Welcome to this week’s science news in review, where you’ll find newsworthy scientific innovations or events that have been revealed in the first month of 2025.
A “planetary parade” to end the month
Astronomers and space lovers across the country enjoyed a rare site throughout the month of January. After dark, stargazers could see Venus, Saturn, Jupiter and Mars. Venus and Saturn appeared in the southwest, Mars rose in the east and Jupiter was overhead. Uranus and Neptune would also be aligned. This incredible astronomical event will continue throughout February, where seven planets will be “aligned” in this way: Saturn, Mercury, Neptune, Venus, Uranus, Jupiter and Mars.
Planetary alignment is a common occurrence because any time planets are visible in the sky, they will all follow the same line of the ecliptic — an imaginary line that the sun traces across the daytime sky. The ecliptic exists because all the Earth and other planets formed from the same flat disc of gas and dust that initially surrounded the newly formed sun; consequently, all planets in the solar system occupy the same orbital plane. Nonetheless, this “planetary parade” is worth a watch.
Novel advancements in wildfire prediction
Researchers have used data from various satellites and tools in space to improve wildfire prediction. One such tool is the International Space Station’s ECOsystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station (ECOSTRESS), which measures evapotranspiration, water use efficiency and other metrics for plant-water dynamics on Earth. ECOSTRESS was found to help machine learning algorithms predict wildfire susceptibility.
Additionally, a second study found that averaging data from the Orbiting Carbon Observatory-3 (OCO-3), which quantifies carbon dioxide emissions over large areas, and the Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation (EMIT), which measures surface mineralogy and can help determine emissions from individual facilities, could help quantify carbon dioxide emissions on a larger scale.
A new kind of painkiller
On Tuesday, the FDA approved a new drug for short-term pain management known as suzetrigine, the first non-opioid analgesic to be approved in decades. The drug functions by selectively blocking sodium channels on pain-sensing nerve cells, delivering the same pain-suppression functionality as opioids without the risks associated with the latter. Specifically, the drug targets sodium channel subtype NaV1.8 which is responsible for intensifying a pain signal and relaying it down peripheral nerves to the brain.
Although the drug holds substantial promise as an alternative to opioids, cost concerns as well as its limited use in acute pain settings as opposed to chronic pain settings indicate that more work is necessary to optimize the drug for clinical implementation.
