Space

Nov 28th, 2025 - The only major difference between the sun and the stars we see at night is that the sun happens to be close to us—which is advantageous, assuming you enjoy being alive. Astronomers enjoy this as well but have another reason for rejoicing in the sun's proximity: this allows us to see it as a disk. The sun is, of course, three-dimensional. But from a distance, we see it as a filled circle in the sky, and that means we can study its surface in some detail, revealing its sunspots, faculae, ... [Read More]

Nov 28th, 2025 - Scientists have caught Mars's atmosphere crackling with static, uncovering evidence of miniature lightning in its dust storms. When a dust devil passed over NASA's Perseverance rover in 2021, scientists expected to hear the hiss of sand and the rush of Martian wind. Instead, they caught a faint pop. They now believe this is the sound of electricity discharging in Mars's thin air. "This is like mini-lightning on Mars," said Baptiste Chide of the Research Institute in Astrophysics and Planetary ... [Read More]

Nov 28th, 2025 - Sky This Week is brought to you in part by Celestron. Friday, November 28 First Quarter Moon occurs at 1:59 A.M. EST. While Luna is not visible in the morning, our satellite will grace the evening sky, hanging near Saturn as the planet comes to a stationary point at 8 P.M. EST. Both are located in Aquarius, high in the south a few hours after sunset. First-magnitude Saturn is the brightest light in this region of the sky and should be readily visible to the naked eye, even with the waxing Moon ... [Read More]

Nov 28th, 2025 - NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has captured a remarkable new image of Apep, a rare triple star system where shells of dust are expanding outward in spectacular fashion. About 8,000 light-years away in the Southern Hemisphere constellation Norma, Apep is named after the ancient Egyptian serpent god of chaos. The messy star system comprises stars orbiting each other and a third, more massive supergiant star, orbiting them both. 'Wolf' Stars Explained It gets weirder. The two stars orbiting ... [Read More]

Nov 28th, 2025 - Follow Earth on Google Some of the smallest moons in the outer solar system may hide water that behaves in a very strange way, far from the Sun. New research suggests that on worlds like Saturn's moon Mimas, parts of the buried ocean can actually start to boil under miles of ice. This boiling does not come from a hot surface at all. It comes from how the ice shell slowly grows thinner over time and changes the pressure on the water below. Boiling water inside icy moons Many outer moons have a ... [Read More]

Nov 27th, 2025 - On Nov. 27, 2001, NASA announced the first detection of an exoplanet atmosphere. Using the Hubble Space Telescope's spectrometer, astronomers observed HD 209458b , orbiting a 7th-magnitude, Sun-like star 150 light-years away in Pegasus. The researchers were able to detect sodium in the exoplanet's atmosphere – though it was less sodium than models had predicted for a planet of that class, a hot Jupiter. (Some theories suggest that high-altitude clouds in the atmosphere affected the ... [Read More]

Nov 27th, 2025 - It's quick and easy to access Live Science Plus, simply enter your email below. We'll send you a confirmation and sign you up for our daily newsletter, keeping you up to date with the latest science news. We know of three interstellar objects (ISO) that have visited our inner solar system . Oumuamua was the first one, and it came and went in 2017. 2l/Borisov , an interstellar comet, was next, appearing in 2019. And right now, the interstellar comet 3I/Atlas is enjoying a visit to the Sun-warmed ... [Read More]

Nov 27th, 2025 - 6 min read Tryptophan, the essential amino acid behind the Thanksgiving myth that eating turkey can make you sleepy, has been found to exist on Bennu, a small asteroid that swings by our planet about every six years. The discovery stems from an unprecedented sample collected by NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission, which landed a spacecraft on the asteroid in 2020, captured 4.3 ounces (121.6 grams) of rocks and dust, and safely returned the cache to Earth in 2023. NASA has since distributed a small ... [Read More]

Nov 26th, 2025 - For nearly a century, astronomers have been convinced that most of the universe is made of something we can't see. This invisible "stuff" seems to glue galaxies together and shape the cosmos, yet it doesn't shine, reflect, or block light. Now, fresh analysis of data from a NASA space telescope suggests we may have caught our first real glimpse of it, not directly, but through a very specific kind of high-energy light coming from the heart of our own Milky Way. If this result holds up, it could ... [Read More]

Nov 26th, 2025 - Scientists trace the moon's parent planet to the inner solar system. About 4.5 billion years ago, Earth had a violent neighbor. A young, still-forming planet named Theia slammed into our world with enough force to melt vast portions of its mantle and scatter a huge amount of debris into orbit. This molten debris would eventually coalesce into the Moon we know today. Theia itself didn't survive the impact, but new evidence suggests that it wasn't some distant wanderer from the outer solar ... [Read More]

Nov 26th, 2025 - The Gemini South telescope in Chile captured this stunning view of NGC 6302, highlighting the nebula's intricate structure and dynamic gas flows. Reading time 2 minutes This newly released image from the Gemini South telescope captures a well-known planetary nebula—a massive star fizzling out at the end of its life. These celestial displays often take on a circular or globular shape, but NGC 6302, as it's formally known, bears a distinct resemblance to a butterfly. And what a beautiful ... [Read More]

Nov 25th, 2025 - It's quick and easy to access Live Science Plus, simply enter your email below. We'll send you a confirmation and sign you up for our daily newsletter, keeping you up to date with the latest science news. In space, death can be a beautiful thing. That's certainly the case for the recently deceased "other" comet ATLAS, which is slowly breaking apart after meeting its explosive end earlier this month, stunning new images reveal. C/2025 K1 (ATLAS) is a comet originating from the Oort Cloud beyond ... [Read More]

Nov 25th, 2025 - Scientists working with the James Webb Space Telescope discovered three unusual astronomical objects in early 2025, which may be examples of dark stars . The concept of dark stars has existed for some time and could alter scientists' understanding of how ordinary stars form. However, their name is somewhat misleading. "Dark stars" is one of those unfortunate names that, on the surface, does not accurately describe the objects it represents. Dark stars are not exactly stars, and they are ... [Read More]

Nov 25th, 2025 - It's quick and easy to access Live Science Plus, simply enter your email below. We'll send you a confirmation and sign you up for our daily newsletter, keeping you up to date with the latest science news. Astronomers have observed a pair of stars locked in a death spiral, and their dance of doom is revealing more about how gravity works. The system, called ZTF J2130, sits about 4,000 light-years away. Although astronomers have known about this system for a while, this is the first time they ... [Read More]

Nov 25th, 2025 - black hole with gravitational lens effect in front of bright stars. 3d illustration, Elements of this image are furnished by NASA Perched on the very outer fringes of our solar system, a Solar Gravitational Lens (SGL) telescope, sometimes dubbed a Curved Space Telescope, would use the gravity of our own Sun to obtain extraordinary optical images at a focal point some 650 Earth-Sun distances (astronomical units) away. From this vantage point, such a telescope (or telescopes) could, in theory, ... [Read More]

Nov 24th, 2025 - It's quick and easy to access Live Science Plus, simply enter your email below. We'll send you a confirmation and sign you up for our daily newsletter, keeping you up to date with the latest science news. Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope ( JWST ) may have discovered the most distant supermassive black hole ever seen. The enormous object, hosted by the galaxy GHZ2, is so far away that astronomers see it as it was just 350 million years after the Big Bang. The team's research, ... [Read More]