Vast, quasi-circular features on Venus’ surface may reveal that the planet has ongoing tectonics, according to new research based on data gathered more than 30 years ago by NASA’s Magellan mission. Published in Science Advances, the new study details newly discovered signs of activity at or beneath the surface shaping many of Venus’ coronae, features that may also provide a unique window into Earth’s past. This work marks the most recent instance of scientists returning to Magellan data to find that Venus exhibits geologic processes that are more Earth-like than originally thought.

New Haven, Conn. — The 2025 Gruber Foundation Cosmology Prize recognizes Ryan Cooke and Max Pettini both for their determination of a key value in the composition of the universe moments after it came into existence and for perfecting the method that allowed them to make that measurement.

Cooke and Pettini will equally share the $500,000 award and each will receive a gold laureate pin at a ceremony that will take place later this year. The citation honors them for “bringing the light element abundances and Big Bang Nucleosynthesis (BBN) into the realm of precision cosmology.”

New Haven, Conn. — Apples-to-apples comparisons in the distant universe are hard to come by.

Whether the subject is dwarf galaxies, supermassive black holes, or “hot Jupiters,” astronomers can spend months or years searching for comparable objects and formations to study. And it is rarer still when those objects are side-by-side.

But a new Yale study offers a road map for finding “twin” planetary systems — showing whether binary stars that orbit each other, and that were born at the same time and place, tend to host similar orbiting planets. The study’s authors found that certain orientations of twin star systems may provide critical information about planet formation, while also being easier for astronomers to discover planets within the systems.