An international team of scientists led by a Rutgers University-New Brunswick astrophysicist has discovered a potentially star-forming cloud that is one of the largest single structures in the sky and among the closest to the sun and Earth ever to be detected. The scientists have named the molecular hydrogen cloud “Eos,” after the Greek goddess of mythology who is the personification of dawn. Their discovery is outlined in a study published in Nature Astronomy.

The SETI Institute and the Maldives Space Research Organisation (MSRO) will collaborate on astronomy research, space science education and public outreach. This initiative, established through a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), provides a framework for projects that combine cutting-edge scientific research with the rich cultural heritage of Maldivian celestial navigation.  

The collaboration began during the 2024 Space for Island Nations Conference (SIN2024), where the SETI Institute first learned about MSRO’s efforts to engage students and the public in astronomy. MSRO recently acquired a Unistellar telescope to provide students and tourists with hands-on experience in astronomy. Additionally, they published a cultural star map highlighting significant constellations and patterns based on ancestral Maldivian navigation traditions.

“We saw the incredible work MSRO was doing at SIN2024, inspiring this exciting collaboration,” said Dr. Franck Marchis, Director of Citizen Science at the SETI Institute and Chief Science Officer at Unistellar. “The Maldives, with its unique location and cultural connection to the stars, is an ideal place to develop new astronomy initiatives. We look forward to working with MSRO to bring science and traditional Maldivian wisdom together."

The first study to examine the relationship between the greenness of an area and police violence found that areas with a greater amount of green space had fewer fatal police shootings. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign landscape architecture professor William Sullivan was part of the research team.

The world's largest solar telescope, the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope in Hawaii, has reached an important milestone. After almost 15 years of preparation, the German instrument for the Inouye Solar Telescope, the Visible Tunable Filtergraph (VTF), has now taken its first images. The imaging spectro-polarimeter was developed and built at the Institute for Solar Physics (KIS) in Freiburg (Germany). The Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS) in Göttingen (Germany) is a partner in the project. The data published now were obtained during the technical commissioning of the instrument. VTF analyzes the sunlight captured by the Inouye Solar Telescope in more detail than ever before and, among other things, extracts information on the flow velocity of the solar plasma and the magnetic field strength at the visible surface of the Sun and in the directly adjacent gas layers above. Even in the current technical test phase, VTF is making smallest structures visible. In later scientific operation, when the data is extensively post-processed, the resolution will improve further. With a primary mirror diameter of four meters, the Inouye Solar Telescope is the largest in the world. Thanks to the optimal observational conditions on the Hawaiian volcano

Carbon-containing meteorites look like they had less severe impacts than those without carbon because the evidence was blasted into space by gases produced during the impact. The Kobe University discovery not only solves a 30-year-old mystery, but also provides guidelines for a future sampling mission to Ceres.

NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope team is announcing the official designs for the mission’s three core surveys. These observation programs will investigate some of the most profound mysteries in astrophysics while enabling expansive cosmic exploration that will revolutionize our understanding of the universe.