EverythingScience

While we are past the solar maximum, the peak of activity of the Sun in its 11-year cycle, we are still getting fireworks from our little star – fireworks that have caused several radio blackouts and one of the strongest flares in the last 30 years.  They are all coming from the same sunspot complex, a region known as 4366. Since Sunday, it has released six X-class flares. The X-class is the category to which the most powerful solar flares belong; multiple occurrences from the same region indicates that a lot is happening there.  Sunspots are cooler regions of the Sun’s surface where intense magnetic fields penetrate deep into the Sun. These magnetic field lines can snap and reconnect as the sunspots move, accelerating electrically charged particles to extremely high-speeds. This produces the flashes of intense light.

NASA completed a wet dress rehearsal for the Artemis II mission in the early morning hours on Feb. 3. To allow teams to review data and conduct a second wet dress rehearsal, NASA will now target March as the the earliest possible launch opportunity for the Artemis II mission. go.nasa.gov/4ka7tKs

Modern mammals have unique hearing abilities, able to sense a broad range of volumes and frequencies using middle-ear features, including our eardrums and a few small bones. A new study from paleontologists at the University of Chicago in the US has revealed these physical features began to emerge nearly 50 million years earlier than we thought. They found their evidence within a 250-million-year-old fossil of the mammal ancestor, Thrinaxodon liorhinus. Using computed tomography scans of the animal's skull and jaw, they created 3D models that allowed them to simulate how Thrinaxodon's anatomy might have reacted to the different sound pressures and frequencies, using engineering software to see how its bones 'wiggled' in response. Thrinaxodon lived during the Early Triassic, before the first dinosaurs. It was a cynodont – a close relative of early mammals – with a body that looks somewhere in between a lizard and a fox. Some of its genes follow the same blueprint modern mammals carry today, and this new study suggests the architecture of its hearing is also something we share. Early cynodonts had ear bones – the malleus, incus, and stapes – that were attached to their jaw. In later species, these tiny fragments eventually became detached from the jaw to form the distinctly mammalian middle ear. Before the middle ear and its associated 'tympanic' hearing abilities, animals relied on bone-conducted sound, where nerves carry signals from vibrations in the jawbone to the brain.

Perseverance did something it’s never done before. On Dec. 8 and 10, 2025, the Mars rover completed drives planned by generative AI. The first-of-its-kind demonstration hints at a future of more efficient exploration and even more science. jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-per…

Scientists rebuilt human brain circuits in the lab and discovered that the thalamus acts as a central organizer of cortical wiring. The findings offer new insight into how brain networks form and why they sometimes go awry. A team of researchers in Japan has recreated key human neural circuits in a laboratory setting by using tiny, multi-region brain models known as assembloids. These structures are grown from induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells and combine multiple brain-like regions into a single system. Using this approach, the researchers showed that the thalamus plays a vital role in shaping specialized neural circuits within the human cerebral cortex.

Stopping Alzheimer’s may begin with dissolving tiny tau protein clusters before damage takes hold. Scientists at Tokyo Metropolitan University have turned to polymer physics to better understand one of the defining features of Alzheimer’s disease: the formation of tau protein fibrils. Their research shows that these fibrils do not form directly. Instead, tau proteins first gather into large clusters, similar to how polymers begin to crystallize. When researchers disrupted these early clusters, fibrils failed to develop in solution. This finding points to a major shift in how future treatments for neurodegenerative diseases might be designed.

Forty years ago, Challenger’s STS‑51L mission lifted off with seven remarkable individuals aboard — explorers, engineers, educators, and pioneers. Francis “Dick” Scobee, Michael Smith, Judith Resnik, Ellison Onizuka, Ronald McNair, Gregory Jarvis, and Christa McAuliffe brought curiosity, courage, and a shared belief in the power of discovery. The loss of Challenger on January 28, 1986, was a moment that changed NASA forever. It sparked deep reflection, hard lessons, and a renewed commitment to the safety and care of every crew who follows in their footsteps.

How do scientists search for life in the universe? 🧬 SETIInstitute President & CEO Bill Diamond explains three key methods: send missions like NASAPersevere to explore other planets, use telescopes to detect signs of life in exoplanet atmospheres, or search for alien technology like laser pulses or radio signals that nature doesn’t produce. Each one could reveal intelligent life far beyond our solar system.

40 years ago, Voyager 2 made its closest approach to Uranus. Over its months-long encounter, the spacecraft returned more than 7,000 photographs of Uranus, revealing 11 new moons, two new rings orbiting the planet, and a wealth of information for scientists to analyze for years to come. To this day, it is the first and only spacecraft to study Uranus up close!

Curious what 22 years of Chandra observations sound like? This sonification includes every Chandra observation from 1999 - 2021. 🎵