Technologies

Astronomers Spot a Ghostly Light Glowing Throughout the Solar System

Scientists used NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope to identify the presence of an unexplained glow amid the blackness of space.

The deep darkness of space might not actually be so dark in our solar system.

Astronomers analyzed over 200,000 images from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, making tens of thousands of measurements to try to locate a residual background glow in the night sky. The project is called SKYSURF, which is based at Arizona State University and involves researchers there and around the world.

The team harvested the data from the images and then subtracted the glow from planets, stars, galaxies and even ethereal zodiacal light, which is light reflecting off dust within our solar system.

After accounting for all this there was still a tiny bit of leftover glow or «ghost light,» which the researchers describe as equivalent to the glow of 10 fireflies spread across the entire night sky.

«We think it is a local phenomenon that is not from far outside the solar system,» ASU researcher Tim Carleton explained in a statement Thursday. «It may be a new element to the contents of the solar system that has been hypothesized but not quantitatively measured until now.»

A leading explanation is that the glow comes from a previously unaccounted for sphere of dust left behind by countless comets traveling through the solar system from all directions.

The discovery is documented in a handful of studies. Two have been published in the Astronomical Journal and another in Astrophysical Journal Letters.

One of the studies was led by Rogier Windhorst from ASU, who points out that over 95 percent of the photons in Hubble’s images come from distances on our side of the universe, less than 3 billion light-years from Earth.

«Since Hubble’s very early days, most Hubble users have discarded these sky-photons, as they are interested in the faint discrete objects in Hubble’s images, such as stars and galaxies,» Windhorst said. «But these sky-photons contain important information which can be extracted thanks to Hubble’s unique ability to measure faint brightness levels to high precision over its three decades of lifetime.»

And within that information, Windhorst and others may have just located a completely new piece of ethereal architectureunderlying our entire solar system. If you consider a faint but ubiquitous layer of dust to be architecture, that is.

Technologies

These Black Friday Headphone Deals Are Music to the Ears. Grab Our Top Picks Before They’re Gone

Technologies

The Samsung Galaxy S25 FE Hit a Record Low $475 Price for Black Friday. Act Fast To Get This Deal Before It Ends

Score the Samsung Galaxy S25 FE for as low as $475 during the final hours of Black Friday.

Is your old smartphone slowing down? It might be time for an upgrade, and Black Friday is an incredible time to score major savings on a new phone. We’ve seen discounts on a wide range of devices today, but one of the best markdowns is on Samsung’s latest budget smartphone. Right now, you can save 27% on the Samsung Galaxy S25 FE, bringing the price for the 128GB model down to $475.

That’s a considerable discount for a phone released just a few months ago. But the deal won’t be around for long because we’re in the final hours of Black Friday, so you’ll want to wrap up your shopping soon.

The Samsung Galaxy S25 FE is designed as a more affordable entry into the Samsung Galaxy S25 lineup. Its list price is $150 lower than the standard Galaxy S25 smartphone, though its size is more comparable to the S25 Plus with a 6.7-inch wide display. It offers a lightweight design with a slim profile, and is made with a sturdy aluminum frame and Gorilla Glass Victus glass.

CNET’s Mike Sorrentino tested the Galaxy S25 FE and found the software features such as the AI-powered text calling to be standouts. Text Call lets you to text your response on a voice call and have Samsung’s robotic voice will read it out loud. Sorrentino found it to be a helpful feature when trying to get through voice-activated menus. He also noted that the phone has a «solid-performing processor» that launches apps quickly and could handle games like Fortnite well even on high graphics settings.
The Samsung Galaxy S25 FE packs solid functionality into a budget smartphone, but if you want to explore more options before deciding on your next upgrade, check out our full list of the best Black Friday phone deals.

MOBILE DEALS OF THE WEEK

iPhone 17 Pro on Us With Any Condition Trade-in and Qualifying Plan
Google Pixel 10 Pro 128GB Unlocked Phone (Obsidian):

$749 (save $250)
Samsung Galaxy S25 FE 128GB Unlocked Phone (JetBlack):

$475 (save $175)
Google Pixel 9 128GB Unlocked Phone (Obsidian):

$499 (save $300)
Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra 256GB Unlocked AI Phone (Titanium Black):

$900 (save $400)

Deals are selected by the CNET Group commerce team, and may be unrelated to this article.

Why this deal matters

The Samsung Galaxy S25 FE is a 2025 release, so this is a great chance to score a brand new smartphone at a deep discount. This is a deeper discount than we saw during October Amazon Prime Day this year, and the device is already selling out in select colors and storage options on Amazon.

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Technologies

Sora and Google’s Nano Banana Pro Are Slammed, and Scale Back Free Videos and Images

OpenAI and Google are reducing the number of image or video requests you can make on their latest media-generation platforms.

Maybe it’s because of the holiday weekend.

OpenAI’s video generator Sora and Google’s image generator nano banana pro are placing new limits on how many videos (in the case of Sora) and AI images (in the case of nano banana pro) you can make per day.

With more people using their Thanksgiving weekend idle time to, say, make AI videos of cats as angry service industry cashiers, it’s likely these services are hitting their limits.

Bill Peebles, OpenAI’s head of Sora, posted on X, «our gpus are melting, and we want to let as many people access sora as possible!» GPUs are the graphics processing units used by AI services for the complex computations they need to perform.

Peebles wrote that Sora will limit free video generation to six videos per day. ChatGPT Plus and Pro accounts won’t see any changes.

«And everybody can purchase additional gens as needed,» he wrote.

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Gemini limits

As for Google’s image generator, a Gemini support page says that those without a Google AI plan are now limited to two images generated and edited per day with nano banana pro. The previous limit was three, according to 9to5Google, which also spotted new usage limits on Gemini 3 Pro that are variable. The same support page says free access to Gemini 3 Pro Thinking includes «Basic access — daily limits may change frequently.»

The limit for nano banana (the previous 2.5 non-pro version) is 100 free images per day.

A representative for Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

(Disclosure: Ziff Davis, CNET’s parent company, in April filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.)