Sunday, June 28, 2026

Astronomers have discovered two Jupiter-sized 'super-puff' planets with densities lower than cotton candy, making them the lightest gas giants ever found. The planets, TOI-791 b and TOI-791 c, orbit a star 1,110 light-years away and are locked in a rare 5:3 orbital resonance.^[1]

NASA and Katalyst Space are preparing to launch the Swift Boost mission on June 30, a first-of-its-kind attempt to use a robotic spacecraft to capture and raise the orbit of the falling Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, potentially extending the 22-year-old telescope's life by five or more years.^[2]

The James Webb Space Telescope has discovered six galaxies in the process of merging into what will become one of the largest galaxies in the universe, providing a rare glimpse of how massive galaxies formed when the universe was only 1.5 billion years old.^[3]

Researchers at Kyushu University have developed a new solid-state material that converts visible sunlight into higher-energy ultraviolet light, a breakthrough that could enable cleaner air purification, solar-driven chemistry, and advanced manufacturing using natural sunlight.^[4]

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has detected ultraviolet light from a galaxy that existed just 1.4 billion years after the Big Bang, containing young stars that cleared the surrounding cosmic fog and providing evidence that similar early galaxies transformed the universe.^[5]

The capture of a juvenile great white shark off the Spanish coast has provided fresh evidence that the Mediterranean's elusive population of great whites still survives, prompting scientists to review 160 years of records on these apex predators in the region.^[6]

Iceland became the smallest country by population to reach the knockout stage of a FIFA Men's World Cup after holding Saudi Arabia to a goalless draw in Houston, securing their historic progression from the group stage.^[7]

Scientists have produced the first global maps of Earth's underground fungal networks, estimating that arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi stretch approximately 68 quadrillion miles through global topsoils—nearly a billion times the distance from Earth to the Sun.^[8]

Scientists exploring ancient seafloor rocks in Morocco discovered wrinkle patterns that suggest microbial life may have thrived in the deep, dark ocean rather than just in shallow, sunlit waters as previously believed.^[9]