Space

Jan 29th, 2026 - The famous "Eye of God" shows how dying stars reshape matter—and hint at our Sun's fate. A nebula is a distinct luminescent part of the interstellar environment, and as far as these features go, the Helix Nebula is one of the most famous ones. It's been closely studied by astronomers because it's relatively close to our solar system and it can help us learn how stars like the Sun shed their outer layers at the end of their lives; space fans love it because it's visually stunning. Now, new ... [Read More]

Jan 29th, 2026 - Voyager 1 keeps moving farther from Earth than any human-made object. Launched in 1977, it flew by Jupiter and Saturn, sending back images and information that changed our understanding of the outer planets. It left the asteroid belt early and overtook its twin, Voyager 2, on its way out. The probe crossed into interstellar space in 2012, entering a region with material like long-dead suns. Voyager 2 followed in 2018. Both spacecraft are still sending data through the Deep Space Network, though ... [Read More]

Jan 29th, 2026 - New models suggest many planets once dismissed as barren may still hold liquid water. Life as we know it needs liquid water. For liquid water to exist on a given planet, it has to lie in a specific region called the "habitable zone" or "Goldilocks zone". This zone is estimated using the star's size and the distance between the planet and the star. But maybe we were wrong. In research published this month in The Astrophysical Journal , the astrophysicist Amri Wandel of the Hebrew University of ... [Read More]

Jan 29th, 2026 - The Earth-size planet HD 137010 b has a '50% chance of residing in the habitable zone' of its sun-like star, scientists say Astronomers have discovered a potentially habitable new planet about 146 light-years away which is Earth-sized and has conditions similar to Mars. The candidate planet, named HD 137010 b, orbits a sun-like star and is estimated to be 6% larger than Earth. An international team of scientists in Australia, the UK, the US and Denmark identified the planet using data captured ... [Read More]

Jan 29th, 2026 - Follow Earth on Google Earth's atmosphere may feel permanent, but it is slowly leaking into space. New research suggests some of that lost air does not disappear. Instead, it drifts outward and settles onto the Moon, quietly accumulating in lunar soil over billions of years. That process matters for both science and exploration. The Moon may preserve a chemical record of Earth's ancient atmosphere, and those same materials could one day support future lunar missions. Using computer simulations, ... [Read More]

Jan 29th, 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 Newsletter Subscribe to our newsletter An artificial intelligence (AI) tool has uncovered more than 1,000 strange cosmic objects in the Hubble Space Telescope 's image archive, including ... [Read More]

Jan 29th, 2026 - During cocoon phase, young, supermassive black holes are surrounded by high-density gas. When the James Webb Space Telescope sent its first high-definition infrared images back to Earth, astronomers noticed several tiny, glowing, crimson stains. These objects, quickly named "Little Red Dots," were too bright to be normal galaxies, and too red to be simple star clusters. They appeared to house supermassive black holes that were far more massive than they had any right to be. But now a new study ... [Read More]

Jan 29th, 2026 - From degeneracy to galactic archaeology, white dwarfs are helping scientists make sense of some of the universe's burning mysteries. White dwarfs are the final stop for stars that aren't massive enough to go out in a supernova . Think of them as the retirement phase for the vast majority of stars in our universe. When a star consumes its fuel, it doesn't just vanish; it leaves behind a dense, white-hot core. Essentially, a white dwarf is the dense, hot core left behind after a star has ... [Read More]

Jan 29th, 2026 - Reading time 3 minutes The Webb space telescope has allowed us to peer farther back into the universe than ever before, providing a rare glimpse of the cosmos a mere 280 million years after its very existence began. Using Webb's Near-Infrared Spectrograph, scientists have confirmed a new cosmic record of the most distant galaxy ever observed. Galaxy MoM-z14 existed just 280 million years after the big bang, providing clues to what the universe was like during its infancy and how it has evolved ... [Read More]

Jan 28th, 2026 - Massive stars have an outsized influence on their environment and the galaxies they call home. These behemoths have the highest surface temperatures of any normal stars, so they emit copious amounts of ultraviolet radiation that ionizes their surroundings. They also possess fierce stellar winds that help shape their gaseous environs. But these monster suns also burn through their nuclear fuels rapidly, so they don't live long and thus are exceedingly rare. It's no wonder astronomers were eager ... [Read More]

Jan 28th, 2026 - Reading time 2 minutes , one of Jupiter's 95 moons, is encased in a shell of water ice, and researchers have just re-estimated its thickness. In 2022, NASA's Juno spacecraft zoomed close to the moon's surface. Information from this flyby has led researchers to conclude that, in the area where the flyby collected data, the moon's layer of ice is on average around 18 miles thick (29 kilometers). The new measurement, along with other new information about certain ice features, could inform our ... [Read More]

Jan 28th, 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 Newsletter Subscribe to our newsletter The complex precursors to biological molecules can form spontaneously in interstellar space, according to a lab experiment that opens up new ... [Read More]

Jan 28th, 2026 - Imagine: You lost your car's cargo rack, but didn't notice until you reached your destination. If you're in the space business long enough, you learn there are numerous ways a rocket can fail. I've written my share of stories about misbehaving rockets and the extensive investigations that usually — but not always — reveal what went wrong. But I never expected to write this story. Maybe this was a failure of my own imagination. I'm used to writing about engine malfunctions, staging ... [Read More]

Jan 28th, 2026 - Reading time 3 minutes Jupiter's moon Io is covered in hundreds of volcanoes, which spew fountains of lava that constantly refill impact craters on its surface with scorching molten lakes. A recent discovery of extreme volcanic activity on the Jovian moon tops any eruption previously detected on Io, proving that this chaotic world knows no bounds. NASA's Juno mission detected a volcanic hot spot in the southern hemisphere of Jupiter's moon, marking the most energetic eruption ever detected on ... [Read More]

Jan 28th, 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 Newsletter Subscribe to our newsletter A giant cloud of vaporized metal may be hiding a secret planet or second alien sun in a nearby star system, a new study reveals. The mysterious ... [Read More]

Jan 26th, 2026 - This new map is not only the most detailed view of the universe's invisible scaffolding to date, it also allows astronomers to look deeper into cosmic history. Reading time 3 minutes —the invisible scaffolding thought to hold galaxies together—is arguably the most elusive substance in the universe. Nearly a century of research hasn't yet led to a confirmed direct detection , but scientists have learned to observe it indirectly . Now, one team has used those observations to produce ... [Read More]