Space

Dec 30th, 2025 - Follow Earth on Google Researchers studying galaxies built like the Milky Way found that the same strange chemical pattern can emerge through very different histories. The result helps explain why stars near the Sun split into magnesium-rich and magnesium-poor groups, even when their iron content looks almost the same. Chemistry maps in the Milky Way Chemical fingerprints in long-lived stars preserve early galaxy conditions, because new generations lock in the gas mixture at birth. The work was ... [Read More]

Dec 30th, 2025 - The BepiColombo mission has been on its way to Mercury since 2018 and will finally start orbiting the planet and taking X-ray images in the second half of 2026 We will finally begin to untangle Mercury's mysteries in 2026, as the BepiColombo spacecraft descend into orbit around the solar system's innermost planet. BepiColombo consists of a pair of spacecraft from both the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). The Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO) and ... [Read More]

Dec 30th, 2025 - Reading time 10 minutes There were many impressive moments in spaceflight this year, but if the industry had a slogan, it would be "onwards and upwards." So, as 2025 comes to an end, it's time to shift our focus toward the launches and mission milestones on deck for 2026. Over the next year, space agencies and companies will push the limits of exploration further than ever before. Planned missions include the first launch of the most powerful rocket ever built, a lunar landing, and a crewed ... [Read More]

Dec 30th, 2025 - If you were to ask a group of dedicated amateur astronomers to list their favorite telescopic targets, few if any would mention asteroids. That's easy to understand. The typical asteroid lacks the jaw-dropping visual impact of the Moon or Saturn. Through the eyepiece, an asteroid is an ordinary-looking stellar speck. In fact, the word asteroid comes from the Greek word asteroeides , which means "starlike." My interest in observing asteroids began in the summer of 1971 when I came across ... [Read More]

Dec 30th, 2025 - Follow Earth on Google The Sun does not like to give up its secrets. Its bright surface is easy to see, but the space just above it tells a deeper story. That glowing outer atmosphere, called the corona, can only be seen during solar eclipses – and even then only briefly. What goes on in the corona controls space weather and sends charged particles racing toward Earth. For decades, scientists could only catch quick, uneven looks at this region. Now that has changed in a big way. Creating ... [Read More]

Dec 30th, 2025 - Death is not the end; it is a change of form. This is what stars teach us. Stars usually take anywhere from millions to trillions of years to pass away. Their death is a fascinating process of mass shedding and ash scattering. As they die, they discard clusters of chemical materials from their bodies. The jettisoned ashes spread into space, enriching galaxies with raw material for what could potentially birth a new star, planet, or entire solar system. Ever since scientists began studying ... [Read More]

Dec 29th, 2025 - Follow Earth on Google Astronomers have found a compact new cluster of objects inside the Kuiper belt, which is a distant band of icy bodies at the edge of our solar system beyond Neptune. The cluster sits 4.0 billion miles from the Sun, about 43 astronomical units. The work was led by Amir Siraj, a doctoral student in astrophysics at Princeton University in New Jersey. His research focuses on how outer solar system orbits store clues about planets that moved long ago. In their analysis, the ... [Read More]

Dec 29th, 2025 - Isn't it amazing that astronomy – humanity's oldest science – continues to generate such a delightful amount of new knowledge? Seeing as we've been studying the motion of the stars for a good long while, you'd be forgiven for thinking that, by now, we would be long past the point of saying "Astronomy? Completed it, mate." Fortunately, the Universe is vast and unknowable. However big our telescope mirrors and however sensitive our detectors, there will always be some light that's too ... [Read More]

Dec 28th, 2025 - Follow Earth on Google Astronomers are used to neat, flat disks when they look at young stars. Most planet-forming disks behave themselves. They spin, settle, and build planets over time. A new set of images reveals a disk so large and unruly that it has forced scientists to rethink what a planet nursery can look like. Instead of calm layers of dust and gas, this system looks stirred up, uneven, and restless. Material shoots far above and below the disk, and it does not do so evenly. Dracula's ... [Read More]

Dec 28th, 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. Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Flipboard Join the conversation Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter Subscribe to our newsletter QUICK FACTS What it is: Reflection nebula NGC 1333 and binary star system SVS 13 Where it is: 1,000 light-years away in the constellation Perseus When it was ... [Read More]

Dec 28th, 2025 - Far smaller and closer to the Sun than it should be, Mercury has long baffled astronomers because it defies much of what we know about planet formation. A new space mission arriving in 2026 might solve the mystery. At a cursory glance, Mercury might well be the Solar System's dullest planet. Its barren surface has few notable features, there is no evidence of water in its past and the planet's wispy atmosphere is tenuous at best. The likelihood of life being found amidst its scotched craters is ... [Read More]

Dec 27th, 2025 - Whether it's giant war-mongering spaceships, green humanoid Martians, or creepy beings slithering across uncharted planets, science fiction has painted a very particular image when it comes to aliens. But while you might think it takes a tin-foil-wearing conspiracy theorist to believe in such life outside of Earth, many highly distinguished scientists are believers too. In fact, when surveyed, 86.6 per cent of astrobiologists recently said they either agreed or strongly agreed that ... [Read More]

Dec 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. Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Flipboard Join the conversation Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter Subscribe to our newsletter The sun is the biggest object in the solar system ; at about 865,000 miles (1.4 million kilometers) across , it's more than 100 times wider than Earth. ... [Read More]

Dec 26th, 2025 - As a science communicator, I don't think a week goes by without a press release hitting my inbox informing me of astronomers finding some new record-breaking object. Sometimes it's the smallest planet yet discovered or the most iron-deficient star. But a very common claim is a distance record: the farthest galaxy from Earth ever seen, for example. When it comes to these sorts of record breakers, I have complicated feelings, built over decades of writing about them. Such announcements must be ... [Read More]

Dec 26th, 2025 - Sky This Week is brought to you in part by Celestron. Friday, December 26 The Moon passes 4° north of Saturn at 11 P.M. EST, right as the pair is setting along the U.S. East Coast. It's better to observe them earlier in the evening — they are more than 40° high in the southwest around 7 P.M. local time.  The waxing Moon lies to the upper right of Saturn, sandwiched between the giant planet and the Circlet of Pisces. While the Moon itself is in the constellation Pisces, Saturn ... [Read More]

Dec 26th, 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. From Orion and Taurus to Auriga and Perseus, here are 10 easy sets of stars to find in the Northern Hemisphere's winter night sky. Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Flipboard Join the conversation Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter Subscribe to our newsletter On a clear winter night, ... [Read More]