With the increasingly urgent demand for non-toxic, high-specific-impulse propellants in space propulsion systems, ammonium dinitramide (ADN)-based liquid propellants have attracted extensive attention as a new-generation green alternative to hydrazine-based fuels. However, existing ADN-based thrusters all adopt the catalytic ignition technology route, which suffers from inherent drawbacks: the catalyst cannot withstand temperatures exceeding 1500 K, long preheating times are required prior to startup (in the Prisma mission, in-flight preheating lasted 600–720 s with a single-event energy consumption of 25 kJ), and insufficient preheating may lead to "hard start" or even explosion—these issues severely constrain the rapid response capability and operational safety of the thrusters. Although active ignition methods such as resistive ignition and laser ignition have been validated at the single-droplet level, how to achieve catalyst-free electric ignition at the thruster system level and systematically evaluate its combustion characteristics remains a critical engineering problem urgently to be addressed in the field of green space propulsion.

Magnetic skyrmions are nanoscale spin textures that can behave like particles and move and diffuse in real space. This makes them promising information carriers for future memory and computing technologies. A new computational study in npj Spintronics shows how geometry and topology can guide asymmetric thermal diffusion of magnetic skyrmions, offering insights for unlocking unconventional computing paradigms, including future stochastic and neuromorphic computing devices for more efficient artificial intelligence (AI) applications.

A team of researchers found a naked photo-bombing comet in an image from publicly available archival data from the Subaru Telescope. The Subaru Telescope has produced a vast collection of publicly available images covering large areas of the sky. Although these observations were originally designed for other scientific goals, the images can also contain unexpected Solar System objects, making the archive a valuable resource for new discoveries. By analyzing how sunlight is reflected from the surface of the nucleus, the team was able to determine important similarities and differences between the comet and asteroids.

When a star reaches its final stages of life, it ends in a bright and powerful explosion called a supernova and scatters material across the universe. A new study led by a University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa researcher discovered that the Moon’s mixed-up soil can be read as a cosmic time capsule for exploding stars.

At nearly 240,000 miles from Earth, the moon is getting its first spaceport, Gateway — and engineers developed the mathematical flight manual and orbital “rules of the road” for multiple spacecraft to safely share one of the most challenging environments ever considered for human exploration.

What happens to a space rock as it falls through Earth’s atmosphere and becomes a meteorite? By studying 75 meteorite falls captured on video and in photographs, researchers identified seven distinct phases in the journey from space rock to meteorite. Their findings show that melting and fragmentation, rather than simply evaporation and "burning up", control how a rock loses mass, slows down and ultimately reaches the ground. The journal Meteoritics & Planetary Science published these findings.

"We used to think that solid rocks would evaporate from the enormous heat and brilliant light generated in the air collision," said meteor astronomer and lead author Dr. Peter Jenniskens of the SETI Institute and NASA Ames Research Center. "We found instead that first melting and then fragmentation controls how a rock loses mass."

The team found that a fireball goes through seven stages as it moves through Earth’s atmosphere. Each stage is shaped by different physical processes.

Researchers at UCSB and UT Austin describe the violent event that have shot a super-massive black hole into intergalactic space.

Two Southwest Research Institute-developed technologies have been selected as winners of prestigious R&D 100 Awards. R&D World recognized SwRI’s patented Parallelogram Synchronized Truss Assembly (PaSTA) technology and the Advanced Locomotive Technology and Rail Infrastructure Optimization System (ALTRIOS), developed in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) National Laboratory of the Rockies (NLR), as two of the most important innovations of 2026.