SPACE/COSMOS
Swiss researchers test robot dog designed to speed up Moon and Mars exploration
In recent trials, the dog-like robot completed missions three times faster than human-guided alternatives.
Swiss researchers are testing a semi-autonomous robot that could be used to explore Mars without constant human guidance, speeding up the search for minerals, water, and even traces of ancient life on other worldsor exoplanets.
The four-legged robot, named ANYmal, looks more like a robotic dog than a traditional rover. But strapped to its body is a robotic arm wielding a microscopic imager and a Raman spectrometer — a scanner that can read and identify the chemical fingerprint of a rock.
Researchers at the University of Basel have been putting ANYmal through its paces at their "Marslabor". This is a simulation facility designed to mimic the dusty and rocky surfaces of Mars and the Moon.
The objective set for ANYmal was straightforward: navigate independently, identify rocks of scientific interest, analyse them, and transmit the results — all without human guidance.
In the trials, recently published in Frontiers in Space Technologies, the robot successfully analysed multiple rocks in sequence, identifying gypsum (a soft, sulfate mineral), carbonates, basalts, and lunar-analogue materials such as dunite and anorthosite.
ANYmal completed missions autonomously in just 12 to 23 minutes. A human operator doing the same job took 41 minutes. However, it should be noted that human oversight produced slightly more detailed and marginally higher accuracy.
Current Mars rovers operate under near-constant supervision from Earth, covering only a few hundred metres per day. Employing a robot capable of making its own scientific decisions could dramatically accelerate the pace of exploration.
The study also reinforces that legged robots, which can step over obstacles and adjust to variable terrain, could reach scientifically valuable areas that wheeled rovers cannot.
Taken together, the research points toward a future in which robots like ANYmal are not just tools operated from afar, but active scientific participants, capable of independently hunting for biosignatures, the chemical traces that could indicate ancient life on faraway planets.
Astronomers have identified the most primitive star ever found
New research could lead to insights about the formation of the universe’s first stars
In the exurbs of the Milky Way, near a satellite galaxy called the Large Magellanic Cloud, researchers have discovered the most metal-poor, chemically primitive star ever found, according to new research from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey.
Findings from the survey are published in the journal Nature Astronomy.
Composed primarily of hydrogen and helium and containing less than 0.005% of the metals in the Sun, the chemical makeup of the star SDSS J0715-7334 is the closest analog yet found to the first stars that formed in the universe. Studying this low-mass, ultra-metal-poor star could help clarify astronomers’ ideas about the first generation of stars, called Population III stars, which astronomers cannot observe directly.
“No Population III stars have ever been observed, either because they were massive, lived fast, and died young, or the lowest-mass Population III stars that could persist to the present day are extremely rare. Either way, the properties of this first stellar generation are some of the most important unknowns in modern astrophysics,” said co-author Kevin Schlaufman, an associate professor of physics and astronomy at Johns Hopkins University. Schlaufman originally identified SDSS J0715-7334 as a star of interest in 2014 for follow up as part of the current fifth generation of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. “While this star does not have a primordial composition itself, it is the closest astronomers have ever gotten to the Population III stellar generation on this particular metric.”
SDSS J0715-7334 was formed from a gas cloud that had recently interacted with the material ejected by a Population III star’s supernova. Working backwards, astronomers can use the ratios of the elements in SDSS J0715-7334 to explore the mass of that Population III star and the energy of its supernova explosion.
“These pristine stars are windows into the dawn of stars and galaxies in the universe,” said first author Alexander Ji, an assistant professor of astronomy and astrophysics at University of Chicago.
A team of astronomers analyzed data gathered with the Magellan Clay Telescope and its high-resolution Magellan Inamori Kyocera Echelle spectrograph to determine that SDSS J0715-7334 is almost entirely hydrogen and helium with only trace amounts of carbon and iron.
The composition of SDSS J0715-7334 indicates that the Population III star that produced its carbon and iron was both unusually massive and exploded with uncommon vigor, the researchers said.
SDSS J0715-7334 is roughly 80,000 light years away in the vicinity of the Large Magellanic Cloud, the largest of the 100-200 small satellite galaxies that orbit the Milky Way. The Magellanic Clouds have only recently joined the Milky Way, and their long history of living alone has allowed them to ingest material from the cosmic web for a longer period than the Milky Way. Those conditions may have promoted the production of low-metallicity stars like SDSS J0715-7334.
“It's possible that we’re going to find a relatively higher proportion of ultra-metal-poor stars in galaxies like the Magellanic Clouds than in our own Milky Way Galaxy,” said Schlaufman.
As part of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, the researchers will continue to study the Milky Way’s formation and evolution, with Schlaufman leading an effort to study the oldest stars in the Milky Way.
“There is still lots to be done to understand what actually was going on in that era long, long ago when the Milky Way was young,” Schlaufman said. “We’ve only scratched the surface with this current phase of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey.”
Authors include Vedant Chandra from the Harvard & Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics; Selenna Mejias-Torres, Zhongyuan Zhang, Hillary Diane Andales, Ha Do, Natalie Orrantia, Rithika Tudmilla, Pierre N. Thibodeaux, and Guilherme Limberg from the University of Chicago; Philipp Eitner, and Maria Bergemann from the Max Planck Institute of Astronomy; Keivan Stassun from Vanderbilt University; Madeline Howell, and Jennifer Johnson from The Ohio State University; Jamie Tayar from University of Florida; Andrew Casey and Riley Thai from Monash University; Joleen K. Carlberg from Space Telescope Science Institute; William Cerny from Yale University; José Fernández-Trincado from Universidad Católica del Norte; Keith Hawkins from The University of Texas; Juna Kollmeier from Carnegie Institution for Science; Chervin Laporte from Sorbonne Université; Tadafumi Matsuno from Heidelberg University; Szabolcs Mészáros from Eötvös Loránd University; Sean Morrison from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; David Nidever from Montana State University; Guy Stringfellow from the University of Colorado; and Donald Schneider from The Pennsylvania State University.
Journal
Nature Astronomy
Article Title
A nearly pristine star from the Large Magellanic Cloud
Article Publication Date
8-Apr-2026
Alien Megastructures May Be Physically
Feasible, a New Study Suggests
Ivan Farkas
Wed, April 8, 2026
(cokada/iStock/Getty Images)
Key takeawaysAlien megastructures capable of harvesting stellar energy or altering star orbits may be physically feasible, according to a recent analysis by Colin McInnes from the University of Glasgow.These extraterrestrial constructions, such as stellar engines and Dyson bubbles, could remain stable for long periods if designed with specific configurations, potentially radiating distinctive technosignatures for astronomers to detect advanced civilizations.McInnes' calculations suggest that stellar engines with a ring configuration and Dyson bubbles composed of a vast number of low-mass reflectors could achieve passive stability, offering insights into the search for extraterrestrial intelligence through the study of potential technosignatures.
Alien megastructures built to harvest stellar energy or alter the orbits of stars may be physically feasible, according to a new analysis – satisfying both our sci-fi fancies and our innate yearning to not feel so alone in a large, cold Universe.
What's more, these immense extraterrestrial constructions could remain stable for untold eons in the right configuration.
They might even radiate distinctive technosignatures, allowing astronomers to search for civilizations that have survived long enough to approach the upper echelons of the Kardashev Scale (which ranks civilizations based on their ability to harness energy).
The mind-boggling math underlying the idea is detailed in a recent study by Colin McInnes, an engineering scientist at the University of Glasgow who has previously modeled the feasibility of super-scale astronomical projects aiming to modify planetary orbits, for example.
Now, McInnes presents a simplified blueprint for engineering passively stable megastructures such as stellar engines and Dyson bubbles.
Scientists and science fictionists envision stellar engines as immense, reflective structures gravitationally coupled to a host star. In its simplest form, the concept is a flat disc, although McInnes finds that a ring-supported version may be more stable.
One possible interpretation of a stellar engine around a Sun-like star, to scale, featuring rings of Dyson swarms and a Shkadov thruster, which uses a star's own radiation to shift its orbit. (Vedexent/Wikimedia Commons/CC BY-SA 3.0)More
These engines use the pressure exerted by stellar radiation to shift that star's orbit and move entire solar systems across space – perhaps to avoid a civilization-killing cosmic catastrophe.
A Dyson bubble, on the other hand, surrounds a star with a dense swarm of reflectors to harvest its light and provide vastly more energy than any planetary process can provide.
A depiction of a Dyson swarm, or bubble, around a star. (Archibald Tuttle/Wikimedia Commons/CC BY-SA 3.0)
Any civilization that lives long enough will presumably run out of resources or time. As an inconvenient reminder, the Sun will gradually grow brighter and eventually make Earth uninhabitable.
So advanced civilizations will invariably need incomprehensible amounts of energy to terraform other planets, alter the orbits of celestial bodies, or power interstellar travel.
But can the imagined astro-scale megastructures – which astronomers have speculated could be ways advanced civilizations may harness energy – remain stable on their own, without requiring active control measures to keep from plummeting into their stars?
To find out, McInnes developed calculations that treat the megastructures as 3D objects, rather than point masses without dimensions.
These calculations suggest that stellar engines with a uniform mass distribution are always unstable. However, they may remain passively stable if they're made of a reflector supported by a ring that contains most of the structure's mass – picture a tambourine instead of a dinner plate.
Similarly, static Dyson bubbles may be inherently unstable. Yet a Dyson bubble – potentially built from a dismantled planetary system – may achieve passive stability if it's composed of a vast number of low-mass reflectors, forming a cloud that's tenuous yet dense enough to balance its own gravity with the forces exerted by the host star.
"A stellar engine can in principle be stabilized using a ring configuration while a Dyson bubble can in principle be stabilized if a vast number of reflectors are deployed in a dense cloud," McInnes writes.
Long-term stability also suggests the possibility of long-abandoned relic megastructures. The Universe is old and unpredictable, so even advanced beings may be outlived by their creations, which have survived unmaintained as symbols of their creator's ability (or folly).
Though these space ventures may seem otherwordly, McInnes' calculations are based on physical laws, so they offer hints of what to look for in the search for extraterrestrial civilizations.
Stellar megastructures would produce an infrared excess, or unexpected output in infrared wavelengths based on their star's properties, McInnes speculates.
Or, they could cause other types of odd alterations in their host star's spectral fingerprint.
"While such ventures are clearly speculative, understanding the orbital dynamics of ultra-large structures, and in particular the conditions for passive stability, can provide insights into the properties of potential technosignatures in SETI [search for extraterrestrial intelligence] studies," McInnes concludes.
This research was published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
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