ROSES-25 A.12 HAMAQ Science Team Clarified - NASA Science (.gov)

In 2028, HAMAQ will conduct two deployments: one over Mexico City in the spring and another over Atlanta in summer. These contrasting environments serve as ideal testing grounds for strengthening satellite‑to‑ground connections and improving air‑quality models. The mission will use two coordinated NASA aircraft. NASA's B777 will map pollution from above with remote‑sensing instruments, while the P‑3 will fly closer to the surface to measure aerosols, gases, and boundary‑layer structure. Combined with satellite data from TEMPO  (Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution) and ground observations, these measurements are designed to support more accurate air quality insights.

Schematic model for the origin of isotopic anomalies in ocean island basalts. Credit: Science Advances (2026). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aei4756 When Earth formed billions of years ago, its metallic core was wrapped in a global ocean of molten rock, which eventually cooled and crystallized to form the mantle. Today, when deep-rooted mantle plumes rise toward the surface and produce volcanic eruptions, the resulting lava can contain hydrogen from deep inside the planet.

The European Space Agency's Euclid space telescope has discovered its first previously unknown comet in images taken between Sept. 16 and 24, 2026. The discovery is impressive for a mission that is designed to take deep, steady images of distant galaxies—not to follow fast-moving solar system objects like comets. Furthermore, the quick turnaround between identification and validation demonstrates that Euclid can detect new comets while they are still relatively far from the sun, potentially leading to a suitable target for ESA's future Comet Interceptor mission.

A joint research group led by Ryo Tanifuji and Hiroki Oguri from the University of Tokyo and Yoshikazu Tanaka from Tohoku University has successfully visualized SacC, an enzyme that plays a key role in building the complex five-ring core of safracin B. This core structure is shared with trabectedin, a drug used to treat soft tissue sarcoma. While getting a clear picture of the enzyme in its working state is a remarkable achievement in and of itself, the method pioneered during the project might have the widest reach. With its potential applicability to a broad range of related enzymes that produce medically useful compounds, the approach could open new avenues for research into not only optimizing already existing compounds but also creating new ones. The findings were published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS). The production line for the drug trabectedin starts with the bacterial compound safracin B, which the enzyme SacC assembles within the bacteria. The enzyme carries out a remarkable, seven-step catalytic cascade, stitching together two new carbon-to-carbon bonds and producing a five-ring core scaffold in a single pass.