SAN ANTONIO — October 19, 2026 — Uranus and Neptune are often considered planetary twins due to their many similar characteristics, including size, mass and atmospheric conditions, and have long been thought to have pulled from the same cosmic reservoir of materials when forming. New research by an international team of scientists, including Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) staff, suggests the ice giants have significantly different chemical origins despite their similarities.

The gas orbiting Sagittarius A (Sgr A*), the supermassive black hole at the centre of the Milky Way galaxy, is rich in metals, researchers at McGill University’s Trottier Space Institute have found. The metal enrichment probably resulted from stars that exploded and released material into the black hole's surroundings over time, they said.  

As Earth’s orbital traffic reaches an all-time high, a West Virginia University researcher is working to sharpen space weather forecasting, and protect satellites and the services that depend on them from devastating solar disruptions.

A trip to Mars may be more feasible than previously thought, suggests a new study led by Northwestern Medicine, UT Southwestern and UT Houston that tracked the heart function of 13 astronauts during roughly six-month missions aboard the International Space Station.

Skeletal muscles grow and regenerate as individual precursor cells – called myoblasts – fuse into long fibers from which mature muscle fibers develop. How they coordinate this process and form functional muscles is not yet fully understood. A research team at the Max-Planck-Zentrum für Physik und Medizin (MPZPM) has now shown that mechanical stress influences the fusion of muscle cells. The results, published in Nature Communications, reveal an interaction between the organization of muscle cells, the surrounding intercellular space, mechanical stress, and muscle growth.

A PhD student at the University of Sydney has produced the first comprehensive classification system and map of Martian soils, creating a new framework that could help scientists compare landscapes across the Red Planet and identify promising locations for future exploration, habitation and food production.  

A new study led by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) provides the most comprehensive observational analysis yet of the towering ice cliffs that fringe Earth's ice sheets, giving scientists new evidence to evaluate a long-debated process that could influence future sea level rise. Improving these projections is increasingly important as rising seas threaten coastal communities and infrastructure worldwide.