EurekAlert! News by Subject: Space & Planetary - News by Subject: Space & Planetary

Space & Planetary

Updates every hour. Last Updated: 12-Dec-2025 19:11 ET (13-Dec-2025 00:11 GMT/UTC)

7-Dec-2025

HKU researchers discover new tectonic regime of terrestrial planets, offering new insights into the evolution of Earth and Venus

The University of Hong Kong
Peer-Reviewed Publication

An international team led by researchers from the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at The University of Hong Kong (HKU), including postdoctoral fellow Dr Tianyang LYU, Professor Man Hoi LEE (also with the Department of Physics), and Mok Sau-King Professor Guochun ZHAO, has made a significant breakthrough in understanding the tectonic evolution of terrestrial planets. Using advanced numerical models, the team systematically classified for the first time six distinct planetary tectonic regimes and identified a novel regime: the “Episodic-Squishy Lid”. The study not only provides crucial clues to the origin of Earth’s plate tectonics but also offers a robust theoretical framework for deciphering the enigmatic geological features of Venus. The findings have been published in the journal Nature Communications.

Journal: Nature Communications

5-Dec-2025

Astronomers discover the first gravitationally lensed superluminous supernova

Stockholm University
Peer-Reviewed Publication

An international team of astronomers led by Oskar Klein Centre (OKC) researcher Joel Johansson has discovered SN 2025wny, the first spatially resolved, gravitationally lensed superluminous supernova ever observed. The discovery provides a striking confirmation of Einstein’s theory of General Relativity and a rare window into a powerful stellar explosion from the early Universe.

Journal: The Astrophysical Journal Letters
Funder: Vetenskapsrådet, Swedish National Space Agency, Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodovska-Curie, Knut och Alice Wallenbergs Stiftelse, UK Research and Innovation, Vetenskapsrådet, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, European Research Council

5-Dec-2025

US Naval Research Laboratory wins best paper award at international space robotics conference

Naval Research Laboratory
Grant and Award Announcement

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A U.S. Naval Research Laboratory’s (NRL) space robotics team received the Best Paper Award in Orbital Robotics at the 2025 International Conference on Space Robotics (iSpaRo) in Sendai, Japan, on Dec. 3. The recognition spotlights NRL’s leadership in autonomous space systems and artificial intelligence–enabled operations.

5-Dec-2025

Close-up images show how stars explode

Georgia State University
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Working with the CHARA Array, astronomers have captured images of two stellar explosions — known as novae — within days of their eruption and in unprecedented detail. The breakthrough provides direct evidence that these explosions are more complex than previously thought, with multiple outflows of material and, in some cases, dramatic delays in the ejection process.

Journal: Nature Astronomy

5-Dec-2025

Shaping quantum light unlocks new possibilities for future technologies

University of the Witwatersrand
Peer-Reviewed Publication

The study surveys rapid progress in techniques capable of creating, manipulating and detecting quantum structured light. These include on-chip integrated photonics, nonlinear optics, and multiplane light conversion, which now form a modern and increasingly powerful toolkit.

Journal: Nature Photonics

4-Dec-2025

A speed camera for the universe

University of Tokyo
Peer-Reviewed Publication

There is an important and unresolved tension in cosmology regarding the rate at which the universe is expanding, and resolving this could reveal new physics. Astronomers constantly seek new ways to measure this expansion in case there may be unknown errors in data from conventional markers such as supernovae. Recently, researchers including those from the University of Tokyo measured the expansion of the universe using novel techniques and new data from the latest telescopes. Their method exploits the way light from extremely distant objects takes multiple pathways to get to us. Differences in these pathways help improve models on what happens at the largest cosmological scales, including expansion.

Journal: Astronomy and Astrophysics
Funder: NASA Exoplanet Science Institute, Max-Planck-Institut für Astrophysik, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, U.S. National Science Foundation, Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, JSPS KAKENHI

4-Dec-2025

Space shuttle lessons: Backtracks can create breakthroughs

University of Texas at Austin
Peer-Reviewed Publication

In a new study, Francisco Polidoro Jr., professor of management at Texas McCombs, finds present-day insights in an old innovation story: how NASA developed its space shuttles, which flew from 1981 to 2011. The lessons can inform today's rocketeers and anyone looking for breakthroughs cutting-edge fields, from phones to pharmaceuticals.

Rather than a straightforward sequence, NASA used a meandering knowledge-building process, he finds. That process allowed it to systematically explore rocket features, both individually and together.

“With breakthrough inventions, the number of combinations of possible features quickly explodes, and you just can’t test all of them,” Polidoro says. “It has to be a much more selective search process.”

Journal: Research Policy