Cosmic Coin Toss, Record Heat in the North Atlantic and Living Worm Towers

Science Quickly

Scientific American

Science

4.4 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 9 June 2025

⏱️ 8 minutes

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Summary

New simulations suggest the Milky Way’s long-predicted collision with Andromeda might be less of a cosmic certainty than we thought. A massive marine heat wave in 2023 sent North Atlantic temperatures soaring—equal to two decades’ worth of typical warming—with weak winds and climate change largely to blame. And researchers reveal that the planet’s most abundant animals—nematodes—may use teamwork and tower-building to hitch rides to new homes. Recommended reading: This ‘Tower of Worms’ Is a Squirming Superorganism E-mail us at sciencequickly@sciam.com if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover! Discover something new everyday: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for our daily newsletter. Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Naeem Amarsy and Jeff DelViscio. Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck fact-check our show. Our theme music was composed by Dominic Smith. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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0:27.8	slash UK slash AI for people. Happy Monday listeners. For Scientific American Science quickly,
0:33.6	I'm Rachel Feltman. Let's kick off the week with a quick roundup of some science news you may have missed.
0:43.4	You've probably heard that our galaxy, the Milky Way, is doomed to collide with the neighboring
0:48.1	andromeda galaxy sometime around 5 billion years from now. But according to new research,
0:53.5	maybe we shouldn't count on this multi-galactic merger deal going through.
0:57.0	In a study published last Monday in Nature Astronomy, researchers who analyze data from the European
1:03.0	Space Agency's Gaia Space Telescope and NASA's Hubble say the event is more of a coin flip than a given.
1:09.0	The team's 100,000 computer simulations
1:11.7	suggests that there's just about a 50-50 chance of the two galaxies colliding within
1:16.4	the next 10 billion years or so. When you look at the next 4 to 5 billion years, that
1:21.3	chance drops down to around 2%.
1:33.0	In other space news, scientists are buzzing about a tiny star that punches way above its weight.
1:38.1	TOI-6894 is a red dwarf that's roughly 20% as massive as our sun.
1:44.6	But in a study published last Wednesday in nature astronomy, researchers say they've spotted the signature of a giant planet orbiting this little guy.
	...

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