Space

Apr 2nd, 2026 - Follow Earth on Google Saturn looks calm from a distance. A pale giant with rings, sitting quietly in space. But its surroundings tell a different story. The space around the planet is busy, charged, and constantly shifting. New research shows that Saturn's magnetic shield, the invisible barrier that protects it from solar radiation, doesn't sit evenly around the planet the way Earth's does. Instead, it leans. Not dramatically, but enough to matter. A magnetic bubble with a twist Every planet ... [Read More]

Apr 2nd, 2026 - From lava lakes to orbital swaps, moons are the universe's true rebels. We used to think moons were the boring sidekicks of the solar system. For decades, we treated them like cosmic leftovers — cold, dead rocks that did nothing but tag along with their parent planets. We were wrong. In the past years, we've found that moons can be every bit as exciting as their host planets. They host liquid oceans, erupting volcanoes of ice, and weather patterns that make Earth look tame. A moon is the ... [Read More]

Apr 1st, 2026 - Follow Earth on Google Earth feels like a local story. It sits close to the Sun, surrounded by rocky neighbors, and is built from dust and debris that once swirled in this tight inner region. For years, scientists believed that story was incomplete. They suspected that some of Earth's material had drifted in from far beyond, from the cold outer reaches of the Solar System. That idea made sense. Water and other volatile ingredients, the kind that can easily evaporate, seemed more likely to form ... [Read More]

Apr 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 Sign up for the Live Science daily newsletter now Get the world's most fascinating discoveries delivered straight to your inbox. By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & ... [Read More]

Apr 1st, 2026 - Follow Earth on Google Scientists have identified a fast-moving star as the surviving companion of a massive star that exploded, linking both objects to the same violent event. That connection turns a scattered remnant and an isolated star into a single reconstructed system, showing how the explosion unfolded and what it left behind. Supernova IC 443 star HD 254577 At the edge of IC 443, a supernova remnant about 5,500 light-years away, a hot, massive star called HD 254577 was captured racing ... [Read More]

Apr 1st, 2026 - LIGO data hints at supernovae so powerful they leave nothing behind Pair instability supernovae create a "mass gap" in black holes. Many of the early exoplanet discoveries were exciting on their own, confirming that there really were strange new worlds out in the Universe. But over time, our focus has shifted more toward numbers, as we began using the frequency of objects like super-Earths and mini-Neptunes to learn more about how planets form. With four gravitational wave detectors now having ... [Read More]

Apr 1st, 2026 - Exciting planetary action takes place this month. Venus and Uranus vie for attention and lie close to each other in late April. Jupiter offers a lot to observe through a telescope, particularly events involving its Galilean moons. The rest of the action takes place just before dawn, with Mars, Mercury, and Saturn making an appearance in late April. And remember to take time out to watch the Lyrid meteor shower, with no Moon to interfere. Venus is brilliant in the western sky soon after sunset. ... [Read More]

Apr 1st, 2026 - NASA rovers have revealed fascinating details and close-up images of Mars and the moon, but exploring other planets is slow. Most rovers are remotely controlled from Earth, and their careful, energy-efficient design limits how much ground they can cover. Now,  new research  from the University of Basel, ETH Zurich, and the European Space Agency, published Tuesday in the journal Frontiers in Space Technologies, examines how robots that can "think" for themselves might help us search a ... [Read More]

Apr 1st, 2026 - Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... The Artemis II mission countdown timeline ahead of launch from Kennedy Space Center's Launch Pad 39-B and the planned mission timeline for its 10-day flight that will venture past the moon and return to Earth with a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean. Read live updates from launch day Timelines featuring L- equate to the launch time in real time while T- equates to the countdown clock, which features built-in holds. Countdown milestones as planned for ... [Read More]

Apr 1st, 2026 - This could explain how planets like Neptune form to begin with. Most planets in our solar system are tilted. Earth's 23-degree tilt gives us our seasons, while Mars sits at just over 25 degrees. Then you have the overachievers: Uranus is essentially lying on its side, and Venus is flipped completely upside down. Usually, these tilts are the scars of ancient, violent collisions. But Neptune is different. According to a new study, Neptune's 28-degree axial tilt wasn't caused by a massive impact. ... [Read More]

Apr 1st, 2026 - Follow Earth on Google Researchers have identified 13 previously hidden symbiotic stars in data from Gaia, the European Space Agency's space telescope that maps stars across the Milky Way, confirming that a missing stellar population was there all along.  Their discovery begins to close one of the field's most persistent gaps between prediction and observation, and redirects the search for what remains unseen. Where the clues hid Inside Gaia's catalog of 12.4 million variable sources, 649 ... [Read More]

Apr 1st, 2026 - At 6:35 p.m. EDT, the Artemis 2 mission successfully lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, marking the first time humans have headed to the Moon since Apollo 17 in 1972. The crew is "safe, they're secure and they're in great spirits," said NASA administrator Jared Isaacman in a post-launch press conference on Wednesday evening. The craft is currently in a high Earth orbit, where it will perform check-out tests for the next day. The next major milestone for the mission will ... [Read More]

Mar 30th, 2026 - An accounting of all the water that should have been and gone on Mars's surface has come up with a discrepancy that shows just how little we understand the Red Planet's hydrological history Planetary scientists agree that Mars used to have liquid water on its surface and a water-rich atmosphere, far different from its current arid state. But an accounting of all the sources of water to the Martian surface and all the ways it could have been taken away has found a major discrepancy – we ... [Read More]

Mar 29th, 2026 - When Heinrich Olbers spotted asteroid Pallas on March 28, 1802, it called into question the recent discovery of Ceres as the "missing" planet between Mars and Jupiter. The Titius-Bode law , a mathematical formula that predicted the expected distances of planets from the Sun and had accurately posited the location of Uranus, suggested there should be a planet between Mars and Jupiter. Giuseppe Piazzi 's discovery of Ceres seemed to solve the mystery, but when Olbers discovered Pallas, he ... [Read More]

Mar 29th, 2026 - NASA's Juno spacecraft has been orbiting Jupiter for 10 years. During that time, it has studied the huge storms on the planet, such as the Great Red Spot, which is larger than Earth. New data shows that lightning strikes inside Jupiter's atmosphere may be more than 500 times as powerful than on Earth. Lead author Michael Wong, a planetary scientist at UC Berkeley's Space Sciences Laboratory, published the study in the journal AGU Advances . "Convection operates a little bit differently on Earth ... [Read More]

Mar 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 Sign up for the Live Science daily newsletter now Get the world's most fascinating discoveries delivered straight to your inbox. By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & ... [Read More]