Uranus and Neptune are "ice giants," containing chemicals like methane and ammonia, but compressed under intense pressure. This is just speculation from a couple of flybys with Voyager 2 and telescope observations. A new paper suggests that Uranus and Neptune have distinct layers, which don't easily mix and could explain their unusual magnetic fields. Below the cloud layers is a deep ocean of water and then a compressed fluid of carbon, nitrogen, and hydrogen.

When the Vera Rubin Observatory comes online in a few months, it'll be the most effective asteroid and comet hunter ever built. And not just the homegrown variety, Rubin will discover interstellar objects like Oumuamua and Borisov passing through the Solar System. A new paper suggests the kinds of machine learning algorithms that will have the best chance of uncovering these fast-moving objects as they move through the field of view from night to night.

There is no place you can go on Earth that hasn't been colonized by bacteria, from the bottom of the oceans to the cloud tops. And when Japanese researchers examined samples of Asteroid Ryugu from the Hayabusa2 mission, they realized the little devils had found a new home. Despite containment protocols, with the samples delivered in a hermetically sealed chamber, opened in airtight containers in nitrogen gas, in a negative pressure room, life found a way.