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SPHEREx telescope completes first full-sky infrared map in 102 colors

Launched in March, NASA’s SPHEREx space telescope has completed its first infrared map of the entire sky in 102 colors.

While not visible to the human eye, these 102 infrared wavelengths of light are prevalent in the cosmos, and observing the entire sky this way enables scientists to answer big questions, including how a dramatic event that occurred in the first billionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second after the big bang influenced the 3D distribution of hundreds of millions of galaxies in our universe.

In addition, scientists will use the data to study how galaxies have changed over the universe’s nearly 14 billion-year history and learn about the distribution of key ingredients for life in our own galaxy.

Consciousness May Be a Fundamental Force of the Universe, Not a Byproduct

You’ve probably grown up accepting that your thoughts, feelings, and inner awareness all emerge from the firing of neurons in your brain. It’s what science has taught us for decades. Your consciousness is simply what happens when billions of brain cells communicate. Simple enough, right?

What if you’ve been looking at this backwards the whole time? What if the entire universe has been trying to tell you something fundamentally different about the nature of reality itself?

A materials science professor from Uppsala University recently published a framework that proposes an entirely new theory of the origin of the universe. Here’s where things get interesting. This framework presents consciousness not as a byproduct of brain activity, but as a fundamental field underlying everything we experience, including matter, space, time, and life itself.

The Missing Aliens AI Suppression Hypothesis

An exploration of whether when a civilization develops AI, it convinces or compels them to not attempt interstellar travel for its own reasons and motives.

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Slow changes in radio scintillation can nudge pulsar timing by billionths of a second

For 10 months, a SETI Institute-led team watched pulsar PSR J0332+5434 (also called B0329+54) to study how its radio signal “twinkles” as it passes through gas between the star and Earth. The team used the Allen Telescope Array (ATA) to take measurements between 900 and 1,956 MHz and observed slow, significant changes in the twinkling pattern (scintillation) over time.

The research is published in The Astrophysical Journal.

Pulsars are spinning remnants of massive stars that emit flashes of radio waves, a type of light, in very precise and regular rhythms, due to their high rotation speed and incredible density. Scientists can use sensitive radio telescopes to measure the exact times at which pulses arrive in the search for patterns that can indicate phenomena such as low-frequency gravitational waves.

Revolutionary AI System Achieves 600x Speed Breakthrough in the Search for Signals from Space

In a significant advance for astronomy, researchers from the Breakthrough Listen initiative, working in collaboration with NVIDIA and utilizing their system on the SETI Institute’s Allen Telescope Array (ATA) in California, have improved the process for detecting Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs). Their newly developed artificial intelligence system outperforms existing methods, operating hundreds of times faster than current pipelines while maintaining accuracy.

Detailed in the peer-reviewed journal Astronomy & Astrophysics, the new system operates on NVIDIA’s Holoscan platform, designed to process massive streaming datasets in real-time. Traditionally, FRB detection requires “dedispersion” — searching through thousands of possible signal parameters to correct for frequency-dependent time delays. The new end-to-end AI architecture eliminates that bottleneck, analyzing signals in real time and transforming how astronomers search for transient and potentially artificial signals from space.

The performance gains are notable. At the ATA, the state-of-the-art pipeline currently takes approximately 59 seconds to process 16.3 seconds of observational data — nearly four times slower than real-time. The new AI-driven system performs the same task 600 times faster, operating over 160 times faster than real-time.

JWST Tests TRAPPIST-1e for an Atmosphere

Based on our most recent work, we suggest that the previously reported tentative hint of an atmosphere is more likely to be ‘noise’ from the host star,” said Dr. Sukrit Ranjan. “However, this does not mean that TRAPPIST-1e does not have an atmosphere – we just need more data.

Does the Earth-sized TRAPPIST-1e have the conditions for supporting life as we know it, specifically an appropriate atmosphere? This is what several studies published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters hopes to address as a team of scientists investigated the potential for TRAPPIST-1e to possess an atmosphere while throwing caution to the wind regarding the findings. This study has the potential to help scientists better understand the potential habitability of not only planets within the TRAPPIST-1 system, but also other exoplanetary systems throughout the universe.

For the first and second study, the researchers used NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to observe the atmosphere of TRAPPIST-1e, which is located approximately 40 light-years from Earth. The TRAPPIST-1 system has long been targeted by the scientific community due to the system containing seven known Earth-sized worlds. The unique aspect about the TRAPPIST-1 system is its M-dwarf star, which is both smaller and cooler than our Sun, but also means its lifetime is far greater than our Sun, strengthening the possibility of finding habitable planets orbiting them.

After analyzing the data, the first paper attempted to reduce the parent star’s activity that might be interfering with observations and conclude that TRAPPIST-1e does not have a hydrogen atmosphere. The second paper concludes with the possibility of TRAPPIST-1e having a nitrogen atmosphere with traces of carbon dioxide and methane, while a third paper stresses that further studies are required for a complete analysis and determination of TRAPPIST-1e’s atmospheric characteristics.

China unveils planetary exploration roadmap targeting habitability and extraterrestrial life

Great, but where on earth is the EU in this new space race?

HELSINKI — China is charting a long-term deep space strategy centered on planetary habitability and the search for extraterrestrial life, according to a newly revealed mission roadmap.

A slide titled “habitability and search for extraterrestrial life — guiding the future development of China’s planetary exploration,” was shared on Chinese social media by the country’s Deep Space Exploration Laboratory (DSEL), a national-level research institution under the China National Space Administration (CNSA). It outlines a number of planned and potential missions, many with astrobiological implications.

The first mission is the Tianwen-3 Mars sample return mission, already approved and currently scheduled to launch around late 2028. Among its main objectives is investigating potential traces of past or present life on Mars.

Boiling oceans may lurk beneath the ice of solar system’s smallest moons

The outer planets of the solar system are swarmed by ice-wrapped moons. Some of these, such as Saturn’s moon Enceladus, are known to have oceans of liquid water between the ice shell and the rocky core and could be the best places in our solar system to look for extraterrestrial life. A new study published Nov. 24 in Nature Astronomy sheds light on what could be going on beneath the surface of these worlds and provides insights into how their diverse geologic features may have formed.

“Not all of these satellites are known to have oceans, but we know that some do,” said Max Rudolph, associate professor of earth and planetary sciences at the University of California, Davis and lead author on the paper. “We’re interested in the processes that shape their evolution over millions of years and this allows us to think about what the surface expression of an ocean world would be.”

How geology works on icy moons From mountains to earthquakes, Earth’s surface geology is powered by the movement and melting of rock deep inside the planet. On icy moons, geology is driven by the action of water and ice.

Interstellar object covered in ‘icy volcanoes’ could rewrite our understanding of how comets formed

Analysis of the second confirmed interstellar comet to visit our solar system suggests that the alien body could be covered in erupting icy, volcano-like structures called cryovolcanoes. Researchers also discovered that the comet has a metal-rich interior, which could challenge our understanding of how comets formed in our own planetary system.

The scientists tracked Comet 3I/ATLAS from July to November 2025 as it hurtled toward our sun. It presented a rare opportunity to study an object formed around another star in interstellar space. What makes it so valuable is that it is pristine, having never passed close enough to a star to be heated, melted, or otherwise altered by radiation. That means it is almost the same as it was when it formed billions of years ago in its home system.

The 15 Most Advanced Alien Races In Fiction

Discover the 15 most advanced alien races ever imagined in science fiction—from reality-bending cosmic civilizations to hyper-intelligent species capable of rewriting the laws of physics.

In this video, we explore how these alien races evolved, the technologies they command, and why they stand above all others in the sci-fi universe. Whether you’re into Star Wars, Star Trek, Marvel, DC, Mass Effect, Stargate, Halo, or classic literature, this countdown covers the most iconic and most powerful extraterrestrial species ever written.

👉 Which alien race do YOU think is the most advanced? Drop your pick in the comments!
If you love sci-fi lore, alien analysis, worldbuilding breakdowns, and deep-dive rankings, make sure to LIKE, SUBSCRIBE, and hit the bell for more universe-spanning content!

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