NASA’s Curiosity Captures Dawn Breaking on Wind-Carved Cliffs - NASA Science (.gov)

NASA’s Curiosity Mars Rover gives us another amazing view of its Gale crater home. Mars is a planetary geologist’s paradise. NASA’s Curiosity rover drove that home recently, with a captivating panorama seen from the slopes of Mount Sharp. The image shows a stunning vista, and was not white-balance adjusted during processing, to show just what a viewer might really see at sunrise standing of Mars.

A new supercomputer simulation traces how thousands of small galaxies eventually became the Milky Way.

In Islamabad, the Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FPCCI) opposed an additional burden of Rs268 billion on consumers, which ten distribution companies propose to include in electricity tariffs through adjustments for previous years. Dawn reports. FPCCI appealed to Pakistan’s National Electric Power Regulatory Authority, Nepra, calling on it to reject what it considers inflated claims. The federation said that the regulator had previously rejected part of these amounts or that they are the subject of disputes with third parties. Applications for 2027Ten distribution companies submitted applications for the indexation of multi-year tariffs for 2025–2030 for 2027, as well as for other tariff adjustments for end consumers. In total, they declared a revenue requirement of Rs2.64 trillion for electricity distribution and supply in 2027. FPCCI’s special energy advisory committee analyzed the submitted documents, including claims related to working capital, electricity purchase prices, adjustments for previous years, and the profitability of the revenue base.

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory researcher Isaiah Santistevan led the development of three-dimensional simulations exploring how a nuclear device could deflect or disrupt an asteroid threatening Earth. Credit: Blaise Douros/LLNL Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) researchers are developing three-dimensional simulations to examine how a nuclear device could be used to deflect or potentially disrupt an asteroid threatening Earth.

Milky Way’s first microblazar candidate sits 12,000 light-years away, offering a rare ground-level lab for studying relativistic jetsA black hole 12,000 light-years away is firing a jet of plasma almost directly toward Earth. At that distance, no known or expected danger to Earth has been identified by the researchers or the institutions involved. What astronomers have actually found is rarer and more interesting than a threat. Researchers have identified IRAS 18293-0941 as a compelling candidate for the Milky Way’s first microblazar, a class of object that gives astrophysicists a close-up laboratory for studying some of the most violent physics in the galaxy. What Astronomers FoundThe discovery centers on a binary system whose black hole expels plasma jets at close to three-quarters the speed of light, pointed almost directly toward Earth. The system pairs a hot, massive star with a black hole that completes a full orbit roughly every 11.38 days. Material drawn from the companion star feeds the black hole, and some of that matter gets expelled outward as opposing jets traveling at approximately three-quarters the speed of light. Terminology matters here.

Forests that stood on Mozambique's coast thousands of years ago now lie beneath shallow seas, and they have become fish-filled "peat reefs" with marine life comparable to coral reefs, researchers report in Scientific Reports. A team from the Bazaruto Center for Scientific Studies (BCSS) Ocean Observatory, led by Mario Lebrato, documented the submerged peat in the Bazaruto Archipelago in the Western Indian Ocean. BCSS, founded in 2017, describes itself as Africa's first permanent ocean observatory. Working with universities and institutions in the U. K., U. S. and Canada, the team believes it has carried out the first ecological study of peat reefs anywhere in the tropics. Old forests, new seafloorRadiocarbon dating shows the peat formed between about 300 and 5,000 years ago, and chemical analysis indicates it came mostly from coastal land plants and trees. Some samples contain up to 40% organic carbon by dry weight. Lebrato said the coastline has very little natural hard seabed, mostly shifting sand. As rising seas expose the old peat layers, they create rare solid habitat where marine life can settle, hide and feed.