesn’t contain jewels or gold coins, but instead a compact cluster of young stars. These stars are responsible for the otherworldly glow coming from within the Treasure Chest, revealed by Webb’s sensitive Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam). Researchers estimate that the Treasure Chest’s cluster contains about 70 stars, the most massive of which is a rare O-type star roughly 19 times as massive as the Sun.
The star cluster is likely around 1.3 million years old, though earlier estimates found it to be as young as just 100 000 years old. Because of its youth, the cluster is still deeply embedded within the dusty clouds of the Treasure Chest. The individual stars in the cluster are wrapped up in dust as well; astronomers have found evidence that many of these stars are surrounded by circumstellar discs. Over time, the brilliant starlight from these young stars will dissipate the surrounding cloud and reveal the entire cluster.
The key to the Treasure Chest’s sculptural shape lies outside this image: just 39 light-years to the northwest, as measured on the sky, sits Eta Carinae, the most luminous object in the entire Carina Nebula. Eta Carinae is a star system containing at least two stars, one of which is 100 times as massive as the Sun. This star alone is about 5 million times as luminous as the Sun. Adding to this intense radiation is the nearby star cluster Trumpler 16, which also contains several extremely hot massive stars.
With Webb, astronomers have carried out an observing programme (#5408; PI: Reiter) dedicated to studying how young stars in the Carina Nebula collect gas from their surroundings and expel it through outflows.
[Image Description: A region of space filled with bright stars and clouds of gas. In the centre, the densest clouds form the shape of a chest with its lid open. The chest appears to glow from within. At its base it breaks apart into long pillars of thick gas. Many of the gas clouds in the background are dark orange globules, while others form large, pale hazes. A few brightly shining stars lie in the foreground, the biggest and brightest in front of the chest’s lid.]
How much of our existence do we owe to sugar?
It may be time to rethink our relationship with the sweet stuff
APOD: 2026 August 6 – New Sharpest Image of the Sun Uncovers Instability
APOD
Astronomy Picture of the Day
Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.
New Sharpest Image of the Sun Uncovers Instability
Explanation: What does the new sharpest image of our Sun show? Instability. To be clear, a certain kind of interactive process called the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability (KHI). This instability can create waves and swirls when two streams flow past each other — in this case variable streams of solar magnetic plasma. Long hypothesized to occur on the Sun’s surface, KHI streaks and swirls were confirmed in just-released dramatic high-resolution images taken recently by the Inouye Solar Telescope in Hawaii, USA. The featured false-yellow image, actually taken in deep blue, is the highest resolution image yet of the Sun in visible light. It spans about the radius of the Earth, but its finest details are city sized. Visible are several smooth tops of changing solar granules, while the edges of the flower-like structures have been found to harbor multiple KHI swirls. Future research may investigate how the KHI helps move energy and magnetic fields, and may even heat the surrounding solar corona.
Tomorrow’s picture: Rubin’s COSMOS
Date August 6, 2026 Credit NSF, NSO, AURA, MPS, Inouye Tel Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff, Jerry Bonnell, Cecilia Chirenti, Keighley Rockcliffe A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC,NASA Science Activation & Michigan Tech. U.
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Yesterday’s Image APOD: 2026 August 5 – Spokes on Saturn’s B Ring
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APOD: 2026 August 6 – New Sharpest Image of the Sun Uncovers Instability
APOD
Astronomy Picture of the Day
Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.
New Sharpest Image of the Sun Uncovers InstabilityExplanation: What does the new sharpest image of our Sun show? Instability. To be clear, a certain kind of interactive process called the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability (KHI). This instability can create waves and swirls when two streams flow past each other — in this case variable streams of solar magnetic plasma. Long hypothesized to occur on the Sun’s surface, KHI streaks and swirls were confirmed in just-released dramatic high-resolution images taken recently by the Inouye Solar Telescope in Hawaii, USA. The featured false-yellow image, actually taken in deep blue, is the highest resolution image yet of the Sun in visible light. It spans about the radius of the Earth, but its finest details are city sized. Visible are several smooth tops of changing solar granules, while the edges of the flower-like structures have been found to harbor multiple KHI swirls. Future research may investigate how the KHI helps move energy and magnetic fields, and may even heat the surrounding solar corona.
Tomorrow’s picture: Rubin’s COSMOS
Date August 6, 2026 Credit NSF, NSO, AURA, MPS, Inouye Tel Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff, Jerry Bonnell, Cecilia Chirenti, Keighley Rockcliffe A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC,NASA Science Activation & Michigan Tech. U.
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Yesterday’s Image APOD: 2026 August 5 – Spokes on Saturn’s B Ring
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How the Tide Turns at the Mouth of the Elbe
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How the Tide Turns at the Mouth of the Elbe
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Trump CDC pick Erica Schwartz confirmed to lead nation’s top public health agency
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention hasn’t had a full-time leader in almost a year
NASA’s IXPE May Have Proven 90-Year-Old Theory
4 min read
NASA’s IXPE May Have Proven 90-Year-Old TheoryA first of its kind measurement of a magnetar may have captured empty space behaving in a way physicists have predicted for 90 years, but never directly observed. The results published Wednesday in Nature.
This artist’s concept depicts magnetar 1E 1547.0-5408, a rapidly rotating neutron star with magnetic fields over a trillion times stronger than Earth’s. Blue curves emanating from the star’s two magnetic poles represent the magnetic field lines. The magnetar is a significant emitter of radio and X-ray radiation, with their peaks offset during its 2.1-second rotation period. This indicates the primary X-ray emitter is a secondary “hot spot” offset from the magnetic axis. These emitters are depicted as conical sections: the lighter blue radio emission peaks at the magnetic field’s symmetry axis, while the darker blue X-ray emission peaks below. The upper and lower emission cones show X-ray polarization degrees of 40% and 80%, respectively. These high values, along with smooth, coherent variations in polarization across the rotation period, provide the most definitive signal to date of vacuum birefringence a long-sought prediction of quantum electrodynamics. NASA/Pablo Garcia Fast facts
- Magnetars are a special class of neutron stars with ultra-strong magnetic fields, the strongest of any object in the observable universe, around a trillion times stronger than the strongest permanent magnets ever built on Earth. These super magnetic neutron stars offer glimpses into the physics of intense environments that cannot be found anywhere else.
- Neutron stars are the leftover cores of massive stars, formed at the end of their life cycles, that possess more mass than the Sun, condensed down to the size of a city, making them natural laboratories for studying extreme physics.
Scientists using NASA’s IXPE (Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer) conducted more than 140 hours of observations of the magnetar 1E 1547-5408, between March and April 2025, alongside NASA’s NICER (Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer) and Murriyang, CSIRO’s Parkes radio telescope, owned and operated by Australia’s national science agency. This was the first-ever coordinated radio and X-ray polarization measurement of a magnetar.
1E 1547-5408, spinning in a full rotation every 2 seconds, is a unique magnetar that consistently emits bright radio energy and X-ray light, for reasons scientists are still trying to understand.
Observations showed the polarization, or the orientation and level of alignment of the incoming photons, is nearly three times greater than seen in similar sources. This high level of polarization was surprising, since the geometry of the magnetar’s magnetic fields suggest that the measurements we see should be close to zero at certain points in the star. Standard surface emission models do not explain this large value either, indicating that another effect must be boosting the polarization.
Enter vacuum birefringence, a 90-year-old theory in the realm of quantum electrodynamics. First proposed in 1936, the theory suggests that the vacuum of space can be altered by extreme magnetic fields, far higher than those humans can create on Earth. Under such conditions, the vacuum acts like a lens or a prism, filtering light based on the direction it is traveling, therefore enhancing its total polarization. The IXPE mission’s ability to measure X-ray polarization was essential to test this theory.
Simulations performed by the research team support the possibility of vacuum birefringence causing the distinct signal. Hoa Dinh Thi, a postdoctoral associate at Rice University in Houston and co-lead author of the publication highlighting the results, said, “Our model suggests that reproducing the observed X-ray polarization signatures, while also satisfying the constraints set by radio observations, requires the presence of vacuum birefringence in the neutron star’s environment. This finding exemplifies how neutron stars enable us to test fundamental physics in environments not replicable in labs on Earth.”
The large polarization measurements from the magnetar give strong support to the theoretical prediction, and could be the first time this effect has been directly observed anywhere.
“This result truly highlights the interdisciplinary power of the field of astrophysics,” said Rachael Stewart, a Ph.D. candidate at George Washington University and lead author of the paper published in Nature. “The information we obtained from looking at this distant star core also gives us clues about the nature of the fabric of reality as we know it, and I find that to be incredible.”
Further IXPE observations of this source and other magnetars will confirm this signal and potentially reveal other exotic effects of quantum electrodynamics.
More about IXPE
The IXPE mission, which continues to provide unprecedented data enabling groundbreaking discoveries about celestial objects across the universe, is a joint NASA and Italian Space Agency mission with partners and science collaborators in 12 countries. It is led by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. Headquartered in Falls Church, Virginia, BAE Systems, Inc., manages spacecraft operations together with the University of Colorado’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics in Boulder. Learn more about IXPE’s ongoing mission here:
About the Author Michael AllenShare
Details Last Updated Aug 05, 2026 Editor Lee Mohon Contact Joel Wallace Location Marshall Space Flight Center Related Terms Explore More 4 min read NASA Space Telescope Maps Magnetic Fields of ‘Lighthouse’ PulsarArticle
4 weeks ago
3 min read NASA’s IXPE Measures White Dwarf Star for First Time
By Michael Allen For the first time, scientists have used NASA’s IXPE (Imaging X-ray Polarimetry…
Article
7 months ago
4 min read NASA IXPE’s Longest Observation Solves Black Hole Jets Mystery
Written by Michael Allen An international team of astronomers using NASA’s IXPE (Imaging X-ray Polarimetry…
Article
8 months ago
Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From NASA
Missions
Humans in Space
Climate Change
Solar System
NASA’s IXPE May Have Proven 90-Year-Old Theory
4 min read
NASA’s IXPE May Have Proven 90-Year-Old TheoryA first-of-its-kind measurement of a magnetar may have captured empty space behaving in a way physicists have predicted for 90 years, but never directly observed. The results published Wednesday in Nature.
This artist’s concept depicts magnetar 1E 1547.0-5408, a rapidly rotating neutron star with magnetic fields over a trillion times stronger than Earth’s. Blue curves emanating from the star’s two magnetic poles represent the magnetic field lines. The magnetar is a significant emitter of radio and X-ray radiation, with their peaks offset during its 2.1-second rotation period. This indicates the primary X-ray emitter is a secondary “hot spot” offset from the magnetic axis. These emitters are depicted as conical sections: the lighter blue radio emission peaks at the magnetic field’s symmetry axis, while the darker blue X-ray emission peaks below. The upper and lower emission cones show X-ray polarization degrees of 40% and 80%, respectively. These high values, along with smooth, coherent variations in polarization across the rotation period, provide the most definitive signal to date of vacuum birefringence, a long-sought prediction of quantum electrodynamics. NASA/Pablo Garcia Fast facts- Magnetars are a special class of neutron stars with ultra-strong magnetic fields, the strongest of any object in the observable universe, around a trillion times stronger than the strongest permanent magnets ever built on Earth. These super magnetic neutron stars offer glimpses into the physics of intense environments that cannot be found anywhere else.
- Neutron stars are the leftover cores of massive stars, formed at the end of their life cycles, that possess more mass than the Sun, condensed down to the size of a city, making them natural laboratories for studying extreme physics.
Scientists using NASA’s IXPE (Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer) conducted more than 140 hours of observations of the magnetar 1E 1547-5408 between March and April 2025 alongside NASA’s NICER (Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer) and Murriyang, CSIRO’s Parkes radio telescope, owned and operated by Australia’s national science agency. This was the first-ever coordinated radio and X-ray polarization measurement of a magnetar.
1E 1547-5408, spinning in a full rotation every 2 seconds, is a unique magnetar that consistently emits bright radio energy and X-ray light, for reasons scientists are still trying to understand.
Observations showed the polarization, or the orientation and level of alignment of the incoming photons, is nearly three times greater than seen in similar sources. This high level of polarization was surprising, since the geometry of the magnetar’s magnetic fields suggest that the measurements we see should be close to zero at certain points in the star. Standard surface emission models do not explain this large value either, indicating that another effect must be boosting the polarization.
Enter vacuum birefringence, a 90-year-old theory in the realm of quantum electrodynamics. First proposed in 1936, the theory suggests that the vacuum of space can be altered by extreme magnetic fields, far higher than those humans can create on Earth. Under such conditions, the vacuum acts like a lens or a prism, filtering light based on the direction it is traveling, therefore enhancing its total polarization. The IXPE mission’s ability to measure X-ray polarization was essential to test this theory.
Simulations performed by the research team support the possibility of vacuum birefringence causing the distinct signal. Hoa Dinh Thi, a postdoctoral associate at Rice University in Houston and co-lead author of the publication highlighting the results, said, “Our model suggests that reproducing the observed X-ray polarization signatures, while also satisfying the constraints set by radio observations, requires the presence of vacuum birefringence in the neutron star’s environment. This finding exemplifies how neutron stars enable us to test fundamental physics in environments not replicable in labs on Earth.”
The large polarization measurements from the magnetar give strong support to the theoretical prediction and could be the first time this effect has been directly observed anywhere.
“This result truly highlights the interdisciplinary power of the field of astrophysics,” said Rachael Stewart, a Ph.D. candidate at George Washington University and lead author of the paper published in Nature. “The information we obtained from looking at this distant star core also gives us clues about the nature of the fabric of reality as we know it, and I find that to be incredible.”
Further IXPE observations of this source and other magnetars will confirm this signal and potentially reveal other exotic effects of quantum electrodynamics.
More about IXPE
The IXPE mission, which continues to provide unprecedented data enabling groundbreaking discoveries about celestial objects across the universe, is a joint NASA and Italian Space Agency mission with partners and science collaborators in 12 countries. It is led by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. Headquartered in Falls Church, Virginia, BAE Systems Inc., manages spacecraft operations together with the University of Colorado’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics in Boulder. Learn more about IXPE’s ongoing mission here:
About the Author Michael AllenShare
Details Last Updated Aug 06, 2026 Editor Lee Mohon Contact Joel Wallace Location Marshall Space Flight Center Related Terms Explore More 4 min read NASA Space Telescope Maps Magnetic Fields of ‘Lighthouse’ PulsarArticle
4 weeks ago
3 min read NASA’s IXPE Measures White Dwarf Star for First Time
By Michael Allen For the first time, scientists have used NASA’s IXPE (Imaging X-ray Polarimetry…
Article
7 months ago
4 min read NASA IXPE’s Longest Observation Solves Black Hole Jets Mystery
Written by Michael Allen An international team of astronomers using NASA’s IXPE (Imaging X-ray Polarimetry…
Article
8 months ago
Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From NASA
Missions
Humans in Space
Climate Change
Solar System
Artemis III Orion Crew and Service Modules Joined
Elon Musk reveals SpaceX plans to build satellite factories on the moon
Musk outlined his vision to investors after SpaceX posted a $542-million loss from its space launch sector in its first quarter as a public company
Artemis III Orion Crew and Service Models Joined
Technicians joined the Orion crew and service modules together on July 30, 2026, inside the Neil Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
The crew module will carry and sustain NASA astronauts Randy Bresnik, Andre Douglas, and Frank Rubio, and ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Luca Parmitano, while the service module will power and propel Orion during the mission to test rendezvous and docking capabilities with test versions, or test articles, of commercial human landing systems from Blue Origin and SpaceX.
Read more about this milestone.
Image credit: NASA
Artemis III Orion Crew and Service Models Joined
Technicians joined the Orion crew and service modules together on July 30, 2026, inside the Neil Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
The crew module will carry and sustain NASA astronauts Randy Bresnik, Andre Douglas, and Frank Rubio, and ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Luca Parmitano, while the service module will power and propel Orion during the mission to test rendezvous and docking capabilities with test versions, or test articles, of commercial human landing systems from Blue Origin and SpaceX.
Read more about this milestone.
Image credit: NASA
Neanderthal genes may give modern humans’ muscles a boost
Most of the world’s population carries at least a little Neanderthal DNA
Scientists discover a ‘skinny gene’ mutation that acts like Ozempic
One in 7,000 people carry this gene mutation
NASA’s Perseverance Captures Phobos and Earth
NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS/SSI Photojournal Navigation Downloads NASA’s Perseverance Captures Phobos and Earth
PNG (1,001.21 KB)
PIA26758 Figure A
PNG (4.68 MB)
PIA26758 Figure B
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Description
This composite of seven images from the Mastcam-Z instrument aboard NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover shows Earth, visible as a small bright dot moving from upper left to lower right, passing behind the Martian moon Phobos on July 2, 2026, 1,907th Martian day, or sol, of the mission.
The black background is the result of image processing that removed extraneous light in the background to enhance detail.
Figure A
Figure A is an annotated composite of nine images taken by the Mastcam-Z instrument aboard Perseverance on July 2, 2026. The inset on the upper right, comprised of five images, shows Earth — the small bright dot moving from upper left to lower right — passing behind the Martian moon Phobos.
The rectangle outlined at the left in the annotation indicates the patch of sky that was imaged several times to capture Earth passing behind Phobos. In the larger rectangular inset, the images captured from that patch of sky are displayed in time order from left to right, with Phobos moving up and Earth moving down.
The gray of the Martian sky is the approximate true color of the twilight (about 40 minutes after sunset) on that sol. It is blue-gray lower, where it is brighter, and reddish gray above.
Figure B
Figure B includes annotations showing the local solar time on Mars during which the five individual images that captured the occultation were taken.
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, which is managed by Caltech, built and manages operations of the Perseverance rover on behalf of the agency’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington, as part of NASA’s Mars Exploration Program portfolio. Arizona State University leads the operations of the rover’s Mastcam-Z instrument, working in collaboration with Malin Space Science Systems in San Diego, on the design, fabrication, testing, and operation of the cameras.
For more about Perseverance:
science.nasa.gov/mission/mars-2020-perseverance/
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