Space

Nov 14th, 2025 - The speed and direction of our solar system through the universe may defy current cosmological models. Our solar system is speeding through space much faster than previously thought, challenging the fundamental assumptions that have long shaped our understanding of the cosmos. That's according to physicists led by Lukas Böhme at Bielefeld University, whose findings suggest that the solar system's velocity is more than three times greater than what current models predict. Specifically, it's ... [Read More]

Nov 14th, 2025 - Astronomy can be a difficult topic for newcomers. Like any scientific field, it has its own jargon and buzzwords—and terms with meanings that can be not only odd but downright counterintuitive. The most obvious one is astronomers' use of the word metal to mean any element heavier than helium. Lithium? Metal. Oxygen? Metal. Carbon? That's a metal, too, as far as astronomy is concerned. Using a single term to cover these heavier-than-helium elements makes some sense because the universe is ... [Read More]

Nov 14th, 2025 - A galaxy in a practically empty area of the universe seems to be impossibly forming stars, and new observations have only deepened the puzzle About 12 million light years away lies an impossible galaxy. Over the last 600 million years, its core has been forming new stars – but there is no apparent source for the fuel that has fed that star formation. This galaxy, called NGC 6789, was first discovered in 1883, but it wasn't until the last few decades that it became clear it was still ... [Read More]

Nov 14th, 2025 - Sky This Week is brought to you in part by Celestron. Friday, November 14 Auriga the Charioteer rides high in the sky tonight, reaching an altitude of 70° above the eastern horizon by local midnight. Several bright deep-sky objects call Auriga home, such as open clusters M36, M37, and M38.  Highest in the sky this evening is magnitude 7.4 M38, which lies just under 1.5° north of magnitude 5.1 Phi (φ) Aurigae. Spanning 21' on the sky, this loose cluster contains many ... [Read More]

Nov 14th, 2025 - Follow Earth on Google A team of researchers has uncovered a remarkably intact impact structure that is now known as the Jinlin crater. The crater is tucked into a granite hillside near Zhaoqing in Guangdong Province. The finding stands out not just for its pristine condition, but for its timing. The crater likely formed in the early-to-mid Holocene – the same geological epoch we're in now, which began roughly 11,700 years ago. With a rim-to-rim span of about 2,953 feet (900 meters), ... [Read More]

Nov 13th, 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. Millions of mysterious black streaks littered across the surface of Mars have puzzled scientists for decades, but now researchers may finally have a proper explanation. The new theory also explains why it has taken so long to solve this particular problem. Martian "slope streaks" are dark ... [Read More]

Nov 13th, 2025 - Tracking winds across Mars' surface and their association with dust storms. Mars is cold, parched, and extremely dusty. Powerful gusts of wind kick up literal tons of reddish dust that often takes the form of whorls known as dust devils. These winds also shroud the planet in dust by lifting material from the surface and blowing it into the atmosphere (what little Mars has left of an atmosphere), sometimes creating dust storms that rage for days. Researcher Valentin Bickel wanted to know just ... [Read More]

Nov 13th, 2025 - Follow Earth on Google Astronomers have spotted heavy water in the planet-forming disk around the young star V883 Orionis, about 1,300 light years away. The find shows that some water formed before the star was born. It likely survived the chaotic steps that build planets. The signal comes from doubly deuterated water, a version of H2O that carries two heavy hydrogen atoms. It is the first time this specific molecule has been seen in a planet forming disk. That detail changes the timeline of ... [Read More]

Nov 13th, 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. The "other" Comet ATLAS has fragmented, transforming into a cloud of debris that's streaming into space, new observations have revealed. The comet, called C/2025 K1 (ATLAS) , was discovered in May by astronomers at the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) and passed ... [Read More]

Nov 13th, 2025 - Follow Earth on Google NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is on track to spot about 100,000 cosmic explosions, a single trove large enough to redraw parts of our cosmic timeline. The mission will watch the sky for fast-changing events and use them to test how the universe has stretched since its youth. The telescope's wide view and clockwork cadence will let scientists measure distance and motion for enormous samples of stellar blasts. That scale, not one spectacular target, is the news. ... [Read More]

Nov 13th, 2025 - For the first time, astronomers unveiled the shape of a supernova at its earliest stage. In a first, astronomers were able to capture a supernova in its very first moments. A star 22 million light-years away gave up the ghost and astronomers were able to react fast enough to watch the blast punch through the star's outer layers. In that short window—hours, not days—they measured the newborn supernova's shape. In a surprise to some, it was not a tidy sphere; it looked more like an ... [Read More]

Nov 12th, 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. A powerful blast spotted from a dwarf star was strong enough to strip away the atmosphere of any Earth-like planets that might have been lurking close by, new research suggests. The study, published Wednesday (Nov. 12) in the journal Nature , was the first to confirm a coronal mass ejection ... [Read More]

Nov 12th, 2025 - Reading time 4 minutes When LIGO broke news of an unintelligibly large black hole merger earlier this year, physicists were stunned but trusted they'd find an explanation someday. They probably didn't expect the answer this soon, however. But just as the supposedly impossible merger took place, a possible explanation for it has arrived surprisingly quickly. Astronomers ran different simulations of how a massive star could collapse into black holes that are of a smaller size than ... [Read More]

Nov 12th, 2025 - The European Space Agency's Rosetta mission launched March 2, 2004, on a 4-billion-mile (6.4 billion kilometers) path to Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The mission consisted of the Rosetta orbiter and the Philae lander, both designed for in-depth study of the comet. The spacecraft arrived at 67P/C-G on Aug. 6, 2014, and began orbiting the body a month later; on Nov. 12, 2014, the Philae lander descended to the comet surface. Both the spacecraft orbiting a comet and the landing on the comet's ... [Read More]

Nov 11th, 2025 - Follow Earth on Google Astronomers using the Gemini North telescope in Hawai'i have directly imaged a faint companion hugging the swollen surface of Betelgeuse , the bright red star in Orion's shoulder. The find ends decades of speculation sparked by Betelgeuse's puzzling brightness swings and settles a long standing debate over whether those changes betray the pull of an unseen neighbor. " Gemini North 's ability to obtain high angular resolutions and sharp contrasts allowed the companion of ... [Read More]

Nov 11th, 2025 - Never mind rogue planets—their rogue moons could support life At a young age, we're told how the sun warms Earth and makes life possible. That idea sticks with most of us for life. But when we want to understand things more thoroughly and we dig more deeply, we learn that Earth has its own heat sources that help it maintain habitability: remnant heat and . Other rocky worlds can have these sources, too. A small percentage of us keep going down this rabbit hole in pursuit of more detailed ... [Read More]