Space

Mar 19th, 2026 - Reading time 3 minutes In November 2025, a comet began disintegrating into pieces after a heated close encounter with the Sun. In a twist of fate, the Hubble space telescope happened to be observing the comet as it broke apart, capturing its demise in a series of images. "Sometimes the best science happens by accident," John Noonan, a research professor in the Department of Physics at Auburn University in Alabama and co-investigator of the event, said in a statement . "This comet got observed ... [Read More]

Mar 19th, 2026 - 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. Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Pinterest Flipboard Join the conversation Add us as a preferred source on Google Get the Live Science Newsletter Get the world's most fascinating discoveries delivered straight to your inbox. By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and ... [Read More]

Mar 19th, 2026 - Reading time 3 minutes In humanity's search for life beyond Earth, astronomers have identified more than 6,000 planets that lie outside the solar system. From that long list of worlds of different shapes and sizes, a team of researchers has come up with a list of potential candidates most likely to host alien life. A new study published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society lists 45 rocky worlds that orbit within a habitable zone, making them more likely to have an essential ... [Read More]

Mar 19th, 2026 - 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 detected strange "wobbles" in the light curve of a super bright supernova, hinting that a magnetar was born inside the extreme stellar explosion. Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Pinterest Flipboard Join the conversation Add us as a preferred source on Google Get the Live Science ... [Read More]

Mar 19th, 2026 - Follow Earth on Google Far beyond our solar system, there's a planet that refuses to play by the rules. It's huge, almost the size of Saturn, but strangely light. Scientists sometimes compare these kinds of worlds to cotton candy because they seem puffed up and airy instead of dense and solid. Now, new observations suggest that this already puzzling planet is hiding even more secrets. A thick blanket of haze surrounds it, making it hard to tell what it's made of or how it even formed in the ... [Read More]

Mar 18th, 2026 - When Apollo 11 astronauts returned to Earth after accomplishing history's first-ever crewed moon landing, they brought back nearly 50 pounds of moon dust and rocks. Researchers who initially analyzed the material's parched composition came to an important (and flawed) conclusion: the moon was bone dry. Undeterred, in all the decades since, some scientists kept up the search for lunar water , ultimately finding traces of it in samples returned by other moon missions. Hints of a potentially ... [Read More]

Mar 18th, 2026 - The Earth is under assault. Space rocks are constantly hurtling toward us, slamming into the atmosphere and often exploding into fireballs that both delight and alarm. Thankfully, the vast majority cause no damage because they are pulverized into dust or small chunks by the journey to Earth. A fireball streaked across the sky near Cleveland this week , caused by what was thought to be a space rock nearly 6 feet (1.8 meters) across and weighing 7 tons. It was seen from Wisconsin to Maryland, ... [Read More]

Mar 18th, 2026 - The latest evidence that Mars was once a warmer, wetter world comes from a surprising place—the hidden subsurface depths of Jezero Crater—rather than its surface, which NASA's Perseverance rover has explored for the past five years. The site of a vast, dried-up lake, Jezero also hosts ancient river deltas. Laid down by flowing water as early as 3.7 billion years ago, these deltas are so sprawling that they can be seen from orbit. Now, however, Perseverance's ground-penetrating radar ... [Read More]

Mar 17th, 2026 - Follow Earth on Google When a black hole and a neutron star spiral toward collision, theory predicts that their orbit should become almost perfectly circular before the final impact. Gravitational waves steadily drain energy from the system, tightening the orbit and smoothing out any stretched shape along the way. By the time the objects finally merge, astronomers usually expect to see a clean circular path. But one recent event broke that pattern. In the gravitational-wave signal GW200105, ... [Read More]

Mar 17th, 2026 - This giant space explosion lasted 1000 times longer than normal and researchers are racing to find out why. Gamma-ray bursts are the universe's ultimate flash in the pan. In a fraction of a second, they can violently release more energy than our Sun will emit over its entire ten-billion-year lifespan. Normally, these extreme flashes vanish almost as soon as they appear. They are one-and-done events. But on July 2, 2025, the cosmos delivered something that completely shattered our expectations. ... [Read More]

Mar 17th, 2026 - The levels of a heavy form of hydrogen in 3I/ATLAS are 30 to 40 times higher than in Earth's oceans, suggesting the comet has a cold and distant origin The interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS contains water and carbon molecules at levels never before seen in our solar system. This suggests that it formed around an alien star radically different from and much older than the sun. Astronomers have been tracking 3I/ATLAS since it entered our solar system last year – and it is weird. It appears to be ... [Read More]

Mar 16th, 2026 - One of the longest-standing techniques in humanity's search for life beyond Earth may be causing scientists to miss alien signals entirely, a new study finds. Since the very beginnings of the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI), narrowband radio signals have been the focus of these searches. Narrowband radio signals are considered ideal technosignatures — signs of technology that could indicate intelligent life — because they travel long distances, require low power, and ... [Read More]

Mar 16th, 2026 - A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com NASA 's DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) spacecraft intentionally crashed into a small asteroid called Dimorphos in September 2022. The goal of the mission was to "prove that if a killer space rock ever threatened Earth in the future, humans could deflect it," said The New York Times . The hit was quite the success, altering not only the orbit of Dimorphos around a larger asteroid, ... [Read More]

Mar 15th, 2026 - Follow Earth on Google Scientists using the Rubin Observatory as a sky-monitoring system report detecting about 800,000 distinct changes across the night sky in a single observation period. The discovery reveals how much of the universe is constantly flashing, brightening, or moving in ways that were previously too brief or faint to notice. Rubin as a night sky monitor High above the Andes on Cerro Pachon in northern Chile, a survey telescope has begun capturing the night sky as a continuous ... [Read More]

Mar 15th, 2026 - 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. Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Pinterest Flipboard Join the conversation Add us as a preferred source on Google Get the Live Science Newsletter Get the world's most fascinating discoveries delivered straight to your inbox. By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and ... [Read More]

Mar 15th, 2026 - Follow Earth on Google Scientists have identified evidence that the Sun migrated outward through the Milky Way as part of a large-scale movement of similar stars about 4 to 6 billion years ago.  The finding recasts the Sun's current position as the outcome of a broader galactic migration rather than a solitary journey through space. A large migration of stars Across a vast population of Sun-like stars in our region of the Milky Way, astronomers detected an unusually strong concentration of ... [Read More]