A study recently submitted to The Astronomical Journal continues to search for the elusive Planet Nine (also called Planet X), which is a hypothetical planet that potentially orbits in the outer reaches of the solar system and well beyond the orbit of the dwarf planet, Pluto.

The goal of this study, which is available on the pre-print server arXiv, was to narrow down the possible locations of Planet Nine and holds the potential to help researchers better understand the makeup of our solar system, along with its formation and evolutionary processes. So, what was the motivation behind this study regarding narrowing down the location of a potential Planet 9?

Dr. Mike Brown, who is a Richard and Barbara Rosenberg Professor of Astronomy at Caltech and lead author of the study, tells Universe Today, “We are continuing to try to systematically cover all of the regions of the sky where we predict Planet Nine to be. Using data from Pan-STARRS allowed us to cover the largest region to date.”

Inspired by the color-changing ability of chameleons, researchers have developed a sustainable technique to 3D-print multiple, dynamic colors from a single ink.

“By designing new chemistries and printing processes, we can modulate structural color on the fly to produce color gradients not possible before,” said Ying Diao, an associate professor of chemistry and chemical and biomolecular engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and a researcher at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology.

The study appears in the journal PNAS.

Using the European Southern Observatory’s (ESO) Very Large Telescope (VLT), astronomers have characterized a bright quasar, finding it to be not only the brightest of its kind but also the most luminous object ever observed. Quasars are the bright cores of distant galaxies, and supermassive black holes power them.

The black hole in this record-breaking quasar is growing in mass by the equivalent of one sun per day, making it the fastest-growing black hole to date.

The black holes powering quasars collect matter from their surroundings in an energetic process that emits vast amounts of light. So much so that quasars are some of the brightest objects in our sky, meaning even distant ones are visible from Earth. Generally, the most luminous quasars indicate the fastest-growing supermassive black holes.

Proteins are nature’s polymers, governing biological processes at every level. A new study presents artificial proteins made using modern, precision polymers to intervene and alter natural processes towards a new way of developing therapeutics.

Researchers led by Northwestern University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison have introduced a pioneering approach aimed at combating neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).

In a new study, researchers discovered a new way to enhance the body’s antioxidant response, which is crucial for cellular protection against the oxidative stress implicated in many neurodegenerative diseases.

Webb telescope observes potentially young Methane deposits on surfaces of Eris, Makemake. A team co-led by Southwest Research Institute found evidence for hydrothermal or metamorphic activity within the icy dwarf planets Eris and Makemake, located in the Kuiper Belt. Methane detected on their surfaces has the tell-tale signs of warm or even hot geochemistry in their rocky cores, which is markedly different than the signature of methane from a comet.

“We see some interesting signs of hot times in cool places,” said SwRI’s Dr. Christopher Glein, an expert in planetary geochemistry and lead author of a paper about this discovery.

The Kuiper Belt is a vast donut-shaped region of icy bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune at the edge of the solar system.

In a new study, scientists have mapped magnetic fields in galaxy clusters, revealing the impact of galactic mergers on magnetic-field structures and challenging previous assumptions about the efficiency of turbulent dynamo processes in the amplification of these fields.

Galaxy clusters are large, gravitationally bound systems containing numerous galaxies, hot gas, and dark matter. They represent some of the most massive structures in the universe. These clusters can consist of hundreds to thousands of galaxies, bound together by gravity, and are embedded in vast halos of hot gas called the intracluster medium (ICM).

ICM, consisting mainly of ionized hydrogen and helium, is held together by the gravitational pull of the cluster itself. Magnetic fields in large-scale structures, like galaxy clusters, play pivotal roles in shaping astrophysical processes. They influence the ICM, impact galaxy formation and evolution, contribute to cosmic ray transport, participate in cosmic magnetization, and serve as tracers of large-scale structure evolution.

Researchers can engineer cells to express new genes and produce specific proteins, giving the cells new parts to work with. But, it’s much harder to provide cells with instructions on how to organize and use those new parts. Now, new tools from University of Wisconsin–Madison researchers offer an innovative way around this problem.

Their research is published in the journal Cell.

Everything a cell does depends on how molecules are organized within the cell. Inside our cells—all cells—proteins and other molecules undergo organization and reorganization to carry out cellular function. Like a fleet of commuter trains moving at scheduled intervals along their different routes, proteins within a cell are organized in time and space to carry out complex but predictable functions.

In the ever-evolving realm of microscopy, recent years have witnessed remarkable strides in both hardware and algorithms, propelling our ability to explore the infinitesimal wonders of life. However, the journey towards three-dimensional structured illumination microscopy (3DSIM) has been hampered by challenges arising from the speed and intricacy of polarization modulation.

Enter the high-speed modulation 3DSIM system “DMD-3DSIM,” combining digital display with super-resolution imaging, allowing scientists to see cellular structures in unprecedented detail.

As reported in Advanced Photonics Nexus, Professor Peng Xi’s team at Peking University developed this innovative setup around a digital micromirror device (DMD) and an electro-optic modulator (EOM). It tackles resolution challenges by significantly improving both lateral (side-to-side) and axial (top-to-bottom) resolution, for a 3D spatial resolution reportedly twice that achieved by traditional wide-field imaging techniques.

The capacity of intestinal stem cells to maintain cellular balance in the gut decreases upon ageing. Researchers at the University of Helsinki have discovered a new mechanism of action between the nutrient adaptation of intestinal stem cells and ageing. The finding may make a difference when seeking ways to maintain the functional capacity of the ageing gut.

The cellular balance of the intestine is carefully regulated, and it is influenced, among other things, by nutrition: ample nutrition increases the total number of cells in the gut, whereas fasting decreases their number.

The relative number of different types of cells also changes according to nutrient status.

A protoplanetary disk is a disk of dense gas and dust, orbiting a newly formed star. It is assumed that planets are born by the gradual accumulation of material in such a structure, therefore discoveries and studies of protoplanetary disks are essential for improving our understanding of planetary formation processes.

Now, a team of astronomers led by Ciprian T. Berghea of the U.S. Naval Observatory (USNO) in Washington, DC, has discovered a new disk of this type that is associated with an infrared source known as IRAS 23077+6707. The finding was made by inspecting the Pan-STARRS data while working on a variability study of active galactic nuclei (AGN) candidates.