Webb telescope spots CO2 on exoplanet for first time

The James Webb Space Telescope has captured the first unambiguous evidence of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of a planet outside the Solar System. The telescope gleaned information about the composition of the gas giant WASP-39b as it moved across the face of its star. Starlight shone through the planet’s atmosphere, where various molecules absorbed specific wavelengths of infrared light, creating the telltale absorption spectrum in the image above. The result has bolstered confidence that Webb is going to be revolutionary for exoplanet research.

‘Levitating’ nanoparticles could push the limits of quantum entanglement

Physicists have suspended tiny glass spheres in a vacuum and made them interact with one another at close distance. The ‘levitating’ nanoparticles can be manipulated with exquisite precision, offering the tantalising prospect of probing quantum physics at a macroscopic scale. For example, if the particles can be slowed to their quantum ground state (as cold as they can get), it could become possible to put them into a state of quantum entanglement, meaning that some of their measurable properties — in this case, their positions — are more strongly correlated than would be allowed by the laws of classical, non-quantum physics.

Seven-million-year-old femur suggests Sahelanthropus tchadensis walked upright

An ancient human relative, Sahelanthropus tchadensis, might have walked on two legs seven million years ago. S. tchadensis could be the earliest known member of the hominin lineage, the evolutionary branch that includes the common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees and ends with modern humans. The theory is based on a battered fossil leg bone that was discovered in Chad more than 20 years ago. But some scientists are not convinced that the femur’s traits prove the creature stood tall.

Webb sees most distant star ever observed

The James Webb Space Telescope has imaged the most distant star ever discovered, which is 8.5 million parsecs away. The star was first identified by the Hubble Space Telescope earlier this year. WHL0137-LS — or ‘Earendel’, meaning ‘morning star’ in old English — is thought to have formed just 900 million years after the Big Bang. It is visible thanks to gravitational lensing: the massive Sunrise Arc galaxy cluster in its foreground warps spacetime so much that the star is magnified thousands of times.

Huge megalithic complex of more than 500 standing stones discovered in Spain

A huge complex of more than 500 standing stones has been discovered in southern Spain during an archæological survey of a plot of land earmarked for an avocado plantation. The oldest of the megaliths — which include stone circles, mounds and tombs — were probably placed during the sixth or fifth millennium BC.

Megalodon shark was longer than a bus

A 3D model of a colossal shark that roamed the oceans millions of years ago suggests that the beast was 16 metres long and could have eaten a whale in just a few bites. Few megalodon fossils exist, but researchers were able to create the digital model using a rare collection of vertebrae and teeth, as well as scans of modern great white sharks (Carcharodon carcharias). They calculated that the ancient creature weighed around 70 tons — as much as ten elephants— and that its open jaw stretched to 2 metres wide.

Notorious dark-matter signal could be due to analysis error

Physicists have shown that an underground experiment in South Korea can ‘see’ dark matter streaming through Earth — or not, depending on how its data are sliced. The results cast further doubt on a decades-old claim that another experiment has been detecting the mysterious substance.