This nebula is named LHA 120-N44, or N44 for short, and it’s located in the constellation Dorado. (Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, D. Gouliermis)
About 160,000 light-years away lies one of our Milky Way's little galactic neighbors: The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). And thanks to a new observing program, the Hubble Space Telescope has provided us with an intricate image of a nebula in the LMC. The surprising part? There's a giant void at the center. Scientists call it a "superbubble."
What is it?
What you're seeing in this image is a nebula within the LMC known as LHA 120-N44, or simply N44. It's located in the constellation of Dorado and, like a classic nebula, is the site of stars being born at a noticeably rapid rate.
But of course, what really can't be missed is the huge hole at the center of N44's dusty tendrils — this is the "superbubble," and its dimensions are staggering. NASA says it's about 210 by 140 light-years across — a truly unimaginable size, considering the distance between our sun and Pluto isn't even a single light-year.
One light-year, the distance light travels in a year, is about 6 trillion miles (9.7 trillion kilometers).
Why is it noteworthy?
The superbubble is a bit of a mystery, but one theory of why it exists is that stars at the center of the bubble could have undergone supernova explosions or have released stellar winds that swept away gas in the nebula. This could have resulted in a "void," as NASA calls it, surrounded by a gaseous shell. That would explain away the image we see pretty well, but there will likely be studies dedicated to refining that story.
Of note, in that shell around the superbubble, stars continue to form and show themselves as beautiful little specks across the watercolor-like landscape.
Something else interesting about this image is that N44 is what's known as an "emission nebula," meaning the gas you see has been energized by stars in the area. This enhances the luminescent quality of the portrait.
This is because the energization process, or ionization to be specific, generates ionized gas that ultimately must cool down. During that cooling, it goes from a higher energy state to a lower energy state and thus releases some energy. This energy loss causes N44 to glow brightly, creating the beautiful scene we see.
The reason scientists have used the Hubble Space Telescope to study N44 is this particular nebula offers good conditions to study star formation and evolution. As a matter of fact, Hubble managed to survey nearly half a million stars in and around the cluster, 30,000 of which are in the very early stages of their lives.
N44 has been a major topic of interest for quite some time. For instance, it made headlines in 2021 as well as in 2012 — both times due to Hubble's eye yet again — and observations with the Chandra X-ray Observatory led to a 2011 paper that discusses supernova shock waves and other phenomena shaping the nebula and its cavity.
On Sept. 4, 1962, NASA's Mariner 2 spacecraft performed the first-ever rocket maneuver in deep space as it did a quick mid-course correction on its way to Venus. It had launched just eight days earlier and needed to burn its engines to ensure that its trajectory would take it to Venus.
The midcourse maneuver was necessary because the Atlas-Agena rocket that launched Mariner 2 didn't launch with enough accuracy to get the trajectory right in one shot. When it was about 1.5 million miles (2.4 million km) from Earth, it fired its engines to help steer it in the right direction.
The entire maneuver required five separate commands sent from mission control, telling the spacecraft to roll, pitch, turn and burn its motor. One hundred days later, Mariner 2 flew by Venus and became the first spacecraft to successfully fly by another planet.
Why it mattered
An artist's illustration of NASA's Mariner 2 spacecraft in deep space. (Image credit: NASA)
Tweaking a spacecraft's course in deep space seems a bit routine these days (NASA's newly launched Roman Space Telescope just performed such a feat this week), but in 1962 -- when reaching another planet with a probe was still the stuff of fiction -- it was far from a safe bet.
Mariner 2 launched in Aug. 27, 1962 on what would eventually be the first successful misson to another world. But as stated above, the launch wasn't accurate enough to place Mariner 2 on a direct course for Venus.
That's where the mid-course correction came in. The mission team designed a short engine burn that directed Mariner 2 to roll itself about 9.33 degrees, pitch its nose around 139.83 degrees so that it could turn its rocket engine to face forward, firing the engine, as Time Magazine recounted. The entire process took up to 36 minutes.
Without the mid-course correction, Mariner 2 would have missed Venus entirely. After launch, Mariner 2 was on a heading that would carry it only within 238,600 miles (384,000 kilometers) of the planet's center, then speed on by, according to NASA's official Mariner 2 report. After the course correction, Mariner 2 was on a path to fly by at a much closer distance of 21,607 miles (34,773 km).
Today, such mid-course corrections are a regular part of space mission planning, though they are still critical moments since a mission's success can hinge on their results. In the decades since Mariner 2, space mission designers have achieved amazing feats in mid-course changes, including the now familar gravity assist flybys that allowed NASA to send Voyager 2 on its Grand Tour of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Many other missions have achieved such feats.
Even this week, on Sept. 3, 2026, the BepiColombo mission to Mercury performed its own mid-course event, with the mission's Mercury Transfer Module releasing its two spacecraft (one each for Europe and Japan) to begin their arrival at Mercury. The event came eight years after launch and followed a series of maneuvers, including nine planetary flybys to reach the planet.
New research suggests that dust from meteorites contains a "fossil record" dating back to the formation of the sun. The research reveals that magnetism played a far greater role in the birth of the solar system than had previously been suspected.
Around 4.6 billion years ago, the solar system was a cloud of gas and dust, known as a solar nebula. Over the next few million years, this cloud began to flatten, forming a donut-shaped ring or torus with a budding star gathering mass at its core. Eventually, planets would form within this so-called protoplanetary disk.
Scientists have always theorized that gravity was the main sculptor during this early era. But the new study suggests that gravity had major assistance from magnetism. The signature of this additional cosmic artist was found within grains of dust sealed in DOM 08006, a meteorite recovered from Antarctica in 2008.
The grains found by the team are calcium-aluminum-rich inclusions (CAIs), which are thought to have formed during the first 200,000 years of the solar system. That potentially makes them the oldest samples of solar system material ever seen.
"We know they are the oldest things we have of the early solar system," team leader Cauê Borlina of Purdue University said in a statement. "But CAIs are very complex and are not all the same, even within a 1-millimeter piece of the meteorite. So we have to carefully identify what types they are."
These CAIs indicated that there was a magnetic field in the proto-solar system even during its solar nebula phase. This magnetic field would have been stronger than Earth's magnetosphere and, as such, would have influenced the flattening of the solar nebula.
"This transition, from a spherical cloud to a protoplanetary disk, is one of the most significant events in all of solar system history," team member Benjamin Weiss, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), said in the same statement. "It has long been theorized that gravity caused this, but our measurements show magnetism likely played a role."
A new spin on early solar system magnetism
In the newly forming solar system, a magnetic field would have been generated when charged particles were sent spinning through the collapsing cloud of gas and dust that birthed the sun. This plasma would then have sustained that field.
As such, that magnetism must have affected the material in the solar nebula that would become the solar system. For that reason, the team reasoned that the strength of this field should be "locked in" to materials from the time as remanent magnetization. This matter could make its way to Earth in meteorites.
In fact, the same scientists who conducted this research previously found evidence of a magnetic field that existed 2 million years into the formation of the solar system, baked into meteorites. That's an impressive and important find, because this magnetic field would have helped planets like Earth form — but the sun was already around by that point. Thus, the team was after an earlier magnetic field, one that predated our star.
"Nowadays, people don’t debate whether magnetism is present when planets are forming. But the debate is around the very early solar system, before planets are forming, when there’s just a disk," Borlina said. "That's where the debate still resides, and that’s where we’re operating now."
Early solar system material takes shape under the influence of magnetism. (Image credit: Hernan Canellas)
DOM 08006 is one of the most unspoiled or "primitive" meteorites ever discovered, retaining and preserving materials, including CAIs, as they were when the sun was forming.
"Other meteorites went through many different processes over this 4.5 billion-year history," said Weiss. "They were formed in the solar nebula, then added to bodies with water, then got destroyed, moved to the asteroid belt, and then landed here. But somehow, DOM has experienced less alteration than any other meteorite."
If a magnetic field existed during the earliest stage of the solar system, it should be observable in the matter that makes up DOM 08006.
The team was able to isolate and identify a handful of CAIs that contained inherently magnetic minerals such as iron, which they tested to measure any magnetism they had retained.
An X-ray image of the Antarctic meteorite DOM 08006, which was discovered in 2008. (Image credit: NASA)
Studying these grains, the researchers found evidence of a magnetic field 12 times stronger than that of Earth. They think this magnetic field may have played a crucial role in the evolution of the solar system.
"We think these kinds of magnetic fields were helping to move gas from the protoplanetary disk inward toward this central star, the sun,” Borlina said. "Gravity is also playing a role. But we are now showing that, if you want to fully understand how the sun and planets formed, you should include magnetic fields in the ingredients that make them."
The new study was published Aug. 7 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Exodus' journey so far has been quite transparent, with publisher Wizards of the Coast and developer Archetype Entertainment giving us a surprising number of updates and looks at the sci-fi action RPG over the years. Now, at Gamescom 2026, they've finally given us the release date and a striking hands-on demo.
I was able to play a 50-minute demo that takes protagonist Jun Aslan (who you can customize Commander Shepard-style) and their companions to Khonsu, a huge orbital space platform above the world of Lidon, where a population of Awakened frogs – genetically modified animals that are natural to this universe – are keeping more than a few critical systems in working order. I won't get into story spoilers here, but their connection to Lidon's people makes them valuable allies who must be protected from certain evildoers...
For the most part, Exodus plays exactly like you think it does after looking at the gameplay videos, and I mean that as a compliment. In many ways, it feels like an evolution of Mass Effect – one that's fiercer and more dynamic. The gunplay is punchy and satisfying; Jun and their NPC companions are more agile; and the arsenal of both sci-fi weapons and ancient powers (magic in a sci-fi trench coat) gives players a richer selection of tools to neutralize enemies with.
On top of my hands-on time with the game, I was able to sit down and chat with three members of the development team: Chad Robertson (producer), Chris King (director), and Drew Karpyshyn (writer). If those names sound familiar, it's because they all come from a BioWare background*, so they know their way around sprawling space operas.
*Archetype houses more triple-A talent from other iconic studios like Naughty Dog
The following interview has been edited for better flow.
"One of the tenets was that we wanted to be developing an IP that could stand the test of time, and we needed something in the science fiction space for the benefit of Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast. They're very interested in developing an IP that could be owned and be science fiction," Robertson said of the project's beginnings years ago.
Archetype was founded in 2019, so Exodus has been brewing and evolving for quite some time. The backing of Hasbro and Wizards could be felt throughout the whole demo; Exodus is an expensive game with a stunning visual look.
(Image credit: Archetype Entertainment)
"We've been able to stick with that without having to worry about money and financing and being able to execute on that vision," Robertson added. This also extends to how all the exploration and combat feel even at this stage. While the demo wasn't ready for the public yet, it was a compelling vertical slice with most of the systems and assets in pretty good shape.
The more you dig into Exodus' universe-building, the bolder it becomes, throwing concepts like the Awakened or time dilation into the mix. Still, it's very much a game ideated by BioWare veterans.
"It's sort of natural that we ended up with an RPG set in an epic sci-fi universe with strong player agency and heavy companion content... Yeah, I could've guessed that's where we would end up," said Karpyshyn. While the KOTOR and Mass Effect veteran led on the narrative front, sci-fi author Peter F. Hamilton added to the "core" of the universe and wrote two big sequel novels that also serve as our first proper step into Exodus' universe.
(Image credit: Archetype Entertainment)
"He was very collaborative, but we also wanted to give him a free hand to tell the story he wanted to tell. So he took the elements that he was most interested in and expanded on them, and that allowed us to take some of the ideas and bring them into the game," Karpyshyn explained. Plenty of time (roughly 40,000 years) and space (it's set in the Omega Centauri cluster) separate Exodus from being a look at humanity's immediate future, so Archetype is looking at the universe as a place "that will tell many different stories" over time.
Well ahead of the game's launch, Wizards of the Coast is betting big on the IP, with tabletop adventures, novels, and a Secret Level short introducing RPG fanatics to its universe. How do you rein all that ambition in when working on a huge video game? According to Robertson, setting reasonable limits happened naturally: "We wanted to build a player experience that was cohesive and complete enough. Over the course of the first couple of years, I think we kinda naturally figured it out." He admitted there's "plenty of other stories" they want to tell, though.
(Image credit: Archetype Entertainment)
A highlight of the demo was how fluid the tone in Exodus seems. It's playful — and often comedic — but never too much, and even as a separate, isolated chunk of the game, it presents high stakes and dilemmas I personally cared about. Again, it reminded me of Mass Effect at its best – especially the second one. I was impressed by how grounded it all felt despite heavily featuring a bunch of talking frogs and an armored bear who was also insulting me during a boss fight.
King mentioned the Awakened are "a really interesting example", as it's a concept that pushed them to explore "different ways to present them and what the tone would be". In fact, he revealed they made them "a bit too serious" early on (some of that can even be felt in the earlier lore videos on them). Eventually, the team found a balance between Jun's progression, which "has a lot of heavy, even dark themes", and other elements and characters that you run into. "They're meant to provide a counterbalance to that. You do have lighthearted moments."
(Image credit: Archetype Entertainment)
Inevitably, I had to ask about the matter of romances, and that human emotion we call love. Many players show up for these RPGs looking for hilarious, dramatic, and spicy romantic relationships.
The first thing Karpyshyn did was shoot down the possibility of a Salt (the combat mech-piloting octopus) romance: "Salt isn't really into humans. She thinks they're kind of gross. But there are many other romances. You can play as male or female Jun, and we don't lock any of the romances out based on gender choice. But you do have to pursue and work for them. They're not gonna happen by accident."
His reply then led to some brief talk about the tension between Jun and the members of the crew: "All your companions have their own goals, wants, and needs. They don't get along with each other always. We're constantly putting you into these conflict situations where you have to decide how to navigate... As a player, you have to decide, 'Do I want to risk annoying the romance character?' and maybe the romance ends... Life is messy, and we wanted the game to be messy and complicated."
Indeed, the hands-on preview mission ended with a heavy choice that no doubt would have major consequences down the line. Even if my save game meant nothing at this stage, I was still conflicted, and the developers mentioned it was interesting to finally get this game in front of people outside the studio and see their reactions to certain story beats.
(Image credit: Archetype Entertainment)
On that front, I also had to ask the trio about the voice acting (some voices were really familiar) and the music in the game, which are totally top-notch. "I'm tempted to ask which ones you recognize," Robertson said before stating they're not ready to elaborate on those yet. "The marketing team would shoot us in the head."
During our chat, the team wanted to get some quick feedback on a specific zero-gravity section — shooting and platforming are involved — which they described as "revelatory" after getting the sound FX right. I agree with them. Whereas many space walks in video games feel too fantasy-like or realistic to be truly exciting, Exodus appears to find a fine balance between the space opera spectacle we're showing up for and the harsh coldness of the void out there. There are certain sound FX still giving you feedback, but muffled shootouts are refreshingly scary.
When asked about customization options and character build – as in abilities and skills – possibilities, King answered that "philosophically, what we want to do is give players interesting choices and figure out what they like playing the most".
It's not a hard class system like in the original Mass Effect games. "We let you sort of express and figure out what you like in the skill tree... Layered on top of that, there are mastery levels on classes, and then depending on your choices, it unlocks hybrid trees," explains King.
(Image credit: Archetype Entertainment)
Combined with the many types of guns and suits available — each with different firing modes and upgrades — it all creates a familiar yet deeper progression structure.
Speaking about the game as a whole and what he's particularly proud of, King circled back to "player agency" and what he calls "water cooler moments", as you can discuss with friends at work or online what your and their choices were and what happened. At least, that's what the team hopes will happen with some of the story beats.
Robertson added to his answer: "The first time we had enough pieces together... and you could feel the music and cinematics coming together, and the emotional weight behind it, that's what these games are about. Where you have that angst over a decision and feel the anxiety of what just happened. 'I should have chosen something different.' I think we're super proud of those. There's a bunch of moments in the game like that." At this point, I can already see what the team means, which is why I sincerely believe there might be something special to Exodus.
Exodus is releasing on PC (Steam & Epic Games Store), PS5, and Xbox Series X|S on April 7, 2027.
Astronomers have witnessed a small, icy body that orbits the sun out beyond Jupiter transforming into a comet, providing a missing link between comets and inert bodies called centaurs.
The object in question is called 450P/LONEOS and is named after the Lowell Observatory survey that found it back in 2004. It is a centaur, which is a breed of inactive body that orbits the sun between Jupiter and Neptune. These objects are thought to have wandered in from the Kuiper Belt beyond Pluto, their paths perhaps perturbed by distant gravitational interactions with the gas giant planets, or even a nudge from a passing star.
Because a given centaur's orbit crosses the path of at least one of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, a centaur's orbit is unstable over millions of years. Consequently, the giant planets can push them even closer to the sun or kick them out of the solar system entirely.
It has long been suspected that those pushed closer to the sun turn into what are called Jupiter-family comets, which are comets with orbital periods around the sun of less than 20 years and which are influenced by the gravity of Jupiter.
To date, no one has ever seen a centaur turn into a Jupiter-family comet. The orbital period of 450P is currently 22 years, so it isn't a Jupiter-family comet yet, but astronomers led by planetary scientist Charles Schambeau of the University of Central Florida have been observing the onset of comet-like behavior on the centaur. In particular, using the Gemini North telescope in Hawaii they have seen the formation of a cloud of gas and dust called a coma around the solid nucleus of 450P, with this coma brightening in the period between 2019 and 2024, when 450P arrived at perihelion (the closest point to the sun in its orbit).
Should 450P keep up this comet-like behavior and receive one more gravitational nudge from one of the giant planets, then it could finally become a Jupiter-family comet.
"Studying objects like 450P helps us connect different stages of small-body evolution," said Schambeau in a statement. "Centaurs are likely related to trans-Neptunian objects, and some will eventually become short-period comets. By studying their activity, surface properties and volatile [substances with low boiling or sublimation points such as water and carbon dioxide] composition, we can learn how comet nuclei change as they move inward through the solar system, how long they preserve primitive ices and what physical processes turn an otherwise quiet icy body into an active comet."
Using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), Schambeau's team analyzed 450P's coma, finding carbon dioxide gas and suggestions of particles of crystalline ice and dust.
Its transition from a centaur into a comet is thought to have resulted from 450P having a date with destiny. By tracking back its orbit to before its 2004 discovery, astronomers found that 450P had come within 2.9 million miles (4.6 million kilometers) of Saturn in 1992. That's pretty close on solar-system scales. The object's gravitational interaction with the ringed planet caused 450P's orbit to significantly shorten so that its perihelion is now at 5.4 astronomical units 506 million miles, or 813 million km), which is only slightly beyond the orbit of Jupiter at 5.2 astronomical units.
Its last perihelion was in August 2024 and, by getting closer to the sun, 450P received substantially more heat than it has in the past.
"That increased solar heating can warm the surface and the subsurface layers of the nucleus," said Schambeau. "As those layers heat up, volatile ices or trapped gases can be released, which can drag dust away from the surface and produce a coma."
The significance of the JWST's discovery of carbon dioxide gas in 450P's burgeoning coma, coupled with the complete absence of water vapor, tells us that it is carbon-dioxide driving the activity on 450P.
This NASA animation depicts a comet as it enters the inner solar system, with light from the sun warming the comet to create its coma and tail. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)
"At 450P's distance from the sun, the nucleus is too cold for normal water-ice sublimation to be the main activity source, so detecting carbon dioxide gives us an important clue about what is powering the coma," said Schambeau.
While there is no water vapor, JWST has picked up hints of solid particles of crystalline water-ice.
"The possible crystalline water-ice is also interesting because it suggests that some of the ice in the coma has experienced heating or physical processing, rather than remaining completely unchanged since formation," said Schambeau.
On pristine cometary bodies and Kuiper Belt objects, ice is usually in an amorphous state, meaning the frozen water molecules are not structured or arranged in any particular way, giving the ice a porous composition that allows it to trap pockets of gas. As 450P nears the sun, the extra warmth that it receives causes the amorphous ice to morph into crystalline ice that has a more regular structure. During the transformation the gases escape, dragging dust and ice particles off the surface with them. Therefore, the presence of crystalline ice is telling us that 450P is in the process of being thermally altered from its pristine state that quite possibly harkens back to the birth of the solar system 4.5 billion years ago.
Only a very small fraction of Centaurs have ever shown signs of activity, which makes 450P's recent perihelion a very important one to have studied because it is a rare example of an early stage in a centaur's transition into a comet.
"Centaurs are scientifically important because they are thought to be transitional objects that originated further out in the solar system and are slowly evolving toward becoming Jupiter-family comets," said Schambeau. "In that sense, they give us a way to study relatively primitive material from the outer solar system while it is beginning to respond to stronger solar heating."
The findings have been accepted for future publication in the Planetary Science Journal and is currently available on the arXiv pre-print archive.
It's hard to downplay excitement for Alien: Isolation 2 after a first menacing teaser and promising early previews. Alien video games are in a good spot right now thanks to bangers like Aliens Dark Descent and Fireteam Elite 2, but nothing has hit quite like Creative Assembly's 2014 survival horror classic.
Now, after a thrilling Gamescom hands-on demo, it looks like the studio has nailed it once again, bringing Xenomorph-shaped scares to the next generation. At least that's what its breezy prologue section I played at Gamescom suggests.
As the earliest possible section of the game, no new mechanics were present, and the larger ideas and structure are still a big mystery. Instead, Sega and Creative Assembly have bet on pure atmosphere, dread that runs deeper thanks to more detailed graphics and audio, and of course, letting everyone know the Xenomorph's dynamic AI has evolved too.
Though it'd been mentioned before, the biggest shocker comes with the immediate reveal that Amanda Ripley is no longer the protagonist. Even if I wouldn't close the door on her showing up one way or another in Alien: Isolation 2, her story was continued elsewhere after all hope for a sequel was lost a few years ago. (Look at us now).
Instead, we play as Blake, a gal from Earth who seems eager to please her employers, even if that bothers Cole and Otto, two rugged workers under her command.
(Image credit: The Creative Assembly)
Still, the game smartly kicks off with a quick rundown of what went down in the first Isolation, narrated by Ripley, who was responsible for the destruction of the infested Sevastopol station. The nightmare was over... until it wasn't. The bad news is that part of Sevastopol was ejected as an emergency measure, probably to preserve the lab inside and the horrors within it. It's a similar setup to Alien: Romulus' "the Company went and recovered a chunk of the Nostromo", but it gets the job done.
Our interview with Creative Director Al Hope revealed that "Alien: Isolation 2 picks up a few months after the first game". The nature of the colony-planet we're on remains a mystery, but it seems the terraforming process is going well, with plenty of vegetation and trees scattered about. Shame about the remarkably bad weather though.
During the prologue, the ground vehicle is forced to stop during the beginning of a terrible storm, and that makes visibility once Blake steps out of the vehicle an issue. Hope also confirmed that these inclement weather conditions will play an actual role in how the survival gameplay evolves over the course of the game, but for now the prologue keeps things mostly on-rails.
In any case, the rainy and windy weather is a fantastic showcase of the game's visuals and sound FX work. It's fairly stressful even without a Xenomorph haunting the place (yet), so I can only imagine how intense Alien: Isolation 2 will get once things ramp up. After wandering around the area and spotting a crashed structure, Blake decides to play the hero and goes into the trashed remnants of the Sevastopol despite Cole's persistent warnings about the rising water level of the river. Who knows, that guy might make it out alive thanks to his "I'm not getting paid enough for this" mentality.
(Image credit: The Creative Assembly)
Inside the messy lab, malfunctioning doors are the first obstacle. It seems I was meant to use my only two flares to roam around the dark corridors and look for pieces of scrap that Blake can use to fix some circuits. Instead, I used them outside and went "oooh" at the lighting, wasting them. This made the first step into this haunted house trickier than it needed to be, but I eventually made it into its inner sections, restoring some of the power and also awakening the beast.
Creative Assembly thought it made no sense to keep the Xenomorph in the shadows for long. It's a trick the studio pulled off once, but 12 years later, it'd have been silly to tease us with limited glimpses of a creature everyone already knows and fears. Instead, the Xenomorph drops down right in front of Blake, who's lucky enough to be able to duck under a table the moment it shows up, offering us a glimpse at its glorious new model.
After that point, the goal in the demo is simple: Get the hell out of there. With obstacles like fire coming out of pipes and blocked doors, survival comes down to chucking small items like bottles across the room to keep the Xenomorph off Blake's back while trying to find a way forward. No motion tracker, no flamethrower, no anything. Just crawling on one's knees and making the right move at the right moment. Needless to say, poor Blake was impaled and "kissed" by the alien drone more than a few times before my time was up.
(Image credit: The Creative Assembly)
At this stage, it's impossible to discern how Alien: Isolation 2 differs from the original beyond the more advanced tech powering it, the new cast of characters, and the desolate planetary setting. What this demo achieved, however, was making the main Xenomorph threat even livelier. Its patrols were more unpredictable, and the reaction times shocked me more than once.
Muscle memory and knowledge of the previous aliens' behaviors in the 2014 original won't save you here. Even staying inside the vents for too long made it search every nook and cranny before eventually finding and grabbing me. There's no easy way out even when you're silent, and I suspect Creative Assembly wants to push players to be on the move always.
There's a clear opportunity here to create a bolder sequel that borrows more from the recent Resident Evil entries — which were themselves partially shaped by Alien: Isolation's first-person horror — to keep players on their toes, always readjusting to environments and non-Xeno threats. It's a full circle moment for the dev team, and the final confirmation that the first game is now a bona fide classic.
Creative Assembly's Survival Team has gotten back in the saddle like nothing happened, and now I'm just excited to see the twists and turns that elevate its basic tried and tested formula.
Alien: Isolation 2 is releasing on PC (Steam), PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch 2 in the near future. A release window hasn't been locked yet.
So far the Enterprise has encountered Martians, hangovers and Muppets, and now its latest mission, "Like Chronitons Through the Hourglass", has made a detour into full-on soap opera territory.
Thanks to the meddling of Q junior Trelane (Rhys Darby), the ship's lighting is slightly off, day-to-day operations are punctuated by ad breaks, and the crew has developed a tendency to stare wistfully into the middle distance. Reminders that Starfleet's finest are living out their very own "Days of Our Lives"-style TV show are everywhere, but — for all the deliberate overacting and pauses. In. All the. Wrong. Places — is it really that different from regular life on a starship? Isn't "Star Trek" essentially a soap opera anyway?
Dictionary definitions of soap operas vary, but the general gist is that they follow the daily lives of a bunch of characters over an extended period of time. They're a broad church — the more glamorous US soaps are very different to their gritty, slice-of-life UK counterparts — but they're usually characterized by interpersonal dramas and a long-running nature.
So, aside from the fact that episodes of "Star Trek" are bunched into seasons, and there's usually a story of the week, the franchise effectively fits the bill.
(Image credit: Paramount)
That wasn't so much the case in the Original Series days, where episodes were resolutely standalone and most of the regulars on the bridge — even Sulu, Uhura and Chekov — were given minimal character development. Even Uhura's famous kiss with Captain Kirk was a one-off affair.
But by the time "The Next Generation" left Spacedock, interpersonal relationships were very much on the agenda — so much so that the Enterprise-D needed a counselor on the ship's manifest.
(Image credit: Paramount)
From day one, the show was getting busy establishing the backstories of the characters, with Commander Riker's previous relationship with Counselor Troi a matter of record, and Captain Picard's complicated past with Dr Beverly Crusher (her late husband, Jack, was Jean-Luc's best friend) adding an extra frisson to their working relationship.
Even as the show adhered, more or less, to its adventure-of-the-week format, these will they/won't they romances sizzled in the background (albeit on a very low heat), until belatedly coming to fruition in "Star Trek: Insurrection" and "Star Trek: Picard", respectively. We also met various members of Picard, Troi, and Worf's families, while Troi and Worf found the time for a brief fling — much to Riker's annoyance.
The more serialized nature of "Deep Space Nine" was even more suited to space opera-meets-soap opera storytelling. As the Dominion War rumbled on in the background, Worf and Jadzia Dax found love (and later married) against a backdrop of the Bajoran Wormhole, before widower Captain Sisko and new flame Kasidy Yates said "I do" for themselves, and became parents.
(Image credit: Paramount)
Romantic sparks also flew between Colonel Kira Nerys and shapeshifting security chief Odo, and Dr Julian Bashir and Ezri Dax. (The latter took on the Dax symbiont after Jadzia Dax's death, a complication that not even the craziest US soaps have dared to explore.) And then there was Chief O'Brien, the first "Trek" regular to juggle his Starfleet duties with a settled home life.
Meanwhile, "Voyager"'s journey through the Delta Quadrant was punctuated by various births, deaths, and marriages, alongside the various unlikely friendships that developed among the marooned crew. On "Enterprise", Trip Tucker managed to find his way past T'Pol's logical exterior to share a romance with the ship's resident Vulcan — though only after his captain had experienced some rather awkward feelings towards his First Officer in "A Night in Sickbay".
Crews in more recent "Trek" series have tended to be more in touch with their feelings than their predecessors. "Discovery" may be packed with 31st-century tech so advanced it resembles magic, but the crew hasn't evolved past old-school interpersonal drama (and hugging). And at "Starfleet Academy", dealing with hormones tends to be as important to the curriculum as learning to handle the Borg or Nus Braka.
(Image credit: Paramount)
The difference with "Like Chronitons Through the Hourglass" is simply that it's more blatant in its references to soap operas, which — based on Pike's reaction to Trelane's shipwide experiment — are apparently still a thing in the 23rd century. Which raises the awkward question of why no one on the Enterprise has noticed that ship's counselor, Dr Chivers, looks a lot like Marlena Evans from "Days of Our Lives"? Both characters are played by actor Deidre Hall.
Overblown medical conditions like "cosmic amnesia" and "space madness" — or Pike learning he's Uhura's long-lost father — intentionally push the episode into the realms of ridiculousness.
Tone down the silliness, however, and these twists wouldn't look out of place as "Trek" B-plots. Indeed, while La'an's meeting with Spock's "evil twin" Sybok is right out of the American soap opera handbook — remember Hans Ramoray, Dr Drake Ramoray's morally dubious sibling in the "Friends" version of "Days of Our Lives"? — a similar storyline has also played out in "Star Trek", courtesy of Data and his dodgy big brother Lore.
(Image credit: Paramount)
Ultimately, this episode exists as an excuse for Pike to confront long-buried feelings about the loss of partner Marie Batel, and Juliet, the daughter he had in an imaginary existence.
That the captain can actually hear the episode's incidental music is kinda weird (that stuff's supposed to be non-diegetic), but "Like Chronitons through the Hourglass"'s soap opera stylings should otherwise be all in a day's work for the captain of the Enterprise.
New episodes of "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" debut on Paramount+ on Thursdays.
Comet 220P/McNaught has already put on an unexpectedly impressive show this summer as two dramatic outbursts of activity caused it to shine 20,000 times brighter than usual. Here's how you can spot the icy interloper before it fades in the coming weeks.
Comet 220P/McNaught orbits the sun once every 5.5-years. It reached perihelion — its closest point to the sun — on June 14. Solar heating typically increases cometary activity by causing volatile ices to turn directly into gas, releasing dust that reflects sunlight.
The comet's most recent perihelion passage was accompanied by two dramatic outbursts that saw its brightness jump to 20,000 times its usual level, making the ordinarily dim comet temporarily visible to stargazers using binoculars, telescopes, or cameras.
Comet 220P/McNaught is expected to dim significantly as it travels farther away from the sun, though it's possible that another outburst could see its brightness increase once more in the coming weeks!
McNaught's has a current brightness, or magnitude of +9.2 according to the Comet Observation Database run by the Crni Vern observatory. That would make it a challenge to spot with a pair of binoculars under less than perfect conditions, but puts it within reach of small telescopes under dark skies, where it mayappear as a faint, diffuse patch against the background stars.
Where can I find Comet 220P/McNaught in early September?
Look east around midnight local time to find the stars of the constellation Taurus rising into the late summer sky. Next, identify the "V" formation of the Hyades open star cluster shining at the heart of the constellation. Comet McNaught can be found close to the magnitude 3.59 binary star system Omicron Tauri, two stars out from the point of the stellar "V".
How to find Comet McNaught with the stars of the constellation Taurus. (Image credit: Created by Anthony Wood in Canva)
Comet McNaught will become easier to spot in the dark nights surrounding the new moon phase on Sept. 10-11, which will also present a perfect opportunity for . It'll also make for long- exposure photography.
Comet McNaught shines alongside a perseid meteor in a long-composite image by Osama Fathi. (Image credit: Osama Fathi)
Osama Fathi captured a gorgeous photo of Comet McNaught shining in the skies above Egypt as a lone Perseid blazed earthward on Aug. 15.
"I spent nearly two hours imaging the comet and the real surprise came when a meteor crossed very close to it in one frame — a wonderful and unexpected moment," Fathi told Space.com in an email. "Comets are exciting because of their unpredictability and I hope 220P continues to surprise observers with changes in its brightness and activity in the coming weeks."
Comet McNaught's journey through the constellation Cetus between Aug. 6-26. (Image credit: Dan Bartlett.)
Astrophotographer Dan Bartlett, meanwhile, created this breathtakingly detailed mosaic of Comet McNaught's journey through the constellation Cetus as the icy wanderer glowed in the skies over June Lake, California. The mosaic captures the comet's evolution from Aug. 6-26 as its coma and tail transformed in the wake of its Aug. 5 outburst.
Editor's Note: If you would like to share your astrophotography with Space.com's readers, then please send your photo(s), comments, and your name and location to spacephotos@space.com.
On Sept. 3, 2006, a European satellite named SMART-1 crashed into the moon! This wasn't actually as disastrous as it sounds, because the spacecraft did it on purpose.
SMART-1 launched in 2003 and was the first European spacecraft to go to the moon. It was also the first mission of a program called Small Missions for Advanced Research in Technology, which was a series of low-cost spacecraft that the European Space Agency launched to test new spaceflight technologies.
SMART-1's primary objective was to test something called Solar Electric Primary Propulsion, or a solar-powered electric engine. While it orbited the moon for almost two years, it looked for water ice and other chemicals on the lunar surface.
When SMART-1 slammed into the moon, that was also done for science. Astronomers back on Earth watched the impact with their telescopes, hoping that it would give them some insight into the mechanics of meteor impacts.
Why it mattered
An illustration of the European Space Agency's SMART-1 probe firing its engine at the moon. (Image credit: ESA, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO)
At its core, ESA's SMART-1 moon probe was a technology testbed for spacecraft technologies, that doesn't mean the mission was without science merit.
The spacecraft carried a suite of instruments to map the surface of the moon, study the mineral composition of the lunar surface and seek out infrared signatures for signs of water ice. Scientists hoped the probe would help build a geologic history of the moon to better understand its violent origins in a cosmic impact.
The moon grave site of ESA's SMART-1 moon orbiter after its crash as seen by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter in 2017.P. Stooke/B. Foing et al 2017/ NASA/GSFC/Arizona State UniversityP. Stooke/B. Foing et al 2017/ NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University
SMART-1 accomplished all this and more. The mission was expected to last just six months at the moon, but the probe persisted for about three years.
ESA initially expected SMART-1 to crash into the moon in September 2005, but mission managers devised a series of engine maneuvers that added a full year onto the mission. An even later maneuver, which completely exhausted SMART-1's xenon supply, extended the probe's life by a few more weeks, ESA officials have said.
But on Sept. 3, 2006, the moon's gravity pulled SMART-1 out of its lunar orbit. The probe crashed into the moon at a relatively slow 4,473 mph (7,200 kph) -- Leonid meteoroid impacts on the moon are more than of 156,585 mph (252,000 kph), for example -- in a region known as the "Lake of Excellence." No spacecraft in lunar orbit saw its demise, but a telescope on Earth did record the flash from the lunar impact.
It would take another 11 years before NASA's Lunar Reconnaisance Orbiter as able to spot the gouge in the lunar surface caused by the SMART-1 impact. That probe's photo showed that SMART-1 created a crater just over 13 feet (4 meters) wide and a gouge over 65 feet (20 m) long when it slammed into the moon. You can see the photo below.
The moon grave site of ESA's SMART-1 moon orbiter after its crash as seen by NASA's Lunar Reconnaisance Orbiter in 2017.P. Stooke/B. Foing et al 2017/ NASA/GSFC/Arizona State UniversityThis diagram shows the final resting point in the Lake of Excellence on the moon where the SMART-1 probe crashed.P. Stooke/B. Foing et al 2017/ NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University
Still, demonstrating the solar electric ion engine on SMART-1, which used inert xenon gas as a propellant, was the primary goal of the mission.
At the time, SMART-1 was only the second spacecraft to test the solar electric engine (NASA's Deep Space 1 was the first). ESA was hoping the mission could serve lead to a new era of interplanetary exploration by using a lower-cost and more fuel-efficent way of reaching other planets. The mission, ESA said at the time, could pave the way for missions to Mercury, asteroids and more.
Today, those hopes have been realized, quite literally.
The future of a privately backed robotic mission Venus seems about as cloudy as the planet itself at the moment.
Scientists based at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) are working with the California-based company Rocket Lab to search for possible signs of life on Venus. The first step in that program is the Rocket Lab Mission to Venus, which will deploy a small, nose cone-like probe crafted to sample the Venusian atmosphere using a device called an autofluorescence nephelometer (AFN).
That AFN can measure individual particles in Venusian clouds, constraining their size, shape and composition in a search for signs of organic molecules.But that undertaking, primarily fueled by private dollars, has been waylaid due to getting a needed booster flight-qualified.
Neutron readiness
"We call ourselves the Morning Star Missions to Venus. The Rocket Lab Mission is the first mission in the series," said Sara Seager, a noted professor of planetary science at MIT.
"Rocket Lab moved the project to the Neutron rocket, and we are awaiting Neutron readiness," Seager told Space.com. Neutron was originally expected to debut in 2024, but it has yet to make its maiden voyage.
That first flight, which will launch from Rocket Lab's Launch Complex 3 on Wallops Island, Virginia, also depends on the successful completion of the vehicle's qualification testing and acceptance program, according to the company.
While Venus probing via private means has been a bit booster-bushwhacked, there has been promising progress with the venture.
An illustration shows Rocket Lab's Photon spacecraft above the clouds of Venus (Image credit: Rocket Lab)
Ready for Venus duty
Rocket Lab is providing the shell for the entry probe. NASA's Ames Research Center developed its heat shield, called the Heatshield for Extreme Entry Environment Technology (HEEET), which consists of woven material that can protect the spacecraft against temperatures up to 4,500 degrees Fahrenheit (2,500 degrees Celsius).
Also ready for Venus duty is the probe's pressure vessel. Seager's team is providing the AFN, along with their ongoing, rigorous science preparation.
NASA transferred the heat shield to Rocket Lab in March 2025. The Venus probe is now resting in Rocket Lab's Long Beach headquarters. A responsive space entrepreneurial firm, Rocket Lab is providing the launch vehicle, the cruise vehicle and the probe for the mission, which carries the instrument from Seager's team. The mission will conduct the first-ever largely privately funded investigation of Venus.
Engineers at NASA's Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley attach the HEET heat shield on the first private spacecraft targeted for Venus. (Image credit: NASA/Brandon Torres Navarrete)
More to explore
Seager and her team aim to launch follow-on missions to Venus, too.
"After the Rocket Lab mission, we aim to send a payload to Venus to identify complex organic molecules," said Seager. "While this goal will not determine if life is present, it will establish that ingredients for life or molecules potentially used by life are present."
Seager and her colleagues have been studying two potential payloads for future missions. One is a laser desorption mass spectrometer, called ORIGIN, which is being built in Bern, Switzerland. A version of this instrument will soon travel to the surface of the moon on a private lander, via NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program.
Furthermore, Seager and her extended team have been developing a 16-foot-wide (5-meter) balloon capable of floating through the skies of Venus for one Earth week. "We are also developing miniature molecular sensors to target specific molecules of interest, including carbon nanotube sensors," she said.
'High hopes'
Paul Byrne is an associate professor of Earth, environmental and planetary sciences at the University of Washington in St. Louis, Missouri.
While the private Venus sojourn is currently in launch limbo, Byrne is bullish about its potential.
"The course of spacecraft exploration of the solar system rarely does run smoothly. Which is to say, we should expect delays, especially for a private mission, a company focused on developing their next class of rocket and a relatively underexplored destination," Byrne told Space.com.
"I continue to have high hopes for this mission, and for its role in demonstrating the role of private enterprise in space exploration," said Byrne, "and I'm keeping my fingers crossed for a successful flight before too long!"
An abode for alien life?
Venus' surface is a scorching-hot hellscape, a planet ravaged by a runaway greenhouse effect. However, Venus has been receiving more and more attention as a potential abode for atmospheric alien life.
Seager and her colleagues suggest that there is mounting evidence that the ingredients for life may exist in the highly acidic clouds that blanket Venus.
In a new study that appears this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Seager and her team report that, not only can short peptides (short chains of amino acids) remain stable in extremely acidic conditions, they can also fold into shapes that may allow them to have biological functions.
"We really don't know the full extent of what planetary archetypes are out there. We're seeking exoplanets that might be a true Earth twin, but what if they're all Venuses? Our findings definitely open up a whole range of possibilities," Seager said in an Aug. 31 MIT statement.
"If you find life in the clouds of Venus, then you can pretty much assume that life is quite prevalent throughout the universe," said Peter Beck, founder, president and chief executive officer of Rocket Lab.
There are other interplanetary missions on Rocket Lab's radar, including its ideas for a Mars Sample Return mission. And the company already has Mars experience: It built the twin probes for NASA's Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers (ESCAPADE) mission, which launched toward the Red Planet atop a Blue Origin New Glenn rocket in November 2025.
Illustration of Rocket Lab's new Neutron rocket in flight. (Image credit: Rocket Lab)
To be confirmed
According to Rocket Lab's website, the initial mission with MIT — which the company calls Venus Life Finder — has a launch date that's in "to be confirmed" status.
Undaunted by delay, Byrne said that Venus continues to surprise — and additional surprises are surely to come.
"Revisiting old data has given us new insight into the planet's clouds, and the hazes found by earlier entry probes might in fact be from cosmic dust," he said. "These and many other discoveries continue to motivate researchers and mission developers, and Rocket Lab's mission is only going to motivate us further!"
