Science & Tech news · 25 October 2026
NASA's Bennu Samples Reveal a 4.5-Billion-Year-Old Solar System Secret
Analysis of asteroid Bennu's OSIRIS-REx samples shows it formed at the early solar system's water-ice boundary, where inner and outer disk materials mixed — with Jupiter acting as a gravitational barrier that shaped its chemistry.
Brain-Inspired Superconducting Chip Keeps Pace With Fusion Plasma at One Million Samples per Second
Brookhaven National Laboratory and startup Great Sky have demonstrated a neuromorphic superconducting chip that processes fusion-reactor plasma data at one million samples per second, potentially helping prevent the catastrophic plasma collapses that threaten next-generation fusion devices.
Japan Launches Historic MMX Mission to Collect the First Samples from a Martian Moon
Japan's H3 rocket lifted off on October 19, 2026, carrying the Martian Moons eXploration spacecraft on a ten-month journey to Phobos, where it will land, collect a planned 10 grams of rock, and return them to Earth in 2031.
Lightest Neutron Star Pair Ever Found Confirms Einstein's General Relativity to Within 1%
China's FAST telescope has identified the least massive binary neutron star system on record — two stellar remnants orbiting every 2 hours 22 minutes — and measured three relativistic effects that match Einstein's general relativity to about one percent accuracy.
Thwaites 'Doomsday Glacier' Could Contribute Twice the Sea-Level Rise Previously Forecast
A new UC Irvine and NASA JPL ice-sheet model incorporating warm-ocean tidal pumping beneath Antarctica's Thwaites Glacier projects up to 30 millimetres of sea-level rise by 2100 — double earlier estimates — even without additional climate warming.