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Astronomers spot faintest planet ever directly imaged from Earth

Illustration accompanying article: Astronomers spot faintest planet ever directly imaged from Earth
  • A Scottish and German-led team detected a faint cold gas giant orbiting Beta Pictoris using the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope in Chile, then confirmed its orbit from archival data spanning 11 years.
  • A separate California-led team independently spotted the same planet with NASA's Webb Space Telescope, requiring just two observations to make the discovery.
  • The planet is the dimmest world ever directly imaged from Earth, having been hidden by the glare of its parent star and two brighter companion planets.
  • European Southern Observatory's Markus Bonse, who co-led the first team, said the search "was very much playing hide-and-seek for 11 years."
 2026-07-15 · 3 MIN READ

Oldest plague evidence found in Siberian hunter-gatherer teeth

Illustration accompanying article: Oldest plague evidence found in Siberian hunter-gatherer teeth
  • Researchers identified plague-causing bacterial DNA in teeth from 18 ancient hunter-gatherers buried near Siberia’s Lake Baikal, dating to about 5,500 years ago.
  • The finding predates the previous oldest confirmed plague evidence by roughly 200 years.
  • Study co-author Eske Willerslev, an evolutionary geneticist at the University of Copenhagen, said understanding the history of plague is key to understanding human history.
  • The disease, which killed a large portion of Europe’s population in the 14th-century Black Death, remains rare today and treatable with antibiotics.
 2026-06-17 · 3 MIN READ
Illustration accompanying article: Scientists revise global warming projections, say worst and best cases no longer plausible