Space

Nov 17th, 2025 - The first reports of comet 3I/ATLAS were made on July 1, 2025, by the ATLAS (Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System) telescope in Chile. This comet caught the world's attention since it was the third interstellar visitor to the solar system in recorded history. Lately, it's been generating buzz for seeming to accelerate quickly near the sun, emitting a distinctive blue color, leading some to speculate it is an alien spacecraft lighting up its engines. There may be another explanation ... [Read More]

Nov 17th, 2025 - An international team led by researchers from the University of Cologne has solved the mystery of an extraordinary phenomenon known as the "Diamond Ring" in the star-forming region Cygnus X, a huge, ring-shaped structure made of gas and dust that resembles a glowing diamond ring. In similar structures, the formations are not flat but spherical in shape. How this special shape came about was previously unknown. The results have been under the title "The Diamond Ring in Cygnus X: an advanced ... [Read More]

Nov 17th, 2025 - Follow Earth on Google Earth has picked up a new traveling companion – an asteroid named 2025 PN7 that now moves through space in step with us. This tiny quasi moon, only about 62 feet (19 meters) wide, follows an orbit so similar to Earth's that it will linger nearby for nearly six decades, staying with us until around 2083. The discovery comes from sky surveys that scan the same patches of sky each night, searching for faint, slow-moving objects that reveal themselves only through ... [Read More]

Nov 17th, 2025 - History from countries and communities across the globe, including the world's major wars. The stories behind the faiths, food, entertainment and holidays that shape our world. Astronomers call comets "dirty snowballs." These hunks of frozen gas, rock and dust are leftovers from the formation of the solar system 4.6 billion years ago. Billions of comets orbit the Sun in the faraway Kuiper Belt and Oort Cloud, but it's a rare and dazzling treat when a comet passes close enough to Earth to light ... [Read More]

Nov 17th, 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. Scientists from the European Space Agency have significantly narrowed down the trajectory of the interstellar visitor 3I/ATLAS thanks to data from the alien comet's recent flyby of Mars, allowing for more accurate future observations. Researchers have narrowed down the exact route that the ... [Read More]

Nov 17th, 2025 - Follow Earth on Google Astronomers have spotted nickel gas streaming from comet 3I/ATLAS, an interstellar object, a body from outside our solar system, while it was still far from the Sun. In a new study, researchers used the Very Large Telescope in Chile to catch the signal earlier than ever for an interstellar visitor. The same campaign confirmed something else unusual. NASA's Webb telescope found that the comet's gas cloud is unusually rich in carbon dioxide compared with water, a chemical ... [Read More]

Nov 17th, 2025 - New data challenge a foundational idea in cosmology: the accelerating universe. In the late 1990s, two rival teams of astronomers discovered that the universe was expanding faster and faster. It was a stunning conclusion based on the dimming light of distant supernovae . This led to the idea of a mysterious force that counteracts gravity, dubbed dark energy . It was a major breakthrough that reshaped our understanding of cosmology and earned a Nobel Prize in 2011 . But now, a new study from ... [Read More]

Nov 17th, 2025 - Follow Earth on Google Astronomers have been chasing this mystery for decades: Can stars, other than our Sun, shoot off massive eruptions of plasma that could wipe out nearby planets' atmospheres? The answer is now a clear yes. For the first time ever, scientists have caught a coronal mass ejection (CME) exploding off a distant star. A CME is a huge burst of charged material that can speed through space at millions of miles per hour. We know our Sun throws these out all the time. They're what ... [Read More]

Nov 17th, 2025 - A new analysis of old Cassini data has also verified past detections of complex organics in Saturn's E ring, strengthening the chemical ties between the ring and its progenitor. In 2008, NASA's now-departed Cassini spacecraft made its fastest flyby of Enceladus, the moon of Saturn that's spewing its subsurface ocean into space. A new analysis of data from that flyby has revealed a bevy of complex organic compounds that hadn't been detected before and confirmed the origin of several previously ... [Read More]

Nov 16th, 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. QUICK FACTS What it is: Barred spiral galaxy Messier 61, AKA NGC 4303 Where it is: 55 million light-years away in the constellation Virgo When it was shared: Oct. 28, 2025 Even before its full science operations have begun, the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile has already helped astronomers ... [Read More]

Nov 16th, 2025 - Comet C/2025 K1 (ATLAS) has become a major point of interest for astronomers following a series of rapid changes observed in recent weeks. First detected in May 2025, the comet moved steadily towards its perihelion in early October, then began displaying fluctuations in brightness and visible shape that hinted at underlying instability. Researchers have continued to track these developments closely, as they offer insights into how newly arriving long-period comets behave when exposed to strong ... [Read More]

Nov 16th, 2025 - Milestone results released by the Large High Altitude Air Shower Observatory (LHAASO) on November 16 have solved a decades-old mystery about the cosmic ray energy spectrum—which shows a sharp decrease in cosmic rays above 3 PeV, giving it an unusual knee-like shape. The cause of the "knee" has remained unclear since its discovery nearly 70 years ago. Scientists have speculated that it is linked to the acceleration limit of the astrophysical sources of cosmic rays and reflects the ... [Read More]

Nov 16th, 2025 - Follow Earth on Google NASA's Goldstone facility recorded 41 radar images of the near-Earth asteroid 2025 OW during a safe pass about 400,000 miles away. That distance is roughly one and a half times the distance to the Moon. The object spans about 200 feet across and spins once every 1.5 to 3 minutes. That speed places it among the fastest rotators ever mapped by NASA radar. Mapping asteroid 2025 OW The campaign was carried out at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. The ... [Read More]

Nov 15th, 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. Look into the night sky, and it might seem like space is a vast expanse of darkness . But are any regions darker than others? What's the darkest place in the solar system and, on a grander scale, the universe ? In short, the answer isn't straightforward, and it depends on whom you ask, experts ... [Read More]

Nov 14th, 2025 - Astronomy can be a difficult topic for newcomers. Like any scientific field, it has its own jargon and buzzwords—and terms with meanings that can be not only odd but downright counterintuitive. The most obvious one is astronomers' use of the word metal to mean any element heavier than helium. Lithium? Metal. Oxygen? Metal. Carbon? That's a metal, too, as far as astronomy is concerned. Using a single term to cover these heavier-than-helium elements makes some sense because the universe is ... [Read More]

Nov 14th, 2025 - The speed and direction of our solar system through the universe may defy current cosmological models. Our solar system is speeding through space much faster than previously thought, challenging the fundamental assumptions that have long shaped our understanding of the cosmos. That's according to physicists led by Lukas Böhme at Bielefeld University, whose findings suggest that the solar system's velocity is more than three times greater than what current models predict. Specifically, it's ... [Read More]