Space

Mar 3rd, 2026 - Follow Earth on Google Could a frozen moon hide a boiling ocean under its icy skin? That idea may sound like science fiction, but new research shows it could be real. Many moons that orbit the outer planets look cold and lifeless. Thick ice covers their surfaces. However, deep below that frozen layer, liquid water may exist. Since water is essential for life, scientists see these moons as exciting places to explore. A recent study published in Nature Astronomy takes a closer look at what ... [Read More]

Mar 3rd, 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 3rd, 2026 - Follow Earth on Google Astronomers have produced the largest image ever made of the Milky Way's core, revealing a dense web of cold gas filaments intertwined around the galaxy's central black hole.  The map transforms a once-blurred region into a detailed record of the raw material that fuels star birth under the most extreme conditions in our galaxy . A mosaic of filaments In the newly assembled mosaic, long strands of cold gas weave through the Milky Way's center in tightly packed, ... [Read More]

Mar 3rd, 2026 - A record-shattering quadruple star system is hiding in the Cygnus constellation. Astronomers have just identified a rare cosmic "huddle" of stars. We're talking three stars, each more massive and hotter than our Sun, packed into a space smaller than the orbit of Mercury. To top it off, there's a fourth Sun-like star circling that entire trio closer than Jupiter sits to our own Sun. Meet TIC 120362137, the most compact 3+1 quadruple star system ever discovered. A Tight-Knit Family Most stellar ... [Read More]

Mar 3rd, 2026 - Life forms can planet hop on asteroid debris—and survive Johns Hopkins study shows major impacts could transport life between planets Tiny life forms tucked into debris from an asteroid hit could catapult to other planets—including Earth—and survive, a new Johns Hopkins University study finds. The work demonstrates that a certain hardy bacterium easily withstands extreme pressure comparable to an ejection from Mars after an asteroid hit, as well as the inhospitable conditions ... [Read More]

Mar 2nd, 2026 - Whether or not galaxies merge depends on how strong the gravitational attraction is between the galaxies and whether the universe's expansion is more powerful than gravity. Gravity affects everything in the universe. The Milky Way Galaxy is gravitationally pulling on NGC 3370, nearly 100 million light-years away. The catch, however, is that the gravitational attraction between the Milky Way and NGC 3370 is so tiny that the universe's expansion can overcome it. Over small scales, the force of ... [Read More]

Mar 2nd, 2026 - Follow Earth on Google A star can burn for millions of years and still manage one final surprise. In this case, that surprise arrived as a sudden flash of light from a nearby galaxy, even though the blast itself happened millions of years ago. Space is huge, and light takes its time getting anywhere. That delay is the whole trick. The star blew up roughly 40 million years ago, but the light only reached Earth on June 29, 2025. When the light arrived, sky surveys caught it fast, and astronomers ... [Read More]

Mar 2nd, 2026 - Smart underwear measures farts, brain cells play Doom , and AI discovers rules of an ancient game. It's a regrettable reality that there is never enough time to cover all the interesting scientific stories we come across each month. So every month, we highlight a handful of the best stories that nearly slipped through the cracks. February's list includes the revival of a forgotten battery design by Thomas Edison that could be ideal for renewable energy storage; a snap-on device to turn those ... [Read More]

Mar 2nd, 2026 - On March 2, 2004, the Rosetta-Philae spacecraft launched from French Guiana, with the goal of rendezvousing with a comet to learn more about the early solar system. The European Space Agency mission would need 10 years, three gravity assist flybys of Earth , and one gravity assist from Mars to get the spacecraft to its target. But in August 2014, Rosetta successfully slipped into orbit around Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko and, a few months later, deployed the Philae lander to its surface. ... [Read More]

Mar 1st, 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]

Feb 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 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]

Feb 27th, 2026 - Reading time 2 minutes Interstellar visitor comet 3I/Atlas may have bid farewell to Earth, but spacecraft traveling through the solar system kept a close watch on the mysterious traveler. The European Space Agency's (ESA) Jupiter mission caught a glimpse of the comet shortly after it whizzed past the Sun. JUpiter ICy moons Explorer, or JUICE for short, captured images of comet 3I/Atlas in spectacular detail, revealing hints of jets, rays, filaments, and streams. The spacecraft directed five of ... [Read More]

Feb 27th, 2026 - Sky This Week is brought to you in part by Celestron. Friday, February 27 Asteroid 7 Iris reaches opposition at 1 P.M. EST today. Now shining at 9th magnitude, you can best spot the main-belt world after dark, rising higher in the hours after sunset.  By 10 P.M. local time, Iris is 40° high in the southeast, located in the constellation Sextans. Even a small scope under suburban light pollution can pick it up, tonight less than a degree northwest of 5th-magnitude Beta (β) ... [Read More]

Feb 27th, 2026 - Jupiter, Saturn, Venus, Mercury, Neptune and Uranus will all be visible at same time in curved line across sky Six planets will parade across the sky this weekend in a rare celestial spectacle, experts have said. For the next few days, Jupiter, Saturn, Venus, Mercury, Neptune and Uranus will all be visible at the same time in the night sky – although binoculars or a telescope will be needed to spot the latter two planets. In celebration of the event, Nasa has released new sonifications ... [Read More]

Feb 27th, 2026 - How far are we from finding exomoons and exorings? If you examine our solar system's giant planets, you'll notice right away that they've all got moons—a lot of moons. While Earth only has the one, Jupiter has about 100 that we know of (and likely hundreds more, depending on what you define as a "moon," that is ). Saturn has almost 275! Many of these moons are huge; Saturn's Titan and Jupiter's Ganymede are both about the size of Mercury, and if they orbited the sun on their own, we'd be ... [Read More]

Feb 27th, 2026 - Follow Earth on Google Astronomers say that 3I/ATLAS, a comet that entered our solar system from interstellar space, is not sending out any radio signals that would suggest it is an alien spacecraft. That finding pushes back against speculation that the object could be artificial and sets a clear standard for how scientists will examine the next visitor from beyond our solar system. A comet under scrutiny On December 18, 2025, the Green Bank Telescope ( GBT ) tracked 3I/ATLAS for a directed ... [Read More]