However, a major new study challenges these assumptions, suggesting that the abilities most important for reading success may be very different from what many people expect.

Dr. Daniel Hajovsky, an associate professor in Texas A&M University’s Department of Educational Psychology, led one of the most extensive investigations to date into how cognitive abilities relate to reading performance. The research brought together scientists from the University of Kansas, St. John’s University, Montclair State University and Temple University to examine which mental skills best predict reading development and why some children encounter difficulties.

Massive Study Reveals What Really Predicts Reading Success

To investigate these relationships, the researchers combined 50,000 correlations drawn from 137 cognitive and achievement test batteries into a single statistical model. This large-scale approach allowed them to assess the contribution of individual mental abilities to reading performance while also helping clarify why previous studies had sometimes produced conflicting conclusions.

The findings revealed several surprises. Visual processing showed no meaningful relationship with reading ability across the analysis. General intelligence was associated with reading performance, but its influence was considerably smaller than some earlier research had suggested.

Instead, two less frequently discussed abilities emerged as particularly important predictors of reading success: auditory processing and comprehension-knowledge.

“One notable finding was that general intelligence was less dominant than in some earlier meta-analyses,” Hajovsky said. “Broad abilities such as comprehension-knowledge and auditory processing played strong, specific roles in reading beyond general intelligence, especially for decoding and comprehension.”

Two Overlooked Skills Play a Major Role in Reading

Auditory processing involves recognizing and distinguishing the individual sounds that make up spoken words. For example, a child needs to identify the separate sounds within a word to understand how those sounds correspond to written letters. This skill helps support decoding, the process of working out how written words are pronounced.

Comprehension-knowledge refers to the vocabulary, concepts and background information a child has accumulated through learning and everyday experiences. Having this foundation makes it easier to understand the meaning of words, sentences and longer passages.

Together, these two abilities were more reliable predictors of reading performance than any other skills examined in the study. Other cognitive functions, including memory, reasoning and mental processing speed, also contributed to reading development, although they played more supporting roles.

The results suggest that reading is not simply a reflection of overall intelligence or how effectively a child processes visual information. Instead, it depends on several interconnected abilities, with language-related skills playing especially important roles.

What the Findings Mean for Children Who Struggle to Read

The research could help educators better understand why individual students experience reading difficulties. Rather than treating all reading problems as the same, teachers may be able to identify particular weaknesses and provide instruction that addresses those needs.

For families, the findings also offer an encouraging message. A child who has trouble reading is not necessarily less intelligent or incapable of becoming a strong reader. Difficulties may instead reflect specific abilities that need additional development and support.

“Strengthening foundational skills at home, even the ones that seem simple, can have meaningful effects on more advanced reading abilities,” Hajovsky said. “Struggles in reading are not a sign of low ability but often reflect one specific skill that needs strengthening within a larger system that works together.”

The findings highlight the value of helping children build essential reading skills through consistent support, both in the classroom and at home.

According to Hajovsky, the most effective approach involves cooperation among schools, parents, and communities. Reading develops through a network of connected skills, and strengthening those foundations one step at a time can help children become more confident and capable readers.

The asteroid pair is currently about 197 million kilometers from Earth. Hera obtained the new image on the evening of October 18 using its black-and-white Asteroid Framing Camera, while the spacecraft was approximately 1,280 kilometers from its targets.

“With this image, the smaller Dimorphos asteroid becomes visible for the first time,” explains Michael Kueppers. “Before this acquisition, the spacecraft was still resolving the Didymos system as a single dot. But now, even though Dimorphos is made up of only around one pixel in this initial image, it is clearly well separated from its parent body.”

Hera Closes In on Two Asteroids

The breakthrough image follows a successful series of maneuvers designed to slow Hera as it approaches the asteroid system. Earlier in October, the spacecraft fired its thrusters twice, with one week between the maneuvers. These adjustments reduced its speed relative to the asteroids to just 20 meters per second, allowing mission controllers to carefully manage the remaining approach.

Although the two asteroids appear tiny in the initial image, they are substantial objects. Dimorphos measures about 151 meters across, making it roughly comparable in size to the Great Pyramid of Giza. Its larger companion, Didymos, is approximately 780 meters in diameter, slightly smaller than the height of Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building.

Dimorphos travels around Didymos at an average separation of just 1.15 kilometers, moving at a speed of approximately 18 centimeters per second.

“For the very first time we are seeing through Hera’s own eyes the very double asteroid system that the mission was designed and built for,” adds mission manager Ian Carnelli.

“Our views will grow much sharper as Hera comes closer. We will unveil the first detailed images of Dimorphos — the first object in the Solar System to have had its orbit measurably shifted by human action — on 25 November.”

Uncovering the Aftermath of NASA’s Historic Asteroid Collision

Hera’s arrival will give scientists an opportunity to examine the results of a groundbreaking planetary defense experiment conducted four years earlier.

On September 26, 2022, NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft deliberately collided with Dimorphos at approximately 6.1 kilometers per second. The impact blasted debris as far as 10,000 kilometers into space and shortened the asteroid’s orbital period around Didymos by roughly 33 minutes.

The experiment demonstrated that a spacecraft could deliberately change an asteroid’s motion, an achievement with potentially enormous implications for protecting Earth from future asteroid threats.

However, the collision also produced results that scientists are still trying to fully explain. The asteroid’s orbital change was substantially greater than computer simulations had predicted, raising questions about its physical properties and how it responded to the impact.

Researchers still do not know whether DART left a crater on Dimorphos or significantly altered the asteroid’s overall shape. They also need more precise measurements of its composition, internal structure, and mass to understand why the collision was so effective.

Answering these questions is essential for transforming the ‘kinetic impact’ approach into a reliable planetary defense strategy.

Hera Prepares for a Detailed Asteroid Investigation

Over the coming months, Hera will carry out a detailed ‘crash site investigation’ to uncover what NASA’s collision actually did to Dimorphos.

The spacecraft will use a collection of scientific instruments to examine the asteroid and its surroundings. It will also release two small satellites, known as ‘CubeSats’, each approximately the size of a shoebox, to gather additional observations from much closer distances. The investigation is expected to eventually include landing operations.

Together, these measurements should help scientists better understand how asteroids respond to high-speed impacts and improve predictions of how future deflection attempts might work.

Meet the Hera Space Companion

Anyone interested in following Hera’s journey can explore the mission through the Hera Space Companion. More than a conventional AI chatbot, this interactive communication platform is connected to the mission and designed to make the European Space Agency’s first planetary defense mission accessible to the public.

NASA engineers recently achieved two important developments in their effort to extend the mission. In September, they completed a complex energy conservation project designed to preserve the spacecraft’s remaining scientific capabilities. Then, on October 20, Voyager 1 unexpectedly resumed communication with Earth after a mysterious 48-hour interruption.

NASA Engineers Find a Clever Way to Save Power

In early September, the Voyager team successfully replaced three devices aboard Voyager 1 with alternatives that consume less electricity. The carefully coordinated operation, nicknamed the “Big Bang,” took months to prepare and was completed approximately six weeks after engineers carried out an identical procedure on Voyager 2.

The upgrade is expected to extend the operating lives of Voyager 1’s remaining scientific instruments, allowing the spacecraft to continue collecting valuable information from interstellar space longer than previously expected.

Both Voyager spacecraft generate electricity using radioisotope thermoelectric generators. These systems produce electrical power from the heat released as plutonium undergoes radioactive decay. As that process continues, the spacecraft gradually lose generating capacity, with each probe experiencing a decline of approximately 4 watts annually.

After almost five decades in space, that steady loss has left engineers with very little power to spare. To keep the missions operating, NASA has progressively shut down equipment that is no longer essential.

The Big Bang presented an especially difficult engineering challenge because all three replacements had to happen simultaneously. The six devices involved help maintain temperatures inside the spacecraft despite the extreme cold of space. Replacing the three original devices together was necessary to reduce electricity consumption while preserving the proper distribution of heat throughout Voyager 1.

Keeping Voyager 1’s Science Mission Alive

Power limitations have already forced NASA to deactivate two of Voyager 1’s scientific instruments in recent years. When the spacecraft launched in 1977, it carried 10 instruments dedicated to scientific research. Several were shut down after Voyager completed its encounters with the outer planets, while others remained active to investigate increasingly distant regions of space.

Among the areas studied was the outer heliosphere, the enormous region of particles and magnetic fields produced by the Sun. Both Voyager spacecraft have since crossed beyond this boundary into interstellar space, making them the only spacecraft ever to directly examine the environment outside the Sun’s heliosphere.

Preserving their remaining instruments is particularly important because no other missions can currently collect measurements from this distant region. Without the Big Bang upgrade, NASA would have faced the possibility of shutting down another Voyager 1 instrument as early as summer 2027.

Mysterious Communication Loss Raises New Questions

Even with the successful power conservation effort, Voyager 1 continues to encounter unexpected problems.

NASA temporarily lost contact with the spacecraft on October 18 and 19, when the agency’s Deep Space Network failed to receive its radio signal during two scheduled communication attempts separated by 24 hours.

The network consists of large radio antennas at three locations around the world, allowing NASA to exchange signals with spacecraft exploring the Moon and more distant destinations. At the time of the interruption, Voyager 1 was approximately 16 billion miles (24 billion kilometers) from Earth.

After two unsuccessful attempts to detect the spacecraft, its signal unexpectedly returned on October 20, roughly 48 hours after the interruption began. Communication has remained established since then, and engineers subsequently sent commands to investigate the problem.

NASA has not yet determined exactly what caused the incident. However, engineers discovered that one set of Voyager 1’s thrusters had stopped operating and that the spacecraft had automatically activated its backup thrusters.

This behavior is part of a built-in safety system known as fault protection. When the onboard computers recognize a potential problem with active equipment, they can switch to backup hardware, place the spacecraft into a stable configuration, and suspend normal activities. This gives controllers on Earth an opportunity to investigate and determine the appropriate response.

“This is the first time we’ve seen the spacecraft do something like this, but we are also at a point in the mission where we have to expect the unexpected,” said Kareem Badaruddin, Voyager mission manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “We’re relieved to be back in contact with Voyager 1 and are eager to understand what happened.”

Voyager 1 Approaches a Historic One-Light-Day Milestone

While NASA continues investigating the communication interruption, Voyager 1 is moving toward another remarkable achievement.

Traveling through interstellar space at approximately 38,000 mph (61,155 kph), the spacecraft is expected to reach a distance of 16.09 billion miles (25.89 billion kilometers) from Earth on November 18. That distance equals one light-day, meaning it takes light an entire 24 hours to travel between Earth and the probe.

No other human-made object has ever reached such a distance.

The milestone also illustrates the extraordinary challenges of communicating with a spacecraft so far from home. Radio waves travel at the speed of light, so commands transmitted from Earth will require a full day to reach Voyager 1. Any response sent back will take another 24 hours, creating a total communication delay of 48 hours.

“If you want to say ‘hello’ to Voyager, you send your message and then you go home and you wait two days before you finally get a response,” said Suzanne Dodd, Voyager project manager at JPL.

Crossing the one-light-day threshold will not produce any physical change in Voyager 1 or its surroundings. The spacecraft will continue traveling through the same interstellar environment, unaware that it has passed a milestone of special significance to people on Earth.

Instead, the achievement serves as a powerful reminder of the enormous distances separating objects in the universe and the remarkable endurance of a spacecraft launched nearly half a century ago. Despite fading power, aging equipment, and unexpected technical problems, Voyager 1 continues its historic journey farther from Earth than any other human-made object.

Researchers say that increasing potassium intake, rather than focusing only on reducing sodium, could lead to better blood pressure control. By addressing both nutrients together, this approach could strengthen efforts to prevent hypertension and reduce the risk of serious cardiovascular problems.

The potential impact is enormous. High blood pressure, also known as hypertension, affects more than 1.28 billion adults worldwide and is a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease, including heart attacks and strokes. Although public health recommendations have traditionally emphasized cutting sodium, researchers now argue that getting enough potassium deserves just as much attention.

Why Potassium Matters for Blood Pressure

Sodium and potassium are essential minerals that help regulate fluid balance, nerve signaling, and muscle function. Both also influence blood pressure, but they affect the body in different ways.

Eating too much sodium can cause the body to retain additional fluid, increasing the pressure inside blood vessels. Potassium helps counter some of sodium’s effects by supporting the kidneys in removing excess sodium through urine. It also contributes to the normal functioning of blood vessel walls, which plays an important role in maintaining healthy blood pressure.

In a new report, physicians and health experts argue that dietary recommendations should address these two minerals together. Rather than treating sodium reduction as the primary solution, they propose combining it with greater potassium consumption to achieve stronger results.

“It is time to view dietary interventions holistically because food components interact and physiology is integrative across systems,” said Naomi Fukagawa, M.D. Ph.D., professor of medicine emerita at the Robert Larner, M.D. College of Medicine at the University of Vermont and first author on the report. “Growing evidence shows that increasing dietary potassium as well as reducing sodium intake work together to better manage hypertension.”

A Major Rethink of Blood Pressure Guidelines

The report, published in the peer-reviewed American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, was supported by the IAFNS Sodium in Food and Health Implications Committee.

The researchers examined the scientific evidence underlying current sodium and potassium recommendations, along with practical ways to reduce sodium consumption and increase potassium intake. They also explored the obstacles to implementing these changes and identified areas where additional research and updated public health policies could help improve outcomes.

One of the central concerns is that many people consume too much sodium while getting nowhere near enough potassium. Both dietary patterns can contribute to elevated blood pressure, making them important targets for prevention and treatment.

Despite widespread efforts to encourage people to limit salt, average sodium consumption continues to exceed recommended levels. Meanwhile, potassium intake remains “far below optimal levels in both developed and developing nations,” according to the authors.

This imbalance suggests that focusing primarily on what people should eat less of may be overlooking an important opportunity to improve cardiovascular health by encouraging them to consume more of a beneficial nutrient.

How to Get More Potassium in Your Diet

Potassium is naturally present in many familiar foods, including fruits, vegetables, legumes, and dairy products. Bananas, potatoes, beans, leafy greens, and yogurt are examples of foods that can help increase potassium intake.

Another possibility is replacing some sodium chloride, the main ingredient in ordinary table salt, with potassium salts. These substitutes can help reduce sodium while simultaneously increasing potassium, potentially addressing both dietary goals at once.

However, creating these products presents challenges for food manufacturers. Adding too much potassium salt can produce an unpleasant metallic taste, limiting how much can be used without affecting flavor. Manufacturers must therefore find a balance that improves nutritional content while keeping foods appealing to consumers.

Increasing potassium is also not appropriate for everyone. People with kidney disease or those taking certain medications may have difficulty regulating potassium levels, so potassium supplements and potassium-based salt substitutes should be used with medical guidance when these concerns apply.

A New Strategy for Fighting High Blood Pressure

The researchers emphasize that reducing sodium remains essential. Their proposal is not to abandon existing advice, but to expand it by recognizing that potassium intake is another major factor in blood pressure regulation.

The authors conclude that “dietary sodium reduction is a foundational strategy for hypertension prevention and management. However, new evidence supports a broadening of the current approach that focuses solely on sodium reduction and provides equal emphasis on increasing potassium intake.”

For the more than one billion people living with hypertension, this shift in thinking could have significant implications. Instead of concentrating almost exclusively on reducing salt, future dietary recommendations may increasingly emphasize the combined benefits of consuming less sodium and more potassium.

The underlying message is straightforward: better blood pressure control may depend not only on what people remove from their diets, but also on what they add.

The rover had actually come close to breaking the record about two months earlier. On Sol 1947, Perseverance was just 200 meters short of the milestone, a distance it could have covered in a single trip using its Autonomous Navigation (AutoNav) system.

But reaching the record was not the team’s immediate priority. Perseverance was exploring an area filled with scientifically valuable ancient rock formations, so it spent weeks making short trips between locations to examine exposed rock surfaces. These investigations included grinding away thin layers of rock and conducting detailed measurements up close. Once the scientific work was complete, the rover resumed its journey and soon surpassed the previous distance record.

“Two months ago, (Perseverance) sat about 200 meters away from the milestone, a distance easily achievable with a single drive… However, the rover found itself in a very scientifically interesting area and spent time (investigating) ancient rock outcrops. When Perseverance was finally ready to move on to a new site, it sailed past the record.”

How NASA Improved Perseverance’s Driving Capabilities

Covering more than 28 miles on Mars has required Perseverance to overcome difficult terrain while testing new approaches to robotic driving. Its journeys through tightly packed boulder fields and across steep hillsides have given NASA engineers valuable experience, helping them improve the rover’s ability to navigate hazardous landscapes.

To expand what Perseverance can safely handle, engineers conducted thousands of computer simulations and adjusted several operating limits. The rover can now tolerate tilts of up to 24 degrees, while the minimum clearance beneath its protective belly pan has been reduced to 20 centimeters (about 7.9 inches).

The team also introduced several important improvements to the driving system. Updated braking software helps the rover avoid collisions with rocks, and the electrical current limits for its steering motors have been nearly doubled. Engineers also added “dynamic slip tables” to its flight software, allowing the rover to better anticipate how much its wheels might slip on different surfaces.

Another technique involves driving across slopes in ways that help keep the wheels securely positioned on exposed bedrock. Together, these changes allow Perseverance to handle challenging terrain more effectively as it continues exploring Mars.

A Mars Rover That Can Navigate Without GPS

Among the rover’s most significant technological advances is a system called onboard Global Localization (GBLC). This technology gives Perseverance a way to determine its position on Mars without relying on directions from Earth.

The system uses a powerful commercial processor originally installed in the Ingenuity Helicopter Base Station. By comparing images captured from the Martian surface with pictures taken from orbit, it can calculate the rover’s location in global coordinates after completing a drive (as though we had GPS on a world without it).

Knowing its position independently is a major advantage. It allows Perseverance to cover greater distances without needing people on Earth to repeatedly determine its location, potentially making future exploration faster and more efficient.

However, this approach introduced an engineering challenge. Unlike the rover’s main flight computer, the additional processor was not specifically designed to withstand the intense radiation conditions on Mars. The planet has a thin atmosphere and no global magnetic field, leaving electronics exposed to radiation that can interfere with their operation.

In particular, radiation can cause “transient bit flips” that unexpectedly change information stored in computer memory, potentially disrupting software. To address this problem, engineers developed software protections that help the processor operate reliably despite the harsh environment.

The Next Frontier in Autonomous Mars Exploration

NASA is also investigating how generative AI could make the rover even more independent. As missions involve longer journeys and increasingly complex operations, the team wants to reduce the time and resources needed to plan safe routes.

The technology could help generate driving plans for the many individual segments of a longer journey, providing guidance that Perseverance’s AutoNav system can use to navigate the terrain.

After traveling 45 kilometers (more than 28 miles), Perseverance has already provided engineers with extensive experience in navigating the Martian landscape. Those lessons are now shaping new technologies that could transform how robotic explorers operate on distant worlds.

And the journey is far from over. As Perseverance continues climbing higher along the rim of its Martian crater, NASA is preparing for the next major advances in autonomous exploration.

rticularly haunting appearance when viewed from above. Its rocky and icy features resemble a grinning skull seen from the side, seemingly gazing toward nearby Devil Island. But behind this unusual sight is a more serious story about the changing condition of Antarctica’s glaciers.

NASA Satellite Images Reveal Antarctica’s Icy Skull

NASA satellite images show the island during the beginning of Antarctic autumn and during spring. The images were captured by the OLI (Operational Land Imager) aboard Landsat 9 on March 22, 2025, and October 10, 2026, respectively. (Clouds obscured the island in March 2026.)

Several natural landmarks create the skull’s distinctive appearance. A nunatak, which is a rocky peak rising above the surrounding ice, resembles an empty eye socket. A lateral moraine, a ridge of material left along the side of a glacier, outlines the mouth. Meanwhile, Bahía del Diablo (Devil’s Bay) Glacier forms what looks like the skull’s lower jaw.

The two satellite views also reveal a striking difference in snow coverage. In March 2025, snow blanketed the icy terrain, consistent with March being the wettest month in the region. By October 2026, however, extensive sections of the island were free of snow, leaving darker glacier ice exposed.

Glaciologist Mauri Pelto of Nichols College explained that unusually warm conditions during the winter of 2026, especially in June, contributed to the unusually large areas of exposed ice observed in October. According to Pelto, the exposed surfaces on Vega Island and neighboring islands suggest that relatively little fresh snow accumulated over the winter. Some of that snow was also lost through sublimation, when ice turns directly into water vapor, and through strong winds that swept snow away.

“The winter season was no treat for these glaciers.”

Why Exposed Ice Could Accelerate Glacier Melting

The lack of snow could have important consequences as Antarctica moves into its warmer months. Fresh snow reflects much of the sunlight that reaches it, while darker, exposed ice absorbs more solar energy. As daylight increases and temperatures rise, these darker surfaces are likely to warm more quickly, potentially speeding up glacier melting.

Even a modest amount of new snowfall could temporarily slow that process by covering the exposed ice.

“Even a thin cover of new snow from a spring storm would be helpful in the short run,” Pelto said.

Continued melting could also gradually transform the island’s unsettling appearance. The same ice and rock formations that give Vega Island its skull shape are vulnerable to changes as the glaciers retreat.

“When entombed in snow and ice, the skull is preserved. But when exposed to melt, it weathers away, which will lead to a changing jawline and expanding eye socket.”

Decades of Glacier Loss on Vega Island

Scientists have been studying Vega Island’s glaciers for decades, and satellite observations have played an important role in documenting their condition.

One of the earliest detailed surveys appeared in a 1982 study that used early Landsat satellite data, aerial photography, and topographic maps to examine the island’s ice cover. Researchers identified four ice caps, along with rocky cliffs extending above the ice and glaciers flowing outward from the ice caps. Altogether, they documented 29 glaciers across Vega Island.

One of these, Devil’s Bay Glacier, has been monitored in detail since the Antarctic summer of 1998-1999. Measurements collected over that period show an overall reduction in the glacier’s mass.

The changes are not limited to Devil’s Bay Glacier. Satellite observations spanning recent decades reveal that other glaciers on Vega Island have also lost ice, exposing increasing amounts of the underlying bedrock.

Vega Island’s Remarkable Antarctic Survival Story

Long before satellites began monitoring its ice, Vega Island played an unexpected role in one of Antarctica’s dramatic early exploration stories.

The Swedish Antarctic Expedition of 1901-1903 traveled to the region to investigate the geography, geology, climate, and wildlife of the eastern Antarctic Peninsula and surrounding areas. What began as a scientific mission turned into a desperate struggle for survival.

During the expedition, the explorers became separated into three groups, each forced to endure the Antarctic winter in a different location. Their situation became even more dangerous when pack ice destroyed their ship, leaving them stranded in one of the world’s most unforgiving environments.

Despite the ordeal, Vega Island eventually became the setting for a moment of hope. In spring 1903, two of the separated groups reunited at a location later named Cape Well-met, near what now resembles the “forehead” of the island’s giant skull.

Not long afterward, an Argentinean expedition arrived and rescued the survivors, bringing their extraordinary Antarctic ordeal to an end.

Today, Vega Island remains a place where dramatic natural formations, a remarkable history of exploration, and the effects of a changing climate come together. Its ghostly skull may be one of Antarctica’s most unusual sights, but the gradual transformation of the ice that shapes it tells an even more important story.

NASA Earth Observatory images by Lauren Dauphin, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey.