Space

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 - 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 - 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 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 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 27th, 2026 - An early black hole feeds too fast—yet still blasts X-rays and radio jets. Twelve billion years ago, long before our sun was even a cloud of dust, a young galaxy flared with a light that shouldn't exist. At its heart sits ID830—a supermassive black hole caught in the middle of a growth spurt that defies standard physics. It is swallowing gas so quickly that, by standard theory, its own radiation should push much of that fuel away. And yet the quasar is also unusually bright in ways ... [Read More]

Jan 27th, 2026 - Reading time 3 minutes The universe is filled with innumerable astrophysical objects, each one different from the last. But even amid this vast diversity, some stand out as truly bizarre. A pair of astronomers recently discovered hundreds of these cosmic weirdos buried in archival Hubble Space Telescope data. These objects have waited years for researchers to catalog and investigate their unusual characteristics, and thanks to AI, they finally have. "Archival observations from the Hubble Space ... [Read More]

Jan 27th, 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 six-year survey covering 669 million galaxies has revealed insight into dark energy , the mysterious phenomenon driving the universe's ... [Read More]

Jan 26th, 2026 - "These are just the difficulties of designing a spacesuit for the lunar environment." Crew members traveling to the lunar surface on NASA's Artemis missions should be gearing up for a grind. They will wear heavier spacesuits than those worn by the Apollo astronauts, and NASA will ask them to do more than the first Moonwalkers did more than 50 years ago. The Moonwalking experience will amount to an "extreme physical event" for crews selected for the Artemis program's first lunar landings, a ... [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]

Jan 25th, 2026 - Follow Earth on Google Fast radio bursts are some of the strangest signals we pick up from space. They last just a few thousandths of a second, but they can outshine whole galaxies in radio light while they're happening. For years, one big question kept hanging around: what kind of object can make something that loud and fast – and sometimes do it again and again? Now, a long set of telescope observations has added a major piece to the puzzle. The key idea is simple. Some of these ... [Read More]

Jan 25th, 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 Quick facts What it is: The Helix Nebula (also called NGC 7293 and Caldwell 63), a planetary nebula Where it is: 655 light-years away, in the ... [Read More]

Jan 25th, 2026 - Three weeks after the Spirit rover touched down on Mars, its twin rover , Opportunity, landed on the opposite side of the Red Planet. Its descent was known at NASA as the "six minutes of terror," during which it had to employ a parachute and retrorockets to decelerate almost completely from 11,800 mph (18,900 km/h) before impacting the surface. The touchdown was successful, though: Encased protectively in airbags, Opportunity hit the surface, bounced 26 times, and came to rest. Completely by ... [Read More]

Jan 25th, 2026 - Follow Earth on Google Comets have a reputation for being cold, dirty snowballs lingering far from the Sun. Yet for years, astronomers have puzzled over one strange fact. Many comets contain crystalline silicates – minerals that form only under intense heat. That reality clashes with life in the deep freeze at the edge of a solar system. The puzzle has lingered for decades. How do materials that need extreme heat end up locked inside objects that spend most of their lives in bitter cold? ... [Read More]

Jan 24th, 2026 - Inside an incredibly bright cluster of galaxies, a long-dormant supermassive black hole has come back to life. Radio images captured a one-million-light-year-long stream of star-forming particles and gas emanating from the black hole at the center of the galaxy J1007+3540—which apparently is erupting for the first time in about 100 million years. "Although some 'restarted' radio galaxies are known in the literature, J1007+3540 stands out," says lead study author Shobha Kumari of Midnapore ... [Read More]

Jan 24th, 2026 - Reading time 3 minutes It's difficult to overstate the significance of NASA's upcoming Artemis 2 mission . For the first time in over 50 years, astronauts will fly by the Moon on the first crewed test of the rocket and spacecraft that will eventually enable humanity's long-awaited return to the lunar surface. But Artemis 2 won't just test spaceflight systems and hardware. This mission will also put NASA's in-space science operations to the test. During their 10-day trip around the Moon, the ... [Read More]