A research team led by Associate Professor Ding PAN from the Department of Physics and the Department of Chemistry at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), in collaboration with Prof. Yuan Yao from the Department of Mathematics, has made significant discoveries regarding the complex reaction mechanisms of carbon dioxide (CO₂) in supercritical water. These findings are crucial for understanding the molecular mechanisms of CO₂ mineralization and sequestration in nature and engineering, as well as the deep carbon cycle within the Earth's interior. This understanding will help pave the way for new directions in future carbon sequestration technologies. The study was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS)*.

In 2019, the international Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) Collaboration published the first image of a black hole, of M87* from the center of the galaxy M87. The measurement data on which the image was based was obtained in 2017. The EHT Collaboration has now also analyzed the data from the 2018 measurement campaign. The result: the brighter region in the ring around M87* has shifted, which can be attributed primarily to turbulence in the gas rotating around the black hole – the accretion disk. The researchers were also able to confirm that the axis of rotation of M87* points away from the Earth. In the long term, a kind of video is to show the dynamics of the black hole.

Perovskite solar cells are a flexible and sustainable alternative to conventional silicon-based solar cells. Researchers at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) are part of an international team that was able to find – within only a few weeks – new organic molecules that increase the efficiency of perovskite solar cells. The team used a clever combination of artificial intelligence (AI) and automated high-throughput synthesis. Their strategy can also be applied to other areas of materials research, such as the search for new battery materials. The researchers report their findings in Science (DOI: 10.1126/science.ads0901).

Numerical weather prediction (NWP) systems use large amounts of observational data gathered daily using satellite-based and ground-based instruments to make forecasts, but maintaining them is costly and time-consuming. Now, researchers from Japan have tested the feasibility of using drones equipped with meteorological sensors to complement NWP systems. The results highlight the potential of using commercial drones in densely populated urban areas and sparse meteorological observation areas, to make NWP data collection more convenient and inexpensive.