Space

Mar 23rd, 2026 - Follow Earth on Google A new study has found that Dyson spheres – vast structures built to surround a star and capture its energy – do not always have to drift apart or collapse into their suns. That result reshapes the search for extraterrestrial life by clarifying which large-scale artificial signals could persist long enough to be seen across space. Why stability matters In the new study, the distinction is simple: uniform structures drift, but weighted or crowded ones can pull ... [Read More]

Mar 23rd, 2026 - CLEVELAND, Ohio – NASA's Artemis II rocket made its way back to the launch pad last week at the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida, in preparation for an early April liftoff. The mission, aided by the NASA Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, has been delayed twice this year. The first time was for a hydrogen leak. The second delay resulted from a helium flow problem, after which NASA removed the rocket from the launch pad and returned it to the Vehicle Assembly Building. On ... [Read More]

Mar 23rd, 2026 - As black holes feed, they pull material into a disk around them. The material orbiting in this disk gets heated to extreme temperatures, and so it becomes a plasma — a state of matter in which some of the electrons are separated from their atoms. This creates ions, or atoms that become charged because the number of electrons and protons are no longer the same. So, there are both positively charged ions and negatively charged electrons in this plasma. As these charged particles move, they ... [Read More]

Mar 23rd, 2026 - "We can't quite afford to support everything that we have done in the past." Jupiter's colossal storms generate lightning flashes at least 100 times more powerful than those on Earth, according to scientists analyzing data from NASA's Juno spacecraft. The findings were published March 20 in the journal AGU Advances.  Researchers used data recorded by Juno in 2021 and 2022, after NASA granted an extension to the spacecraft's operations upon completing a five-year science campaign at ... [Read More]

Mar 22nd, 2026 - Follow Earth on Google The Hubble Space Telescope, the most celebrated observatory in history, turns 36 years old next month. Last year, to mark its 35th birthday, NASA released a fresh gallery of images spanning our solar system and well beyond – from Mars's ruddy surface to star-forming nebulae and a neighboring galaxy. The new portraits serve not only as a birthday gift to the public, but also as a vivid reminder of how profoundly Hubble has transformed modern astronomy and popular ... [Read More]

Mar 22nd, 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 21st, 2026 - Follow Earth on Google Bennu, a near-Earth asteroid, had been studied for years using powerful telescopes. From a distance, it seemed fairly simple. Researchers expected a mix of rocks and smoother areas, maybe even patches of loose sand. That expectation didn't last long. When NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft arrived at Bennu in 2018, the surface told a very different story. Instead of smooth, easy-to-sample terrain, the asteroid looked rough and chaotic. Huge boulders covered nearly every inch. ... [Read More]

Mar 20th, 2026 - There may be a river delta hidden under the obvious delta in a Martian crater. When NASA's Perseverance rover landed in Jezero Crater in 2021, its primary mission was to scour the remnants of a dried-up Martian lakebed for signs of ancient life. Scientists have been focused on the crater's spectacular Western Delta, a fan-shaped geologic feature deposited by a river flowing into the basin billions of years ago. But now Perseverance's ground-penetrating radar (called RIMFAX) detected what is ... [Read More]

Mar 20th, 2026 - Sky This Week is brought to you in part by Celestron. Friday, March 20 The vernal equinox occurs at 10:46 A.M. EDT, bringing astronomical spring to the Northern Hemisphere as the Sun stands directly over Earth's equator. On this day, the Sun also sits at the celestial equator as its path takes it from south to north of this invisible line. Meteorological spring, which is measured differently, began March 1. The equinox is well known as the date when night and day are equal lengths. But you may ... [Read More]

Mar 20th, 2026 - Reading time 3 minutes A pair of spacecraft has been flying in formation, creating an artificial solar eclipse to help scientists probe the elusive outermost part of the Sun's atmosphere. For the past month, however, one of the spacecraft has been silent after suffering an in-flight anomaly, leaving its partner hanging. But now, the probe has finally phoned home and may be ready to resume operations soon. The European Space Agency's (ESA) Proba-3 mission recently reestablished connection with ... [Read More]

Mar 20th, 2026 - Astronomers have found a 710-metre-wide asteroid that spins once every 1.9 minutes, so fast that it should have spun itself apart The Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile has spotted the fastest-rotating large asteroid ever seen. Despite measuring more than half a kilometre across, this asteroid spins about once every 1.9 minutes – a speed once thought to be impossible. Dmitrii Vavilov at the University of Washington in Seattle and his colleagues found this asteroid, along with several ... [Read More]

Mar 20th, 2026 - It's "common knowledge"—and the scare quotes should be a warning—that the sun is an average star. But it's not, and in fact it's not even close: The sun is in the top 90th percentile of stars by mass. That's because well more than half of the universe's stars are tiny, cool red dwarfs, dim bulbs with half to less than 10 percent of the sun's mass. The lower limit is around 7 to 8 percent of the sun's mass; any less than that, and there isn't enough pressure in the core to sustain ... [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 - 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]