It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Monday, May 04, 2026
Astronomers explore the surface composition of a nearby super-Earth
Webb observations constrain the properties of a rocky exoplanet’s hot crust
This high-resolution photo of the planet Mercury probably resembles the rocky exoplanet LHS 3844 b. Results from JWST observations favour an airless rocky planet with a dark, basalt-like surface, likely space-weathered by irradiation and meteorite impacts.
Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington (cropped) https://science.nasa.gov/photojournal/mercury-globe-0n-180e/
Using MIRI (Mid Infrared Instrument) on board the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), a team of researchers led by former MPIA (Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg, Germany) PhD student Sebastian Zieba (Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, Cambridge, USA) and Laura Kreidberg, MPIA Director and study PI (principal investigator), analysed the surface composition of the rocky exoplanet LHS 3844 b. Beyond characterizing exoplanetary atmospheres, this kind of deciphering the geological properties of planets orbiting distant stars is the next step in unveiling their nature. The results of this investigation are now published in the journal Nature Astronomy.
A dark and airless rocky super-Earth
LHS 3844 b is a rocky planet 30% bigger than Earth and orbits a cool red dwarf star once within roughly 11 hours. Whirling just three stellar diameters above the host star’s surface, the planet is tidally locked to its orbit. This means one rotation takes just as long as one revolution. As a result, the same hemisphere of LHS 3844 b always faces its star, producing a constant dayside with an average temperature of about 1000 Kelvin (approximately 725 Degrees Celsius or 1340 Degrees Fahrenheit). The LHS 3844 system is only 48.5 light-years (14.9 parsecs) away from Earth.
“Thanks to the amazing sensitivity of JWST, we can detect light coming directly from the surface of this distant rocky planet. We see a dark, hot, barren rock, devoid of any atmosphere.” – Laura Kreidberg, MPIA.
With its dark surface, LHS 3844 b may resemble a larger version of the Moon or the planet Mercury. This conclusion is based on analysing the infrared radiation received from the planet’s hot dayside. However, when measuring this radiation, we cannot see the planet directly; instead, we register the repeating change in brightness we receive from the star and the orbiting planet combined.
MIRI divided a portion of the planet’s infrared emission, ranging from 5 to 12 micrometres, into smaller wavelength sections and measured the brightness per wavelength bin. This is what astronomers call a spectrum, a rainbow-like distribution of the light’s components. Another data point, obtained from observations with the Spitzer Space Telescope and published a few years ago, augmented the analysis.
Constraining geological activity
Similar to how exoplanetary atmosphere research has benefited from climate science, this emerging field of exoplanetary geology draws on Earth-based geologic knowledge. Zieba, Kreidberg, and their collaborators ran models and accessed template libraries of rocks and minerals known from Earth, the Moon, and Mars to see what infrared signatures they would produce under the conditions on LHS 3844 b. Comparing observation-based data with these computations confidently ruled out a composition comparable to Earth’s crust, typically silicate-rich minerals such as granite.
Although this result is not very surprising – even in the Solar System, Earth is the only planet with such a crust – it may reveal details on LHS 3844 b’s geological history. Earth-like silicate-rich crusts are thought to form through a prolonged refinement process that requires tectonic activity and typically relies on water as a lubricant. The rocky material repeatedly melts and solidifies as it is mixed with mantle material, leaving the lighter minerals on the surface.
“Since LHS 3844 b lacks such a silicate crust, one may conclude that Earth-like plate tectonics does not apply to this planet, or it is ineffective,” says Sebastian Zieba. “This planet likely only contains little water.”
What can we deduce about the exoplanet’s rocky surface?
Instead, the dark surface points to a composition reminiscent of terrestrial or lunar basalt, or of Earth’s mantle material. However, the astronomers attempted an even more detailed characterization.
A statistical analysis of how well this spectrum fits various mineral mixtures and configurations revealed that extended solid areas of basalt or magmatic rock best match the observations. They are rich in magnesium and iron and can include olivine. Crushed material, such as rocks or gravel, also fits fairly well, whereas grains or powders are inconsistent with the observations due to their brighter appearance, at least at first glance.
Without a protective atmosphere, planets are subjected to space weathering, predominantly driven by hard, energetic radiation from the host star and impacts from meteorites of various sizes.
“It turns out, these processes not only slowly dissolve hard rocks into regolith, a layer of fine grains or powder as found on the Moon,” explains Zieba. “They also darken the layer by adding iron and carbon, making the regolith’s properties more consistent with the observations.”
Geologically fresh or weathered? Two possible scenarios
This assessment left the astronomers with two scenarios for the planet’s surface that match the data equally well. One involves a surface dominated by dark, solid rock composed of basaltic or magmatic minerals. Compared to geological timescales, space weathering alters its properties quickly. Therefore, the astronomers conclude that, in this scenario, the surface should be relatively fresh, produced by recent geological activity, such as widespread volcanism.
The second scenario also proposes a dark surface, comparable to the Moon or Mercury. Still, it accounts for prolonged space weathering, which leads to extended regions covered by a darkened regolith layer, a fine powder also present on the Moon, as evidenced by the iconic photos of the astronauts’ footprints. This alternative relies on longer periods of geological inactivity, thereby requiring conditions opposite to the first scenario.
Attempts to resolve the ambiguity
These two alternatives differ in the degree of recent geological activity required. On Earth and other active objects in the Solar System, a typical phenomenon during such activity is outgassing. Sulphur dioxide (SO2) is a gas commonly connected to volcanism. If present on LHS 3844 b in reasonable amounts, MIRI should have detected it. Still, it found nothing. Therefore, a recent period of activity seems unlikely, which leads the astronomers to favour the second scenario. If correct, LHS 3844 b may truly look much like Mercury indeed.
In order to test their idea, Zieba, Kreidberg, and their colleagues are already pursuing a more direct approach. They have obtained additional JWST observations, which should enable them to discern surface conditions by exploiting small differences in how solid slabs and powders emit or reflect light. The distribution of emission angles depends on surface roughness, which affects the amount of radiation received at a given viewing angle. This concept is successfully applied to characterizing asteroids in the Solar System. “We are confident the same technique will allow us to clarify the nature of LHS 3844 b’s crust and, in the future, other rocky exoplanets,” concludes Kreidberg.
Additional information
Laura Kreidberg is the only MPIA astronomer involved in this study.
Other researchers were: Sebastian Zieba (Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, Cambridge, USA), Brandon P. Coy (Department of the Geophysical Sciences, University of Chicago, USA), Aaron Bello-Arufe (Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, USA [JPL]), Kimberly Paragas (Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, USA), Xintong Lyu (Peking University, Beijing, China), Renyu Hu (The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, USA and JPL), Aishwarya Iyer (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, USA), Kay Wohlfarth (Technische Universität Dortmund, Germany)
The JWST observations used in this study were conducted as part of GO program #1846 (PI: Laura Kreidberg, co-PI: Renyu Hu) titled “A Search for Signatures of Volcanism and Geodynamics on the Hot Rocky Exoplanet LHS 3844 b.”
The MIRI consortium comprises the ESA (European Space Agency) member states: Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. National science organisations fund the consortium’s work – in Germany, the Max Planck Society (MPG) and the German Aerospace Center (DLR). Participating German institutions include the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, the University of Cologne, and Hensoldt AG in Oberkochen, formerly Carl Zeiss Optronics.
The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s leading observatory for space research. It is an international programme led by NASA and its partners ESA and CSA (Canadian Space Agency).
The Spitzer Space Telescope was operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with NASA.
Caption
Infrared spectrum of LHS 3844 b’s hot dayside derived from the brightness contrast to its host star in ppm (parts per million = 0.0001%) at different wavelengths. The observational data obtained from the James Webb and Spitzer Space Telescopes (circles and squares) are consistent with mantle (solid orange line) or lava rock (dashed blue line), whereas they rule out an Earth-like crust (dash-dotted green line).
Inmarsat's high-end broadband service is fast, but its recent tie-up with U.S. satcom giant Viasat promises to make it even faster. Inmarsat's multi-orbit hybrid network is designed to integrate bandwidth from ViaSat's next-generation satellite constellation, ViaSat-3. First launched in May 2023 for service over the Americas, the VS3 satellite series should bring high speed broadband over Europe and Asia as well - and it is now one big step closer to full deployment. On April 29, the third and final ViaSat-3 satellite took flight on a SpaceX rocket, and it successfully reached orbit.
ViaSat-3 has been years in the making. The first satellite had challenges with antenna deployment, and has not been able to attain its full data throughput rate. It serves the Americas, and is currently capable of about one-tenth of its rated one-terabit capacity. ViaSat has filed a claim with its insurers for $420 million in connection with the satellite's underperformance, a historically high request.
The second satellite went up without issue aboard an Atlas V rocket in November 2025, and is slated to serve the EMEA region once it comes fully online. The third and most-anticipated satellite, Viasat-3 F3, launched on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket on Wednesday. Following a dramatic flight up and out of the atmosphere, the six-tonne telecom relay was delivered successfully to a geosynchronous orbit.
Using Viasat-3, combined with a purpose-built terminal that works with the new constellation, Inmarsat expects to add much more capacity to its bonded network. The terminal is capable of 250 mbps download speeds - enough bandwidth to provide full redundant backup for a high speed LEO service. The F3 satellite will put that coverage over the busy shipping lanes of the Pacific.
"As ViaSat-3 capacity becomes available, we’re taking another big step forward for our customers and partners by bringing more bandwidth, better flexibility, and a forward-thinking upgrade path to ensure connected confidence for the future," said Ben Palmer, president of Viasat Commercial, in announcing the addition of Viasat-3 to the lineup last year.
Russia launches new Soyuz-5 rocket from Kazakhstan cosmodrome in first test flight
On Thursday, April 30, at 23:00 local time (Astana), the Baikonur Cosmodrome witnessed the first test launch of the Soyuz-5/Sunkar vehicle. The rocket lifted off from Site 45 as part of flight development tests, according to Kazakhstan’s Ministry of AI and Digital Development.
A new Russian medium-class launch vehicle Soyuz-5, was launched overnight on Friday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan as part of its first flight tests, Russia’s state space corporation Roscosmos said.
According to Roscosmos, the Soyuz-5 is equipped with what it described as the world’s most powerful liquid-fuelled rocket engine.
The launch marked the first test flight of the new-generation rocket.
Roscosmos said the first and second stages operated normally and that a payload mock-up was placed on a planned suborbital trajectory before falling into the Pacific Ocean.
The space agency said the new rocket is designed to reduce the cost of launching payloads, double payload capacity to up to 17 tonnes and use environmentally cleaner fuel components.
Baikonur marks new era in spaceflight as first Soyuz-5 rocket is launched in test mission Copyright: Kazakhstan’s Ministry of AI and Digital Development.
In 1961, it became the launch site of the world's first human spaceflight, with Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin lifting off from there in the Vostok 1.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia continued to operate Baikonur under a lease agreement with Kazakhstan.
In 2004, Kazakhstan and Russia launched the joint Baiterek project, aimed at modernising launch facilities at Baikonur and facilitating a transition to more environmentally friendly rocket systems.
Related
Kazakhstan and Russia continue close cooperation in the space sector. In 2021, the Kazakh parliament extended Russia’s lease of Baikonur until 2050.
The launch of Soyuz-5/Sunkar marks a turning point for Kazakhstan’s space ambitions, positioning the country closer to becoming a new space power.
With the development of the Baiterek launch complex and growing control over modern launch infrastructure at Baikonur, Kazakhstan is moving beyond its historical role as a spaceport operator.
Study reveals century-long cycles in U.S. suicide rates and a long-term crisis among youth
Researchers analyzed 122 years of U.S. mortality data to create the most comprehensive long-term picture of national suicide trends ever assembled.
U.S. suicide rates exhibit a cyclical pattern, rising and falling approximately every 10 to 25 years, with peaks occurring during periods of major social upheaval.
Suicide risk among young people has been rising steadily for more than half a century, affecting each new generation earlier in life.
IMPACT: The findings support the idea that suicide cannot be understood solely as a matter of individual psychology or biology, but that social context matters – a viewpoint that may spark a fresh approach to prevention efforts.
Suicide rates in the United States follow striking, decades-long cycles likely shaped by broad social forces, according to a major new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences(PNAS). But beneath that long-term rise-and-fall pattern, researchers uncovered a deeply concerning and persistent trend: suicide risk among young people has been rising steadily for more than half a century, affecting each new generation earlier in life.
This study by the REDUCE (Reduce Early Death by Uncovering Causal Explanations) workgroup led by Nina de Lacy, MD, of Huntsman Mental Health Institute at the University of Utah, draws on an unprecedented 122 years of U.S. mortality data, from 1900 to 2021. By combining historically fragmented federal records into the new STACK (Suicide Trends and Archival Comparative Knowledgebase) dataset —the research team, which includes scientists from the University of California at San Diego, Indiana University, and several other units across the University of Utah, offers the most comprehensive long-term picture of U.S. suicide trends ever assembled.
“This is one of the first times we’ve been able to step back and see suicide clearly in a long-term historical context," de Lacy says. "What we found challenges the idea that today’s suicide crisis is purely recent or driven only by individual mental health factors. Suicide appears to be powerfully shaped by what’s happening in society — economically, socially, and culturally — and those forces operate over decades.”
Suicide moves in cycles, unlike most other causes of death
The researchers found that overall U.S. suicide rates exhibit a rare cyclical pattern, rising and falling approximately every 10 to 25 years. Peaks occurred during periods of major social upheaval, including growing industrialization in the early 1910s, the Great Depression in the 1930s, and the women’s rights movement of the 1970s.
“Very few causes of death behave like this,” de Lacy says. “Heart disease, cancer, and motor vehicle deaths generally decline when effective interventions are introduced. Suicide doesn’t follow that pattern. It fluctuates, reverses direction, and resists long-term reduction.”
Despite these cycles and a recent uptick beginning in the early 2000s, the study shows that U.S. suicide rates are not currently at their highest historical levels, countering frequently made claims based on data covering shorter time frames. However, the researchers estimate that, if the nation had consistently maintained its lowest observed age-specific suicide rates, 372,365 deaths could have been prevented between 1969 and 2021.
A youth crisis that began decades earlier than previously thought
The most troubling finding, the researchers note, is the long-term rise in suicide among young people. While public attention often focuses on recent increases among adolescents and young adults, the study found that this trend began in the mid-to-late 1950s — far earlier than previously recognized.
“What we’re seeing is not a short-term spike but a generational shift,” de Lacy said. “Each successive generation has faced higher suicide risk at a younger age than the one before it. That pattern has now persisted for more than 60 years.”
Historically, suicide risk was highest among older adults. Over time, that age divide has narrowed as rates declined among older Americans but climbed among those under 35, including children and adolescents. Today, suicide is among the leading causes of death for people ages 10 to 34.
Surprising shifts in geography and method
The analysis also revealed several unexpected changes in suicide risk patterns:
Living in large metropolitan areas has emerged as a protective factor, with consistently lower suicide rates than in rural and smaller urban areas since the early 1980s.
While suicide rates remain higher in rural areas overall, recent increases have been especially pronounced among women in rural and smaller urban communities.
Suicide by hanging has risen sharply since the 1980s among both males and females, forming what the researchers describe as a “hidden epidemic” that has received less attention than firearm-related deaths, which continue to account for the majority of suicide deaths.
Rethinking suicide as a social phenomenon
The findings reinforce the idea that suicide cannot be understood solely as a matter of individual psychology or biology. Social context matters, often in ways that unfold slowly over generations.
“We can observe them, but we have been mystified by suicide trends over decades,” said Bernice Pescosolido, PhD, a study co-author and director of the Irsay Institute for Sociomedical Research at Indiana University. “But this study and this new dataset are opening up new ideas that we really need to think about.”
De Lacy agrees, emphasizing the implications for prevention efforts.
“If suicide risk rises and falls with broader social conditions, then prevention has to go beyond the clinic,” she said. “We need tailored strategies that address connectedness, community, economic stability, and the lived experience of entire generations, not just interventions targeted at individuals after they’re already in crisis.”
If you or someone you know is struggling, help is available. The Suicide & Crisis Lifeline is available 24 hours a day in the U.S. by calling or texting 988.
Palmyra Atoll, a remote, uninhabited speck of land, coral and sea halfway between Hawaiʻi and American Samoa, is one of the healthiest, intact atolls on the planet—so ecologically sensitive that visiting researchers freeze their clothes at night to kill invasive species. Recently, conservationists have been removing Palmyra’s biggest unwelcome invaders, non-native coconut palm plantations, so Pisonia grandis, an important indigenous rainforest tree, can grow back instead.
But new research published in the journal Current Biology shows that ridding Earth’s most remote atoll of introduced coconut palms may not be enough to re-establish native forests; the right soil fungi need to be there too. The symbiotic relationship between Pisonia and its fungal partners is so strong that every tree root sampled across Palmyra’s thin soils contained critical underground fungi.
Since Pisonia is the backbone of Palmyra and many of the world’s other 598 atolls, the findings suggest that unique soil fungi are central to life on these extraordinary, precarious island ecosystems.
“It reveals a hidden dependency at the heart of an entire ecosystem,” said lead author Charlie Cornwallis, an ecology professor with Lund University in Sweden, who worked on the study in partnership with the Society for the Protection of Underground Networks (SPUN), University of Oxford, The Nature Conservancy and other institutions. “The health of Palmyra's coral reefs ultimately depends on seabirds, which depend on Pisonia trees for nesting, which depend on fungi. Remove any link in that chain and the whole system could unravel.”
Around the world, mycorrhizal fungi form complex hidden networks that partner with 80 percent of vegetation, providing water, phosphorus and nitrogen to plant roots in exchange for carbon. But no one had ever documented the ways fungi on Palmyra Atoll might help nutrients move between the forest and the sea. So a team of experts, led by evolutionary biologist and SPUN co-founder Toby Kiers, traveled to the middle of the Pacific Ocean to map the atoll’s underground networks.
Palmyra is not undisturbed. Native forests were cleared and replanted with coconut palms as far back as the 1850s. The U.S. military during World War II re-engineered the landscape even more—and likely introduced invasive black rats. The rats wiped out seedlings and bird hatchlings and decimated crab populations. After TNC and partners eradicated the rodents in 2011, Pisonia seedlings and crabs blanketed the ground across the atoll. By the time fungal researchers arrived in 2022, workers had removed 1.5 million coconut palms. The atoll was experiencing a rebirth.
The scientists hiked beneath skies awash in flapping terns and waded through lagoons thick with fish. They bypassed crabs by the thousands, including coconut crabs with leg spans as long as baseball bats. They even got bumped by the occasional shark. In every sample they took below Pisonia trees across 27 of Palmyra’s islands, they found rare fungi, several species of which had not been documented anywhere else on Earth. The further scientists got from Pisonia trees, the fewer of its fungal partners they mapped. They even found fungi on tree roots suspended several feet off the ground, suggesting that soil is not essential for the fungi to associate with their hosts.
The research suggests that Pisonia might need help to reclaim areas cleared of coconut palms. So scientists identified fungal “hot spots” where soil could be transplanted to help seedlings thrive.
“Until now, restoration has almost exclusively focused on native plants. That is changing,” said Kiers, whose groundbreaking work documenting fungal networks recently earned her the Tyler Prize, known as the “Nobel Prize for the Environment,” and a prestigious MacArthur Fellowship. “Research is showing how successful restoration involves introducing native plants together with native fungi.”
Those fungi help more than just trees. Pisonia produces dense canopies that offer nesting spots for millions of seabirds, from red-footed boobies to great frigatebirds. The birds’ falling guano flushes through the sandy soil into the surrounding ocean, feeding plankton that nourishes spectacular coral reefs. Those support abundant marine life, including enormous concentrations of reef sharks. Guano droppings on land also feed vegetation eaten by land crabs, which dig burrows and aerate and mix the soil in ways that appear to increase the density of Pisonia’s fungal partners, the scientists found. By comparing fungal diversity inside and outside of crab burrows, the team found links between burrowing activity and higher fungal diversity.
“It’s not that other ecosystems aren’t interconnected,” co-author Stuart West, a professor of evolutionary biology at the University of Oxford, said. But on Palmyra “it’s rammed in your face and amplified because it’s all squashed onto a small, simple island with fewer things.”
Alex Wegmann, lead scientist for The Nature Conservancy’s Island Resilience Strategy called it “one of the few places you can literally say, with science backing you up, ‘That tree right there is important to that coral out there.’”
The study is a reminder that conservation isn't just about species you can see. On remote island systems like atolls, if symbiotic partners are lost, replacements can be scarce. Documenting hidden underground fungi may be crucial to preventing ecosystem collapse.
TNC’s Palmyra Preserve is encompassed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Palmyra Atoll National Wildlife Refuge (out to 12 nautical miles) and by the Pacific Islands Heritage Marine National Monument (out to 50 nautical miles), one of the largest swaths of ocean and islands protected in the world. This research was conducted under a permit from FWS.
All authors: Charlie K. Cornwallis, Michael E. Van Nuland, Alex Wegmann, Bethan F. Manley, Jinsu Elhance, Justin D. Stewart, Caroline Daws, Andressa M. Venturini, Nicole A. Hynson, Kabir G. Peay, E. Toby Kiers, Stuart A. West.
SPUN is supported by grants from the Jeremy and Hannelore Grantham Environmental Trust, the Paul Allen Family Foundation, and the Schmidt Family Foundation. ETK acknowledges support from NWO-VICI (202.012), NWO-SPINOZA (SPI.2023.2), and an Ammodo grant; CKC from the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation (Wallenberg Academy Fellowship number 2018.0138); and SAW from the ERC (834164). AMV’s postdoctoral position was supported by a National Science Foundation grant (Division of Environmental Biology, DEB-1952687) awarded to KP. KP was supported by the US Department of Energy Office of Biological and Environmental Research under Award Number DE-SC0023661 and is a Fellow of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research Fungal Kingdom program.
The Pisonia grandis is an important rainforest tree and the backbone of Palmyra and many of the world’s other 598 atolls
In Palmyra Atoll, Dr. Toby Kiers uses a corer to extract soil for molecular analysis.
