Researchers using the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope in Hawaii captured the first observational evidence of Kelvin–Helmholtz instability on the surface of the Sun, Nature reported. The wave-like structures emerge when pockets of super-hot plasma slide past each other at different speeds on the photosphere, twisting magnetic-field lines into explosive braids.
Scientists studying fallout debris in Science Advances discovered a new seven-element alloy inside a fragment of rock known as hiroshimaite. Nuclear detonation temperatures exceeding 1,800 degrees Celsius during the 1945 atomic bombing created the multicomponent material, yielding structural properties such as high strength and ductility.
Staff at the National Lobster Hatchery in Padstow, UK, are pipetting juvenile European lobsters into individual pods to stop them from eating each other before their release into the wild. The image earned finalist recognition in the Ocean Photographer of the Year 2026 competition alongside photographs of grooved brain corals, hammerhead sharks, and scorpionfish.
Marine biologist Madalena Cabral used an underwater ultrasound scanner roughly 540 kilometres off Mexico’s west coast to confirm pregnancies in three giant manta rays. Cabral recorded a developing baby manta ray moving its wings and mouth inside Revillagigedo National Park to study whether commercial fishing nets disrupt the species.
Astronomers recorded the solar corona from Greenland, Iceland, and Spain during a total solar eclipse on 12 August, with the next total eclipse scheduled for 2 August 2027. Separately, photographer Kouyu Wang won a category in the 2026 Capture the Dark contest after using time-lapse footage to show newly launched Starlink satellites drifting over Inner Mongolia, China.
A Bolivian waterlily at London's Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, supported 102 kilograms of human mass, breaking last year's 83-kilogram record in the Denver Botanic Gardens Waterlily Weigh-off. Meanwhile, summer heatwaves lowered the Danube and Rhine rivers to historic levels in August, halting freight shipping in Germany and closing Romania’s only nuclear power plant.
