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New Models Track Lava Flow on Earth and Other Planets

Scientists have used satellite data from the Mauna Loa eruption to improve lava flow modeling for both Earth and other planetary bodies. [ https://www.labroots.com/trending/earth-and-the-environment/…-planets-2](https://www.labroots.com/trending/earth-and-the-environment/…-planets-2)

Do lava flows behave the same on other planets as they do on Earth? This is what a recent study published in the Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research hopes to address as a team of scientists investigated new methods for predicting the lava flow behavior and how this could be applied to other planets. This study has the potential to help scientists and engineers develop novel scientific methods that can be applied both on Earth and beyond.

For the study, the researchers examined satellite data from the 2022 Mauna Loa eruption in Hawaii that lasted from November 27 to December 10. The motivation behind the study was to address a longstanding knowledge gap regarding the limitations of using individual satellite datasets for volcanic hazard response. To address this, the team analyzed satellite data from a combination of private companies and government agencies to gain insight into the entire time period of the eruption.

In the end, the researchers successfully identified an origin for the eruption along with gathering data and fresh insight on the lava flow behavior during the eruption and post-eruption activity. They note several times throughout the study that this new method could be used to study volcanic activity on Mars, Venus, and Jupiter’s volcanic moon Io, the last of which is the most volcanically active planetary body in the entire solar system that boasts hundreds of active volcanoes.

Raman Spectroscopy Could Reveal if Enceladus is Habitable

Raman spectroscopy can be used to identify minerals in Enceladus’s plumes to help determine if its subsurface ocean could support life. [ https://www.labroots.com/trending/space/30495/raman-spectros…abitable-2](https://www.labroots.com/trending/space/30495/raman-spectros…abitable-2)

Is Saturn’s ocean moon Enceladus habitable? This is what a recent study published in The Planetary Science Journal hopes to address as a team of scientists investigated the likelihood of Enceladus hosting the necessary ingredients for life as we know it. This study has the potential to help scientists develop new methods for finding life beyond Earth, even life as we don’t know it.

For the study, the researchers examined whether Raman spectroscopy, which is a common chemical analysis method in planetary science, could be used to analyze particles emitted from Enceladus’ plumes. These plumes, which originate from Enceladus’ south polar region, are responsible for discharging pieces of the moon’s interior ocean, including water vapor and other molecules. To accomplish this, the researchers used a vacuum chamber to simulate conditions on Enceladus and froze salt water at pH levels of 9 and 11. They then analyzed the salts using Raman spectroscopy to ascertain if it could identify particles within the water and determine which pH level they originated from.

In the end, the researchers discovered that the instrument could differentiate between the two pH levels while identifying sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) and sodium carbonate (washing soda) in both pH levels while identifying only sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) in pH 11. The researchers note these findings demonstrate the potential for using a spacecraft-mounted Raman spectrometer for future missions to Enceladus and other icy worlds with the goal of identifying the necessary ingredients for life as we know it.

NVIDIA Launches Nemotron 3 Nano Omni Model, Unifying Vision, Audio and Language for up to 9x More Efficient AI Agents

This approach increases latency through repeated inference passes, fragments context across modalities, and adds cost and inaccuracies over time.

By combining vision and audio encoders within its 30B-A3B, hybrid mixture-of-experts architecture, Nemotron 3 Nano Omni eliminates the need for separate perception models, driving inference efficiency at scale. It pairs this efficiency with strong multimodal perception accuracy, enabling AI systems to achieve 9x higher throughput than other open omni models with the same interactivity. The result is lower costs and better scalability without sacrificing responsiveness or quality.

In agentic systems, Nemotron 3 Nano Omni can work alongside proprietary cloud models or other NVIDIA Nemotron open models — such as Nemotron 3 Super for high-frequency execution or Nemotron 3 Ultra for complex planning — as well as proprietary models from other providers, to power sub-agents for agentic workflows such as computer use, document intelligence and audio-video reasoning.

Tapping your genome with AI and quantum computing could deliver on the promise of personalized medicine — but practical and ethical hurdles remain

Combining AI with quantum computing could enable doctors and researchers to analyze the human body at an unprecedented molecular level, unlocking breakthroughs in personalized medicine. Yet significant quantum technology hurdles remain before this vision becomes reality.

Astronomers Find the Edge of the Milky Way’s Star-Forming Disc

Where exactly is the edge of the Milky Way? That question is harder to answer than one might expect. Since we’re inside of the galaxy itself, it’s obviously hard to judge the “edge” to begin with. But it gets even more complicated when defining what the edge even is — the galaxy simply gets less dense the farther away from the center it goes. A new paper by researchers originally at the University of Malta thinks they have an answer though. The “edge” can be defined as the star-forming region, and in their paper, published in Astronomy & Astrophysics, they very clearly show that “edge” to be between 11.28 and 12.15 kiloparsecs (or about 40,000 light years) from the center.

Even finding that edge was no easy task, though. The researchers had to analyze the ages of over 100,000 giant stars from the data of several different surveys, including APOGEE-DR17, LAMOST-DR3 and Gaia. In the data they found an interesting story about the evolution of the position of stars in the galaxy, and their age.

That relationship can be thought of as a U curve. In this case, the Y axis is age, and the X axis is the distance from the galaxy’s center. A picture (or graph in this case) is worth a thousand words, but in words that simply means that stars closer to the center of the galaxy are older, and get progressively younger out to a certain point, and then start getting older again. That “certain point”, according to the authors, is the end of the galaxy’s star-forming region, and hence, the “edge” of the galaxy.

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