Telescope Under Construction Discovers Details of Star's End-of-Life in Spiral Nebula

A telescope still under construction in Chile has managed to detect previously unobserved structures near the Spiral Nebula, known as the 'Eye of God.' This result was obtained during tests of the MOTHRA equipment, which is designed to image vast and very faint celestial objects.

Researchers identified bands of stellar material dissolving into space. This finding was presented in a study published in the journal Nature and demonstrates an understudied stage of a star's life cycle completion.

Characteristics and Goals of the MOTHRA Project

MOTHRA (Modular Optical Telephoto Hyperspectral Robotic Array), installed in the northern mountains of Chile, is designed to observe large and dimly glowing structures. Its goals include diffuse gases and dark matter distributed between galaxies. The project involves operating 1140 camera lenses simultaneously; however, during the tests that led to the discovery, only 172 lenses were operational.

When the equipment was pointed at the Spiral Nebula, scientists noticed very faint bands of debris around it. As Peter van Dokkum, one of the study's authors and a physicist from Yale University, noted: 'We saw this image and thought: 'This is new. This is something we have never seen before.'' Subsequent searches confirmed the suspicions: other researchers had not recorded these structures either.

Scientific Significance of the Discovery

The Spiral Nebula represents a phase in a star's end-of-life. When the hydrogen supply in its core is depleted, its outer layers are ejected into space. The expelled material spreads around the star, eventually mixing with the interstellar medium, which consists of gas, dust, and energy existing between stars.

The nebula was first observed in 1893 and has been photographed numerous times due to its large size and relative proximity to Earth. However, the challenge lay in the faintest parts of its structure, which eluded previously available equipment. The new image showcases exactly these areas. Joel Castner, an astronomer and imaging specialist from the Rochester Institute of Technology, emphasized the importance of such observations: 'We rarely see how material lost by a star mixes with gases between stars.'

Researchers expect that MOTHRA will be able to take even deeper images after construction is complete. The telescope will have nearly six times more lenses than were used during the test run that yielded the new picture. Roberto Abraham, an astronomer from the University of Toronto and author of the study, briefly described the apparatus's capabilities: 'It is so incredibly powerful that even while you are building it, pointing it at anything will yield interesting results.'

Although creating impressive images is not the primary goal of the project, researchers intend to use MOTHRA to better understand the processes of galaxy formation and evolution. The telescope is planned to be fully operational by early 2027. The first result obtained during its own creation already suggests what will happen when all the lenses begin to function.

pandaily.comAugust 13, 04:56

WPS releases Lingxi Pro — an AI-based office agent that transforms skills into editable documents

Kingsoft has introduced Lingxi Pro, an autonomous office agent developed based on artificial intelligence. This product changes the approach to using AI by shifting it from an in-document function to the initial entry point for office task workflows.

At the presentation held at the ChinaJoy 2026 exhibition in Shanghai, the market leader in office software with over thirty years of experience demonstrated the new agent. Despite the gaming atmosphere of the booth with cosplayers, the essence of the product lies in its ability to accept natural language requests and output ready-to-edit files in native format.

Lingxi Pro is tightly integrated with the WPS cloud document ecosystem, which serves 678 million active devices monthly. Users can extract materials directly from cloud storage during a conversation, and everything the agent generates is saved back to the cloud documents folder, forming a closed data loop. The agent can also connect to messengers such as WeChat and Feishu, operate on cloud desktops, and support custom models in local installations, which is an unusual degree of openness for traditional office software. In this setup, the agent acts as the 'brain,' and the WPS ecosystem acts as the 'hands.'

The agent's main function is transforming skills into native files. During the demonstration, a skill for compiling an annual report, adapted for Lingxi Pro, was shown. Instead of standard output in HTML or PDF formats, Lingxi created an editable Word document and a formatted PPT presentation ready for submission. The generated files are placed in the 'Outputs' section, where Word and PPT versions are stored for later access. Furthermore, the agent supports scheduled tasks, such as a weekly process that gathers news from advanced models, summarizes it, and generates a PPT report, saving it to cloud storage, thereby automating regular reporting.

A key differentiator is the integration with cloud services. Users can view WPS documents in the cloud using a plus icon in the dialogue window, eliminating the need for manual file uploads. Documents created by Lingxi are automatically saved to the cloud in one step. For financial analysis, a single instruction is sufficient to analyze an annual bank report, after which the agent provides a categorized income and expense report with formulas next to each figure. The agent can also organize cloud drives, sorting files and drafts by version year.

The scalability potential is linked to the fact that 88% of WPS users have not yet deeply utilized AI. Of the 678 million active devices monthly, only 80.13 million, or about 12%, use AI features. Previously, the viral WPS AI feature—automatic formatting of documents with red headings for government needs—showed how a familiar tool could attract non-technical users into AI-driven workflows. However, the review noted limitations of Lingxi: the inability to directly reference local or cloud files during a conversation, and file organization based on sessions rather than projects. It is reported that Kingsoft plans to address these shortcomings in the next version, as well as add connectors for third-party resources such as research reports.

timesofindia.indiatimes.comAugust 13, 04:45

Minister Jitendra Singh announces plans to develop five domestic small modular reactors by 2033

The Minister of the Department of Atomic Energy, Jitendra Singh, stated in a written reply in Lok Sabha on Wednesday that one of the government's key tasks under the Nuclear Energy Mission is to develop and commission at least five indigenous small modular reactors by 2033.

The Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) is engaged in the design and development of indigenous Small Modular Reactor (SMR) technologies, including the 220 MW Bharat Small Modular Reactor (BSMR-200) and the 55 MW SMR-55 for electricity generation. Furthermore, BARC is developing a High Temperature Gas-Cooled Reactor (HTGCR) with a capacity of up to 5 MW, which can be integrated with a suitable thermochemical cycle for hydrogen production.

Singh emphasized that India is consistently strengthening its nuclear energy ecosystem, focusing on advanced reactor technologies, SMR capabilities, domestic manufacturing potential, private sector participation, and the long-term utilization of the country's abundant thorium reserves. The government has adopted a dual approach to accelerate nuclear power capacity build-up.

This approach includes deploying large indigenous reactors, such as 700 MW Pressurized Heavy Water Reactors (PHWRs) and advanced reactor designs at new sites, as well as developing and implementing SMRs at existing facilities, including decommissioning fossil fuel power plants, closing down energy-intensive industrial units, and providing autonomous systems in remote areas.

The Minister also noted the ongoing work of the Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research (IGCAR) in advancing the second phase of India's nuclear energy program. IGCAR conducts interdisciplinary scientific research and advanced engineering development for sodium-cooled fast breeder reactors and associated closed fuel cycle facilities—technologies that remain a cornerstone of India's long-term nuclear strategy.

Regarding thorium, Singh stated that India is implementing its three-stage nuclear energy program, based on a closed fuel cycle, to optimize the use of uranium resources and gradually harness the abundant thorium reserves. Thorium, being a fertile material, must be converted into fissile uranium-233 in a nuclear reactor before it can be used for energy generation.

India has already conducted extensive research on thorium utilization. Thorium oxide pellets (Thoria) were used in the initial active zones of operational PHWRs, and Thoria-based fuel was also irradiated in BARC research reactors. Irradiated Thoria rods were processed to obtain uranium-233, which was then fabricated into fuel for the KAMINI reactor at IGCAR in Kalpakkam. Singh added that the Sustainable Harnessing and Development of Nuclear Energy for Transformation of India (SHANTI Act), 2025, has been enacted to ensure broader participation from both public and private entities in the nuclear sector.

timesofindia.indiatimes.comAugust 13, 04:41

IN-SPACe approved the first fully commercial Earth observation satellite constellation in the country

Minister of the Department of Space, Jitendra Singh, informed Lok Sabha on Wednesday, in response to a Parliamentary question, that the space regulatory body IN-SPACe has approved and signed a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) agreement with a private consortium.

This agreement concerns the country's first indigenous, fully commercial constellation of satellites for Earth observation. The goal of this project is to strengthen the country's capabilities in space observation and to form a self-sufficient Earth observation ecosystem within the nation.

The consortium, named Allied Orbits Private Limited, is led by Pixxel Space India. Other members of this consortium include Dhruva Space, PierSight Space, and Satsure Analytics India.