Great news from Saturn's moon Enceladus in the search for life in space - Astronomy & Space Astrobiology - Planetary Sciences

Saturn's moon Enceladus. Credit: NASA

What are the chances of finding extraterrestrial life in our solar system? Frank Postberg, a professor of planetary science at Freie Universität Berlin, has published a study in Science Advances with an international team of researchers. They present new evidence that it is easier to determine the constituents of the ocean hidden beneath Enceladus's icy surface than previously assumed.

Postberg also contributed to a second study published the same day. In that study, he and another planetary scientist from Freie Universität, Dr. Nozair Khawaja, helped show that certain microorganisms could tolerate the conditions in Enceladus's ocean better than previously thought. The results increase the likelihood of finding evidence of life on Saturn's moon.

What makes Enceladus so attractive in the search for life in space?

Enceladus is considered one of the most promising places to search for extraterrestrial life in our solar system. Researchers suspect that a global ocean of liquid water lies beneath the moon's icy crust, with a rocky core farther below. Due to cryovolcanic activity, gigantic plumes break through cracks in the crust at the moon's south pole, ejecting ice particles hundreds of kilometers into space.

NASA's Cassini spacecraft passed through these plumes multiple times to analyze their composition. Enceladus's ocean is the only extraterrestrial "body of water" from which scientists have been able to directly analyze samples. The samples revealed traces of various salts and organic compounds. Previous analyses by Cassini also indicated hydrothermal processes on the seafloor and other conditions that could support life.

Enceladus ice plumes separate and sort the ocean's components

Postberg's study, "Cassini CDA Observes Compositional Segregation of Enceladus' Ice Grains from Slow Freezing and Fragmentation of Oceanic Spray," includes surprising findings about what happens to the ocean water on its way into space. The international team used Cassini data, long-term laboratory experiments and theoretical models to reconstruct the process.

Droplets form at the ocean's surface as gas-filled bubbles rise and pop. Water vapor then carries the droplets through cracks in the ice shell and out into space. Scientists previously believed the droplets froze instantaneously. The new findings reveal that they freeze slowly, allowing most components (including dissolved ones) to separate from each other. Salts and organic materials are thus distributed in different locations inside each freezing droplet. Various types of previously dissolved salts also separate; for example, sodium chloride (table salt) separates from sodium carbonate.

On their way up, the frozen droplets accelerate to speeds of up to 1,000 km/h (620 miles per hour). If they hit the walls of the icy cracks, they break into fragments only a few micrometers in size before shooting into space. As a result, ice particles often consist of just one highly concentrated, previously segregated substance.

"Enceladus actually does a lot of the work for us in preparing samples for analysis that usually take a lot of effort in chemical labs on Earth," says Postberg, who led the study. "The oceanic constituents are separated from each other and simultaneously concentrated into individual ice particles."

Making it easier to find signs of life

This mechanism helps researchers characterize the ocean as a potential habitat for life. It is also particularly useful in the search for biosignatures, or measurable indications of life. If an ocean droplet contained components from alien microbes, those components could separate from others as the droplet froze. After fragmentation, the microbial material might be found in only a small fraction of ice particles. In those particles, however, it would be highly concentrated and relatively pure.

"That is great news in the search for life," says Postberg. "Future spacecraft will have to analyze many individual ice particles in the plume. But if they come across one with microbial material in it, they could identify biosignatures in the particle relatively easily with already available technology."

The discovery could have important implications for future space missions to Enceladus, such as the ESA's L4 mission, which is being planned. The mission will specifically look for signs of life on Saturn's moon. Postberg's lab at Freie Universität Berlin has previously conducted laboratory studies demonstrating that specialized instruments can detect microbial cellular material in individual particles from the ice plumes.

Could life really exist on Enceladus?

A recent study offers new insight into this question. On the same day Postberg's article appeared in Science Advances, scientists at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (LMU) published another article in the journal: "Enceladus-Like Geochemistry Fuels Methanogenesis under Extreme CO₂-Limitation." Postberg and Khawaja contributed to the study.

The scientists reproduced the conditions of Enceladus's ocean in a laboratory. The ocean has a very low concentration of oxygen, a very high concentration of carbonate and is very alkaline (with pH values of 10 or 11). After recreating these conditions, including the ocean's hydrothermal interaction with its rocky floor, they introduced Methanothermococcus okinawensis into the simulated environment.

This microorganism is a methane-producing archaean that normally lives near deep-sea hydrothermal vents on Earth. It does not need oxygen, which is rare on Enceladus, to survive. Its metabolism requires only hydrogen and carbon dioxide.

The results were surprising: The organism failed to grow in an optimal laboratory medium at such a high pH because it lacked dissolved carbon dioxide. By contrast, it continued to grow in the Enceladus simulant, producing methane using hydrogen generated by water-rock reactions. Under the simulated conditions, the microorganisms were even able to adapt their metabolism to the low amounts of carbon dioxide. "This was really a surprise to us," Khawaja said. "This was an experiment for which we did not expect such a successful outcome."

Taken together, the two studies in Science Advances shed new light on the search for extraterrestrial life. "On Enceladus the specific geochemical conditions might allow one of the oldest known metabolic systems on Earth to work, even in very alkaline environments," Postberg says. "While that doesn't mean that there is life on Saturn's moon, our first study shows that—in the event that there is—future space missions might have a good chance of finding traces if they analyze individual ice grains from Enceladus's plume." 

Provided by Free University of Berlin 

by Free University of Berlin

edited by Gaby Clark, reviewed by Robert Egan 

Source: Great news from Saturn's moon Enceladus in the search for life in space 

Alzheimer’s-Like Brain Damage May Start in the Lymph Nodes, Not the Brain

For decades, Alzheimer’s disease has been treated as a problem that begins and ends inside the brain. A new study suggests part of the story starts somewhere much more accessible: the lymph nodes.

Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis report that, in mice, the immune cells driving Alzheimer’s-like neurodegeneration receive their marching orders outside the brain. When the team interrupted that process, brain damage dropped dramatically. The work was published on September 3, 2026 in Nature Neuroscience.

An immune puzzle inside the Alzheimer’s brain

T cells normally patrol the body, hunting down infected or damaged cells. In the brains of people with Alzheimer’s disease and related disorders, they show up in much higher numbers than in healthy brains, and they seem to make the damage worse. What nobody could explain was where these cells came from or what pulled them into the brain in the first place.

The lab of neurologist David Holtzman had already shown that removing T cells protected mice from the neurodegeneration caused by toxic tau protein, the twisted clumps that build up in Alzheimer’s disease and in a group of conditions called primary tauopathies. The new question was: who is telling those T cells what to attack?

The trainers: dendritic cells

Many T cells need a partner, called a dendritic cell, to show them which molecular targets to go after. The specific type involved here, known as cDC1, is scarce in the brain, and the few that are present don’t appear to interact with the T cells that arrive once tau tangles form. That pointed the researchers toward the rest of the body.

They tested this in mice that normally develop tau tangles and neurodegeneration. Removing dendritic cells from the lymph nodes and other locations brought the surge of CD8 T cells in the brain back down, and much of the brain damage disappeared with it. Strikingly, the amount of tau in the brain didn’t change. The tangles were still there; the immune attack on the brain was what had been reduced. The mice also kept their cognitive abilities, hinting that calming this immune pathway could slow the mental decline seen in Alzheimer’s.

What sets the process off?

The exact trigger isn’t known yet. The leading idea is that tau-damaged brain cells release material that drains toward the lymph nodes in the neck. There, dendritic cells flag it as a threat and train T cells to hunt it down, sending them to the brain, where they do more harm than good.

Why this matters for treatment

One of the biggest hurdles in treating brain diseases is getting a drug past the blood-brain barrier. A driver that operates outside the brain could sidestep that problem entirely. T cells and dendritic cells are already well studied, and many ways of manipulating them are approved for other diseases, though few have been tried in neurodegeneration.

Important caveats apply. This is mouse research, and in these experiments the dendritic cells were blocked from birth, long before any disease would appear. The team is now testing whether intervening in midlife, closer to when tau tangles begin to form in people, works as well, and they are trying to identify the signal that guides T cells to the brain so it can be blocked.

Still, the findings add to a growing shift in the field: the immune system, once considered a bystander in protein-driven brain diseases, is increasingly looking like an active player and a possible target.

Sources

News release: WashU Medicine

Original paper: Hu H, et al. Priming of CD8+ T cells by peripheral dendritic cells exacerbates tau-mediated neurodegeneration. Nature Neuroscience, September 3, 2026. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41593-026-02427-5 

Source: Alzheimer’s-Like Brain Damage May Start in the Lymph Nodes, Not the Brain   

Fifth Balloon of NASA Scientific Balloon Campaign Launches

Wallops Flight Facility 

Launch updates from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility.

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The Mullenax Test Flight was launched on a scientific balloon from NASA’s launch facility in Fort Sumner, New Mexico, at 7:57 a.m. MDT (9:57 a.m. EDT) on Sept. 28, 2026. The mission served as a training and hardware-testing platform for meteorology and rigging personnel while also carrying a mix of university and student-built science projects and experimental smart-camera technology.

The balloon and payload reached a float altitude of around 105,900 feet, and flew for a total of 10 hours, 14 minutes. 

The Mullenax Test Flight payload hangs suspended from a launch vehicle shortly before its morning liftoff from Fort Sumner on Sept. 28, 2026 as part of the fall scientific balloon campaign.

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2 weeks ago

Fourth Balloon of NASA Scientific Balloon Campaign Launches

The BOOP! mission was launched on a scientific balloon from NASA's launch facility in Fort Sumner, New Mexico, at 8:03 a.m. MDT (10:03 a.m. EDT) on Sept. 13, 2026. This is the second year for NASA’s Balloon Program Office’s Balloon Optimization Opportunity Payload, or BOOP!, which allows multiple technology instruments to be tested during flight for future missions.  The mission carried experiments to test compact tools for future planetary exploration, map high-energy space radiation, and evaluate a newly developed flight camera system.

The balloon and payload reached a float altitude of around 123,000 feet, and flew for a total of 4 hours, 29 minutes. 

The BOOP! scientific balloon mission is prepared for flight Sept. 13, 2026.

NASA/Todd Lankford 

Source:  Fifth Balloon of NASA Scientific Balloon Campaign Launches - NASA

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Uncovering the Valleys Hidden Below Greenland’s Ice - NASA Earth Observatory

A newly developed method for mapping the bedrock beneath Greenland’s ice sheet reveals the island’s hidden topography. Among the most striking finds are long, straight valleys in the west-central region, some mapped for the first time and others extending farther inland than previously known (inset 3).

NASA Earth Observatory/Lauren Dauphin, based on data from Chartrand et al.

Greenland is capped with a vast ice sheet that spans 1.7 million square kilometers (656,000 square miles) and measures more than 3 kilometers (1.9 miles) at its thickest point. Below all this ice lies a landscape human eyes have never seen directly. But a newly developed method for mapping this hidden bedrock has produced the most detailed and accurate view of it yet.

The new map reveals an expansive network of valleys carved into the surface beneath the Greenland Ice Sheet. Many of the features formed well before most of the ice above them existed, offering new context for the island’s geologic history—and potentially helping scientists refine projections of the ice sheet’s future. Scientists described the newly mapped valleys in a NASA-led paper published in Geophysical Research Letters.

The map, shown above, was derived from a method called Ice Flow Perturbation Analysis. As ice flows over a valley or ridge, the topography leaves a faint signature on the ice surface. Satellites map the ice surface in fine detail, and scientists can use these subtle bumps and dips to infer the shape of the landscape buried below. The work aims to improve future versions of BedMachine Greenland, a high-resolution dataset of the terrain beneath the ice sheet.

Using the technique, researchers manually mapped 1,943 subglacial valleys beneath the Greenland Ice Sheet, about a third of which are newly identified. About half of the valleys included in BedMachine Greenland, primarily near the ice sheet’s edge, are now known to extend farther inland than that map indicates, in some cases by hundreds of kilometers.

Some aspects of the new map align with the current understanding of how Greenland's landscapes formed. For instance, many of the valleys appear to begin in the southern and eastern highlands, where the ice sheet is thought to have first formed. Near the eastern highlands, the map reveals a mountain range beneath the ice, with interconnected valleys and relief that increases toward the coast. These alpine-style landforms may have survived under the ice since at least the Pliocene.

Other aspects of the topography are more puzzling. The analysis indicates numerous valleys, especially in the west-central region, that are long, straight, and consistently aligned in a southwest-northeast direction. This orientation suggests a tectonic influence, generating preferential pathways along which water could flow and valleys could form. “That’s a riddle to us,” said Joe MacGregor, a NASA cryospheric scientist and co-author of the study. “Greenland is justifiably usually treated as a rigid block of old rock that is simply translated as needed to accommodate the motion and interactions of other tectonic plates.”

Separately, the angles at which the valleys branch offer another insight into their origin. Their relatively wide branching angles suggest that surface water didn't act alone; instead, a widespread groundwater network—seeping upward and eroding the surrounding rock—likely helped carve the valleys before the ice sheet formed.

Mapping these valleys matters for understanding the ice sheet, which has continued to dramatically reshape the landscape. Ice flow concentrates in valleys, where it forms glaciers that eventually calve into fjords at the periphery of the ice sheet. This creates a reinforcing cycle: ice funneling through a valley gets thicker, thicker ice flows faster, and faster flow carves the valley even deeper.

This carving power is especially evident along western Greenland. MacGregor likened it to the glacially incised landscape at Yosemite, with Greenland’s western coast resembling, as he put it, "El Capitan after El Capitan."

Studying the valleys also matters for the ice sheet’s future. Because the relationship between ice flow and valleys is well understood, scientists expect that as the ice sheet retreats, flow will continue to concentrate wherever the valleys already are. “The better we understand the topography now,” MacGregor said, “the better sense we'll have of what it will look like in the longer term—beyond the next decade or two—as faster ice flow propagates into Greenland’s interior.”

NASA Earth Observatory map by Lauren Dauphin using data from Chartrand et al. Story by Kathryn Hansen. 

Source: Uncovering the Valleys Hidden Below Greenland’s Ice - NASA Science 

New robotic hand can walk, press keys and move objects on its own - Robotics - Hi Tech & Innovation

Onboard power, sensing, and computation make the commercial hand self-contained. On the right is the corresponding NVIDIA Isaac Sim model, showing the stance-calibrated control frame V (colored axes) and the support polygon formed by the five fingertip contacts. Credit: arXiv (2026). DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2609.17172

For many of us, the last—and only—time we've seen a walking hand was Thing in "The Addams Family" movies or TV series. Now there's another. Engineers from the Soft Robotics Lab at ETH Zurich have adapted an off-the-shelf detached robotic hand so it can crawl across different surfaces, balance and interact with its environment.

But this is no sci-fi gimmick. Fully mobile robotic hands could be useful in hard-to-reach spaces. "A robotic hand with its own mobility could operate in confined workspaces without requiring the arm that normally carries it to follow," says the research team.

Less than handy robotic hands

Until now, robotic hands trying to walk on their own ran into a major design catch. Previous projects made hands walk by giving them symmetrical fingers. That made crawling easier, but it meant moving away from the unequal fingers and opposed thumb of a conventional human-like robotic hand.

Those differences in finger shape and size help standard robotic hands handle everyday objects. But their uneven lengths make walking without tipping over more difficult because each fingertip has a different reach. 

A team led by Amir Kazemi overcame these limitations by teaching an off-the-shelf, human-like hand with unequal fingers to balance, crawl and work independently. The team describes how it did so in a paper posted to the arXiv preprint server.

The team mounted a battery, motion sensors and a miniature computer on the back of the robotic hand and taught it to move and balance using reinforcement learning in a computer simulator. Then they put it to the test.

The hand crawled across 14 different indoor and outdoor surfaces, including carpet, gravel, grass and metal grating. In 25 tests that started with it lying on either side, it pushed itself back upright and recovered its stance 21 times.

Putting its fingers to work

The robot performed other tasks, too. While balancing its weight on four fingers, the hand lifted its remaining finger to press four different arrow keys. It hit the correct key 29 out of 32 times.

In another test, the hand walked up to a small block and pushed it across a table, placing it within two centimeters (0.8 inches) of the target spot during 15 tests.

Looking ahead, the team believes its approach could change how mobile robots work in human environments. "Giving robotic hands their own mobility could make future robots more versatile in the spaces and interfaces built for people." 

by Paul Arnold, Phys.org

edited by Lisa Lock, reviewed by Robert Egan 

Source: New robotic hand can walk, press keys and move objects on its own  

Two new large stick insect species discovered in Australia's backyards and rainforests - Biology Plants & Animals - Ecology

A representative of Anchiale: A. mabiensis sp. nov. female, in situ (photo by Angus J. Emmott). Credit: Austral Entomology (2026). DOI: 10.1111/aen.70096

Insect "detectives" have discovered two new types of large stick insects, showing scientists are still uncovering new species in some of Australia's most well-studied landscapes. Researchers at the University of Sydney have revised the Australian representatives of the stick insect genus Anchiale, identifying two new species, one with unique "lidded" eggs. They also reinstated a third species that had been hidden in plain sight for decades.

The findings reveal that what were considered two species are five distinct species ranging from northern New South Wales through coastal Queensland and into the tropical north. The work is published in the journal Austral Entomology.

Despite more than 1,000 citizen science observations of stick insects through iNaturalist and the Atlas of Living Australia, plus decades of scientific study, the researchers say Australia is still only scratching the surface of its insect diversity.

Lead author Dr. Braxton Jones from the School of Life and Environmental Sciences said the discovery highlights how much remains unknown about Australia's insect biodiversity.

"Taxonomy is often a bit like detective work. Even among some of Australia's most photographed and frequently reported insects, we're still finding species that have escaped scientific recognition," said Jones, a postdoctoral research associate at the Aola Richards Sydney Insect Hub and the Molecular Ecology, Evolution and Phylogenomics Laboratory.

One of the biggest surprises involved a large stick insect long known to scientists and insect enthusiasts. After combining DNA analysis, museum collections, surveys, citizen science records and studies of captive populations, researchers discovered the insect had been misidentified for decades. It is now recognized as an entirely new species, Anchiale robusta.

The team also described Anchiale mabiensis, a new species found in Queensland's critically endangered Mabi rainforest on the Atherton Tablelands. Its eggs contain a structural lid unlike anything previously recorded in stick insects or their closest relatives.

The research also has practical implications. A stick insect known for forming plague-like population outbreaks that can strip foliage from trees was found to consist of more than one species. Untangling those species relationships will help improve future management of impacts on forestry and agriculture.

The study even identified a likely additional undescribed species from Cape York, but more specimens are needed before its identity can be confirmed.

Jones said, "These findings demonstrate the importance of protecting threatened ecosystems and documenting Australia's extraordinary biodiversity before we lose species without us having even discovered them." 

Provided by University of Sydney 

by University of Sydney

edited by Lisa Lock, reviewed by Andrew Zinin 

Source: Two new large stick insect species discovered in Australia's backyards and rainforests 

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