Last week, the Sheriff’s Office in Stevens County, Minnesota made a startling Facebook post.
“On October 14, 2026, at approximately 3:30pm, the Stevens County Sheriff’s Office received a phone call of foreign debris that was found in a cornfield in Scott Township,” it wrote. “Upon responding, deputies confirmed that a large, metallic object, approximately 11-feet in diameter, presumably a space object, was present in the cornfield. The Sheriff’s Office is working closely with several state and federal agencies to identify and notify the owner of the debris and to plan for removal from the field.”
The post, which included a photo of a banged-up metal object surrounded by yellowed stalks of corn, quickly started picking up traction on social media due to the implication that the object had come from space.
Now, Ars Technica has the receipts: the object was almost certainly chunk of a Chinese Zhuque-2E rocket that launched from the Gobi Desert, deployed 10 satellites, and then headed back Earthward, where it was spotted burning up in the skies over Kansas and Minnesota.
As launches get more common and rockets get larger and sturdier — the model built by LandSpace, which deposited the debris in the cornfield, is a workhorse spacecraft meant to ferry cargo to Earth’s orbit — the chances of their detritus surviving the journey back to the ground increases.
These chunks of spacefaring equipment can sometimes crash down in populated areas. In 2024, a NASA component from the International Space Station withstood reentry and crashed through a home in Florida where a family was sleeping. Space wreckage has previously been discovered previously on farms in Canada and Australia.
Nobody has yet been injured by a piece of falling space debris, but as commercial ambitions for Earth’s orbit increase — the Chinese rocket had been launched to deploy satellites for a connectivity constellation meant to rival SpaceX’s Starlink — it’s probably only a matter of time.
Decades of work helped establish a refuge for these birds along the Argentinean coast — the largest and last colony of its kind. But their future remains precarious.
In 1181 — during the early years of the samurai who would dominate Japan’s feudal period — astronomers there witnessed a spectacular sight in the night sky. They observed remnants of a star that had survived its own explosion, a bright object in the Cassiopeia constellation visible for at least 185 days.
The supernova, independently documented almost a millennium ago by Japanese, Chinese, and Arabic astronomers, is just one out of five events like it recorded before the invention of the telescope several hundred years later.
Now, thanks to breathtaking new images taken by NOIRLab’s Gemini North telescope — made up of two powerful telescopes in Hawaii and Chile — we get to see the debris field, dubbed Pa 30, in unprecedented detail.
The astronomers were also left with a puzzle: the explosion perfectly preserved the surviving progenitor star at the dead center of perfectly uniform knots of ionized gases, bizarre conditions suggesting a perfectly symmetric, yet chaotically violent, event.
The supernova remnant is located around 7,500 light-years from Earth, roughly a fourth the distance to the center of the Milky Way.
“We can see this much detail because of Pa 30’s proximity to Earth,” said Institute of Science and Technology Austria assistant professor Ilaria Caiazzo, coauthor of a new paper about the latest observations published in The Astrophysical Journal, in a statement. “This proximity makes Pa 30 uniquely valuable for study.”
Their Gemini North observations of Pa 30 resolve enormous strands of red ionized sulfur and blue-green ionized oxygen. The sulfur observations alone feature ten times as many filaments compared to previous images.
The scale of the structure is hard to wrap one’s head around.
“The planetary region of our solar system could fit in each knot about ten times with room to spare,” Caiazzo explained. “The knots are quite strikingly uniform. We are excited to try to model them.”
Pa 30 is unique in the Milky Way as it’s the only known star in our galaxy to have survived an incomplete, Type Iax supernova. The class of explosion is far less energetic than other types of supernovae, typically allowing its white dwarf star to “survive” the blast, turning it into a so-called “zombie star.”
Scientists believe that Pa 30 was the result of two white dwarfs, extremely dense, Earth-sized husks of former stars, colliding.
Unlike many other supernovae, which are energetic enough to kick a star far away from the site of the explosion, Pa 30’s progenitor star remains exactly at the center. That left researchers with an enigma.
“Explosions conserve momentum,” Caiazzo said. “If the explosion itself was perfectly symmetric, the ejecta should also be symmetric, and the surviving star should not receive a substantial kick.”
However, “we practically don’t see the star moving away at all” in the case of Pa 30, she added.
The team is now hoping to discover more Type Iax supernova survivors in the Milky Way as observations become more detailed.
Using the NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, a team of researchers led by University of Minnesota astrophysicist Mason Huberty had a closer look at a group of almost 10,000 galaxies spanning billions of light-years in the Fornax constellation. As detailed in a new paper published in The Astrophysical Journal, they honed in on a small space in the region that they thought was entirely unoccupied.
But to their astonishment, they observed a single emission line emanating from it — twice over a span of just three months. Emission lines are bright, narrow bands of light emitted at a specific wavelength by distant celestial objects and other phenomena. Puzzlingly, prior observations from the same region didn’t feature the same reading.
Put simply, the JWST stared into the abyss — and the abyss stared back.
Instead of hunting down already known objects, Huberty and his colleagues tried to use the James Webb’s Near-Infrared Spectrograph to uncover new ones, as Science Alert explains. The team examined what they thought was an empty region twice, in August and November 2023, at different angles to rule out any artifacts.
Out of seven total detections of emissions in the region, one stood out because they couldn’t match it to a distant galaxy.
It also stood out as the only near-infrared emission without any other accompanying emission lines near it. It should’ve also shown up in earlier James Webb observations since it’s technically bright enough — but didn’t.
The astronomers offered several possible explanations, none of which “provide a fully satisfactory explanation,” according to their paper. The emission line may have been produced by a galaxy dating back to the earliest days of the Universe. It could’ve also come from a younger galaxy or a supernova, both of which are usually accompanied by other emission lines. Finally, the researchers propose that it could’ve been the result of a black hole devouring a star — a guess that would require plenty of other data to confirm.
“Follow-up observations are essential to confirm the redshift and determine the physical origin of the emission,” the team concluded in their paper. “Deeper, more sensitive spectroscopy could reveal additional emission lines and definitively establish the redshift and nature of the source.”
The number of space launches has skyrocketed over the last few years, rapidly turning the Earth’s atmosphere into a “crematorium” for satellites and other space junk.
Even now, it’s a considerable danger for any spacecraft that dares to orbit the Earth in a cluttered environment. According to the European Space Agency, more than 60 years of space activity have resulted in over 56,000 tracked objects in orbit. Roughly half of them, as meticulously catalogued by the US Space Surveillance Network, are doomed to circle our planet in perpetuity.
Now, a Chinese reconnaissance satellite is making matters even worse. The country’s Yaogan 50-02 satellite managed to reach its highly retrograde orbit at an altitude of around 590 miles, circling the Earth at an angle of 141 degrees, against the planet’s rotation — a highly unusual orbit.
However, as Harvard astronomer and space tracking expert Jonathan McDowell noted on X, the satellite disintegrated months later, resulting in 43 separate pieces of space debris being tracked by the US Space Force at orbits between 372 and 683 miles.
Thanks to its relatively high altitude, the pieces are likely to stay in orbit for a very, very long time.
“The higher the altitude, the longer the orbital debris will typically remain in Earth orbit,” NASA explains on its website. “At altitudes of [500 miles], the time for orbital decay is often measured in centuries. Above [621 miles], orbital debris will normally continue circling the Earth for a thousand years or more.”
Officials have yet to announce what caused the Chinese satellite to break up. McDowell suggested that it could’ve been a “battery explosion or an impact by space debris.”
It’s a particularly precarious moment as the Earth’s orbit continues to be filled with leftover rocket stages and satellite remnants. Researchers have warned for years that a single severe collision between orbital debris could escalate into a cascading series of follow-up accidents, a phenomenon known as “Kessler syndrome.”
The outlook is grim, as detailed in a 2025 paper. An international team of researchers devised a new framework called the “Collision Realization and Significant Harm (CRASH) Clock,” concluding that in the case of a “widespread disruptive event,” it could cause just days for a “catastrophic” Kessler event to threaten casualties on the ground.
Apple’s latest smartwatches—the Apple Watch Series 12 and Ultra 4—get a faster chip, expanded health tracking, and new Siri capabilities. Plus, the ceramic finish is back.
An international research team has announced the first-ever successful observation of gravity’s effect on a falling quantum object, demonstrating a connection between gravity and the quantum world first predicted by Albert Einstein.
The research team said the result does not unify quantum mechanics and gravity, nor does it prove that gravity is a quantum phenomenon.
However, the researchers said their study offers experimental support that Einstein’s equivalence principle, a fundamental concept at the heart of the famed scientist’s theory of gravity, remains consistent with matter in the quantum world.
Unifying Einstein’s Theory of Gravity with Quantum Mechanics
When physicists want to describe nature, they rely on two distinct sets of rules. Einstein’s theory of gravity explains the mechanics of large-scale phenomena like stars and galaxies. Conversely, quantum mechanics helps scientists characterize the behavior of extremely small objects. Still, finding a scientific bridge uniting the two sets of rules has proven elusive.
“These two pillars of modern physics have so far eluded all attempts at a unified theoretical framework,” explained Professor Ron Folman from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and the lead author of the new study.
Einstein did, however, identify one mechanism where the two worlds meet. Called the equivalence principle, the concept says that gravity should effectively disappear for an observer in free fall. For example, NASA simulates zero-gravity environments by flying astronauts in a plane, making successive rising and falling parabolic arcs. During the short periods of falling, the astronauts briefly experience ‘weightlessness” due to the equivalence principle.
Above: The 2D MOT apparatus which feeds the science chamber with cold atoms. At the centre is a glass cell held under vacuum between coils producing magnetic fields. The atoms go into the science chamber through the tiny hole that may be seen in the centre of the yellow (reflecting) surface (Image Credit: Or Dobkowski).
Curious if the same phenomena would apply to the quantum world, the research team, which included Nobel Prize-winning physicist Professor Sir Roger Penrose, designed experiments. According to a statement announcing the research, the team hoped their setup would allow them to measure a “distinctive change in the quantum properties of atoms as they fell under gravity.”
Experiments Show Gravitational Pull Affecting Quantum Objects
To search for gravity’s effect in the quantum world, the researchers created clouds of rubidium atoms cooled to just above absolute zero. The researchers used a specially designed atom chip that allowed the team to manipulate the ultracold rubidium atoms.
Next, PhD student Or Dobkowski and colleagues used microwave pulses to place the atoms in quantum superposition. This unique quantum state lets each atom travel down two paths at once.
Using tiny electrical wires embedded on the specialized chip, the researchers generated tunable magnetic fields. The researchers said the field’s precision tunability allowed them to apply an upward force to one half of the atomic wave. For this experiment, the team created a magnetic field at the precise strength needed to counter gravity, effectively holding that half of the wave stationary relative to Earth.
After suspending the first half of the wave, the team used a magnetic pulse to lift the second part. Then, the team switched to a state almost unaffected by the magnetic field, allowing it to fall under gravity.
Once the second half completed its fall, the team used magnetic fields to reunite the two halves. When reunited, the two halves of the atomic wave interfered with each other. The researchers said that interaction allowed them to “measure the tiny difference in quantum phase accumulated while one was falling and the other was held still.”
“The phase measured in the new experiment is the same as the one predicted when Einstein’s principle is applied to such a quantum wave,” they explained.
“One of the Most Fundamental Questions in Physics”
When discussing the results, the research team said their result should not be construed as proof that gravity is quantum. The results also do not unite gravity and quantum mechanics. However, Folman noted, “this complex experiment gives more hints as to how such a unification may be achieved.”
Study co-author Professor Vlatko Vedral from the University of Oxford’s Department of Physics agreed, while also noting that their experimental results successfully demonstrated Einstein’s equivalence principle’s consistency with quantum mechanics, which alone provides an experimental connection between quantum physics and Einstein’s theory of gravity.
“This experiment pushes quantum mechanics into one of its most intriguing frontiers, gravity, and shows that, once again, its predictions hold,” Professor Vedral explained.
The professor also noted the experiment’s combination of hard experimental data with “a far-reaching theoretical interpretation, about one of the most fundamental questions in physics: How can gravity (described by Einstein’s theory of relativity) and quantum theory be unified into one understanding of the universe?”
Christopher Plain has spent the last six years as Associate News Editor and Head Science Reporter at The Debrief. Follow and connect with him on X, learn about his novels at plainfiction.com, or email him at christopher@thedebrief.org.
In November of last year, scientists warned of a “severe” solar storm, the strongest in over two decades, colliding with the Earth.
Solar storms are the result of a surge in solar activity, with the Sun unleashing a barrage of charged particles that can trigger spectacular auroras — and wreak havoc with communications satellites and radio signals — when they reach the Earth’s magnetosphere.
Beyond being ferocious enough to delay the launch of a Mars-bound NASA spacecraft, the storm wreaked absolute havoc with GPS systems back on the ground for hours at a time. As detailed in a new paper published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, a team of scientists found that global navigation satellite systems experienced “significant positioning errors” of over 33 feet during the superstorm, “large enough to disrupt precision agriculture and autonomous transportation industries” across the continental United States.
That’s enough risk to warrant a careful study on these types of events can impact human activity on Earth.
“The results underscore the importance of accurate understanding of various space weather phenomena to enhance our predictive capabilities through coordinated observations and physics‐based modeling and ultimately reducing disruptions to RF applications during space weather events,” the paper reads.
The researchers analyzed observations from several scientific instruments spread out across the US to watch the chaos unfold last November. The Aurora Oval, a ring-shaped area of pronounced activity around the Earth’s geomagnetic north pole where auroras conventionally occur, was pushed south toward the equator. This triggered a “horizontally extended band of intense density gradients” in the upper atmosphere, causing fluctuations in how long signals take to travel through it.
The result: “significant positioning errors at mid-latitudes,” the researchers noted.
The researchers also found that as the auroras became brighter, the observed irregularities became more intense, deteriorating GPS accuracy accordingly.
Fortunately, while farming equipment like GPS-equipped tractors would’ve likely been affected, the November storm occurred long after the farming season concluded.
“Had the November superstorm occurred during the farming season in the American sector, it could have caused significant economic losses for the American farming industry, in addition to affecting the autonomous transportation industry,” the paper reads.
After ten years of fieldwork in Taiwan’s remote mountain regions, researchers have identified an 84.1-meter (276-foot) Taiwania fir, now recognized as the tallest tree documented in East Asia. The team also found dense forests containing dozens of giant Taiwania firs, suggesting that other gianttrees may remain hidden in Taiwan’s rugged interior.
The researchers found that the giant trees generally grow at elevations of about 2,087 meters and on slopes with an average inclination of 40 degrees. This combination of elevation and rugged terrain makes conventional tree surveys extremely difficult.
A Decade of Ground-Truthing
In August 2014, a systematic search began when scientists from the Taiwan Forestry Research Institute visited the Cilan conservation area to measure the ‘Chilan Three Sisters’, a group of Taiwania firs known locally but not formally recorded. The tallest tree was 69.3 meters high and had a trunk almost three meters wide. The Tree Project, a group of professional climbers from Australia, photographed the trees in 2017 and helped draw greater attention to Taiwan’s giant forests.
During a subsequent expedition near Mt. Benya and Great Ghost Lake, the team hiked for four days with their equipment to reach the study area. This experience showed how difficult it is to estimate the height of giant trees from the ground, since visual estimates can be unreliable in densely wooded, multi-layered old-growth forests. Although the team measured one tree at 71.7 meters, they concluded that ground-based surveys alone would not be sufficient for such a large and complex landscape.
LiDAR and a Problem With the Landscape
To improve their search, Hsu’s team collaborated with Wang and Lee’s remote sensing group at National Cheng Kung University and adopted LiDAR technology. LiDAR uses laser pulses from aircraft to create three-dimensional models of the forest, including estimates of tree height. However, Taiwan’s rugged topography caused the automated software to misinterpret cliffs and abrupt elevation changes as extremely tall trees.
Human reviewers proved more effective than the automated software at identifying these geological false positives. In 2020, hundreds of citizen scientists began examining the LiDAR profile images manually to distinguish real cases from artifacts. By the end of 2022, the Taiwan Giant Tree Map had identified 941 trees taller than 65 meters.
The researchers concluded that combining airborne laser scanning with crowdsourced image reviews and expert analysis can greatly reduce terrain-related errors in estimating tree heights.
Finding the “Heaven Sword”
In 2023, the mapping project led the team to a candidate for Taiwan’s tallest tree, which could be reached after traveling 20 kilometers down a river and then spending two days climbing. A direct measurement established the tree’s height at 84.1 meters, making it the tallest tree ever documented in Taiwan and East Asia. The team called it the ‘Heaven Sword of the Da’an River’. The Indigenous Rukai people have a name for trees of this kind and describe them as ones that ‘hit the moon’. By early 2026, researchers had documented 10 Taiwania firs taller than 70 meters, including two that exceeded 80 meters.
The mapping effort also brought the team back to the Great Ghost Lake region, nearly ten years after their initial visit. There, they identified about 30 large Taiwania firs growing together in an ancient stand, which the team began calling ‘temples of giants.’ In a hectare of forest near Mt. Benya, they recorded 11 individual trees exceeding 65 meters in height.
What the Giants Are Storing
The importance of these forests goes beyond their height. In 2024, Hsu’s team, in collaboration with 15 citizen scientists, surveyed Tao Tree Valley, home to Taiwan’s third-tallest tree, to determine how much carbon the forest stores. They found a carbon density of 1,384.5 megagrams per hectare, without including the root systems. The estimate is comparable to carbon-storage densities reported for some of the world’s most carbon-rich forests, including giant eucalypt forests in Tasmania. The researchers noted that their estimate did not include root systems and may have underestimated the forest’s true carbon storage.
The researchers still do not know how many other giant trees remain hidden in Taiwan’s mountains. However, the combination of LiDAR mapping, citizen science, and field verification gives them a way to search terrain that would otherwise be nearly impossible to survey systematically.
Austin Burgess is a writer and researcher with a background in sales, marketing, and data analytics. He holds an MBA, a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, and a data analytics certification. His work focuses on breaking scientific developments, with an emphasis on emerging biology, cognitive neuroscience, and archaeological discoveries.
At Macstock, Mike Schmitz turns the tables and interviews Chuck Joiner about favorite memories from the event. They review the gathering’s beginnings after Macworld, the friendships formed and renewed each year, memorable moments and how some of the strongest connections come unexpectedly. A big part of Macstock is the the inspiration attendees take home; Mike […]
Macworld reports that iOS 27 beta 5, released to developers on Monday, contains hidden code revealing six unreleased iPhone models – although you've probably heard of them before.
The following references are said to have been found alongside references to existing iPhone models, in system files associated with the iPhone's battery drivers and Battery Intelligence features:
V62 — iPhone Air 2
V63 — iPhone 18 Pro
V64 — iPhone 18 Pro Max
V67 — iPhone 18
V68 — iPhone Ultra
V69 — iPhone 18e
It's the first time the full iPhone 18 lineup has been mentioned in code found in an iOS 27 beta. To be clear, the discovered references are the codes in bold, excluding the names (which are inferred) but these internal Apple identifiers have appeared in previous leaks or have been used by Bloomberg's Mark Gurman in his reporting, allowing them to be matched to the expected iPhone models.
Apple has not publicly confirmed the existence of any upcoming iPhone 18 models, but regular readers will know that they have been heavily rumored for several months now.
Apple is taking a different launch approach to the iPhone 18 series this time around, with a split-launch strategy that will see the iPhone 18 Pro, iPhone 18 Pro Max, and foldable iPhone Ultra unveiled in September. For the first time, the regular iPhone 18 will be launched in the spring of 2027 alongside the iPhone 18e and iPhone Air 2.
Last month, the Federal Communications Commission approved an experimental and controversial new satellite being developed by venture Reflect Orbital to reflect sunlight down onto the Earth to illuminate patches of it at night for paying customers.
The purported goal is to allow solar farms to continue generating electricity even after nightfall and provide illumination during emergencies. Those may sound like noble ideas on the surface, but the concept comes with major downsides as well.
One is that such bright satellites could easily wreck deep space observations. Astronomers were appalled at the news, with the FCC receiving nearly nearly 2,000 public comments criticizing the proposal, as Wired reported at the time.
And it’s not just professional astronomers that could be affected, as experts told The Verge. Amateur astronomers gazing up at the prototype mirror satellite, dubbed Eärendil-1 — continuing Silicon Valley’s obsession with borrowing names from JRR Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” — could easily be blinded. Even looking through a 12-inch telescope, a common type used by enthusiasts, could result in permanent eye damage.
It’s a considerable risk to human health that makes the FCC’s approval “extraordinary,” as Royal Astronomical Society deputy executive director Robert Massey told The Verge.
It’s a risk experts have known for decades now. Case in point, observing a similar proposed Russian prototype, dubbed Znamya, could cause damage equivalent to staring at the Sun around a total eclipse, according to a 2000 research article by the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada. (Russia launched two experimental Znamya space mirror satellites in the 1990s, but later abandoned the program.)
Critics of the FCC’s approval of Reflect Orbital’s plans pointed out the risk of eye damage to the regulator, which wound up being deemed irrelevant and too “small” of a factor compared to the “benefits of permitting American companies to test innovative technology in space.”
As The Verge points out, astronomers won’t even be warned of when and where the mirror satellite will be in the night sky, which could result in them gazing at it inadvertently.
Reflect Orbital spokesperson Christopher Buscombe told the publication that the company is in active talks with “scientists, astronomers, environmental researchers and other stakeholders” and that it will use its initial demonstration satellite to test out built-in safeguards.
The Air Line Pilots Association has also raised concerns over Reflect Orbital’s inadequate approach to air safety. The satellites could also disrupt sleep and the circadian rhythms migratory species.
“The proposed scale of orbital deployment would represent a significant alteration of the natural night-time light environment at a planetary scale,” the presidents of several international chronobiology assocaitions said in a joint statement quoted by The Guardian.
Buscombe told The Verge that the company would limit the amount of light being reflected and calibrate brightness to “levels humans and animals already tolerate.” But experts warn there are far too many variables that the company won’t be able to control for, from light scattering in the atmosphere to interactions with clouds.
Satellites in general are an increasingly controversial topic. The number of spacecraft in low Earth has exploded over the past decade, and many are being delivered at lower altitudes that make them appear even brighter.
“The stars above us are a valued part of human heritage – deploying more than one million exceptionally bright satellites would utterly destroy this and permanently scar the natural landscape,” Massey told The Verge.
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