Here are today’s most important updates from the realm of Science and Space.
For reasons still unknown, Earth's energy imbalance is rising much faster than models can account for. Earth's energy imbalance is the difference between the amount of energy our planet receives from the sun and the amount it radiates outward into space. The imbalance is mainly caused by our emissions of greenhouse gases, which trap a portion of the energy radiating from Earth inside the atmosphere, driving temperatures up. Satellite data suggest Earth's energy imbalance has more than doubled over the past two decades. In the worst case scenario, scientists could lose one of the leading indicators of climate change, as the next-best way of measuring the energy imbalance has a lag of about 10 years. Now, scientists are calling for long-term investment in monitoring capability, so that they can make informed predictions about climate change.
The Big Bang is often described as the explosive birth of the universe – a singular moment when space, time and matter sprang into existence. In a new paper, it was suggested that the Big Bang was not the start of everything, but rather the outcome of a gravitational crunch or collapse that formed a very massive black hole – followed by a bounce inside it. This process occurs inside a black hole that is formed by a collapsing mass of matter. Instead of ending in a singularity, the collapse results to a bounce this leads to the formation of a new and expanding universe. Future missions such as Arrakihs, which will observe faint galactic structures, may further shed light on this theory by studying potential relics from the collapsing phase to verify the model.
For the first time ever, X-ray polarization was used to analyze an outburst from a magnetar—a neutron star with a mind-bendingly powerful magnetic field! 🧲
— NASA Marshall (@NASA_Marshall) June 5, 2025
The findings are providing new clues about how these powerful explosions unfold: https://t.co/pjCC4A6aro pic.twitter.com/CAXwqsngyL
(Credit: X/@NASA_Marshall)
What happens when the universe’s most magnetic object shines with the power of 1,000 Suns in a matter of seconds? Thanks to NASA’s IXPE (Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer), scientists are one step closer to understanding this extreme event. Magnetars are a type of young neutron star — a stellar remnant formed when a massive star reaches the end of its life and collapses in on itself, leaving behind a dense core roughly the mass of the Sun, but squashed down to the size of a city. Neutron stars display some of the most extreme physics in the observable universe and present unique opportunities to study conditions that would otherwise be impossible to replicate in a laboratory on Earth. The magnetar 1E 1841-045, located in the remnants of a supernova (SNR Kes 73) nearly 28,000 light-years from Earth, was observed to be in a state of outburst by NASA’s Swift, Fermi, and NICER telescopes.
In a medical breakthrough that could save millions of lives, researchers have started clinical trials to explore the effectiveness and safety of universal artificial blood. If successful, it could transform the emergency medicare system across the globe. Their approach involves extracting haemoglobin, the oxygen-carrying molecule in red blood cells, from expired donor blood. It is then encased in a protective shell to create stable, virus-free artificial red blood cells. Unlike donated blood, these artificial cells have no blood type, eliminating the need for compatibility testing and making them invaluable in emergencies.
