Space

Feb 19th, 2026 - Mars' moons are easily visible at night from the surface of the Red Planet. Phobos – the nearer, larger, and brighter of the two – would be obviously non-round. A sharp-eyed observer would be able to make out the moon's largest craters and see the jaggedness of its terminator – the dividing line between light and dark. Phobos rises in the west and sets in the east in the span of around four hours a couple times each martian day and is up at some time each night. It also ... [Read More]

Feb 19th, 2026 - An exotic type of dark matter could explain some of the characteristics of our galaxy's central supermassive black hole, but many cosmologists are leery of the idea At the centre of our galaxy lies a supermassive black hole called Sagittarius A* – but one group of researchers is suggesting it may not be a black hole at all. The team says that it, and other black holes around its size, may actually be clumps of dark matter. Dark matter , so named because it doesn't seem to interact with ... [Read More]

Feb 19th, 2026 - Amateur astronomers, take note: A wonderful celestial event known as a total lunar eclipse will occur in the skies above North America during the morning hours of Monday, March 3.  Lunar eclipses happen when the Sun, Earth, and the Moon align, in that order. When this alignment is precise, Earth's shadow falls upon the Moon, obscuring it from direct sunlight. This doesn't happen every month, because the Moon's orbit is tilted to that of the Earth-Sun plane. So, most months our ... [Read More]

Feb 19th, 2026 - Our solar system is surrounded by weird peanut-shaped objects. Astronomers think they know why Out in the Kuiper Belt, the massive doughnut of debris beyond Neptune, about one in 10 kilometer-scale objects have surprised scientists with their unexpected shape. Rather than resembling a ball, each of these remnants from the solar system's early history is composed of two different-sized lobes, like a peanut or a lazily assembled snowman. Astronomers got their clearest view yet of the phenomenon ... [Read More]

Feb 19th, 2026 - As humanity looks to the moon for science and economic opportunity in the coming years, understanding potential dangers lurking on the lunar surface could become increasingly important. Ridges on the moon that signify moonquakes are the subject of a recent research  paper , which delves into tectonic activity across the lunar maria, a vast network of dark plains that arose from ancient volcanic activity. A team of researchers analyzed lunar formations called small mare ridges to create a ... [Read More]

Feb 19th, 2026 - Built, integrated, tested, and launched in 22 months at under $80 million, the Clementine probe was devised jointly by NASA and the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, and epitomised the "faster, better, cheaper" management ethos, testing miniaturized sensors, multimode propulsion and attitude-control systems, and gallium arsenide solar cells in deep space. When the spacecraft rose from Space Launch Complex 4 West at California's Vandenberg Air Force Base atop a Titan IIG rocket at 8:34 ... [Read More]

Feb 18th, 2026 - Last month, Earth was treated  to a massive aurora borealis that reached as far south as Texas. The event was attributed to a solar storm that lasted nearly a full day and will likely contend for the strongest of 2026. Such solar storms are usually fun for people on Earth, as we are protected from solar radiation by our planet's atmosphere, so we can just enjoy the gorgeous greens and pretty purples in the night sky. But solar storms are a lot more than just the aurora borealis we see, and ... [Read More]

Feb 18th, 2026 - A study led by SETI Institute scientist Matija Ćuk proposes that Saturn's bright rings and its largest moon, Titan, may have both originated in collisions among its moons. This study was accepted for publication in The Planetary Science Journal  and the preprint is available here . Near the end of its 13-year mission, NASA's Cassini spacecraft measured how Saturn's internal mass was distributed. That has an effect on the planet's precession, which is the change in the ... [Read More]

Feb 18th, 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. Following a massive cryovolcanic eruption, the mysterious Comet 29P/Schwassmann-Wachmann has been morphed into a giant spiral and is now shining 100 times brighter than normal. Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Pinterest Flipboard Join the conversation Add us as a preferred source on Google Get the ... [Read More]

Feb 17th, 2026 - Follow Earth on Google For decades, scientists suspected that Venus might hide massive lava-formed tunnels beneath its scorched surface, but clear evidence had remained elusive. Now, a newly analyzed radar signal has confirmed what researchers long suspected: an empty volcanic tunnel lies beneath one of the planet's collapsed surface pits. The discovery offers the first direct indication that Venus hosts intact underground lava tubes, turning a long-standing geological hypothesis into an ... [Read More]

Feb 17th, 2026 - Follow Earth on Google Astronomers have been searching for water ice outside of our solar system for years. They expected to find it. They knew it existed on moons and dwarf planets around Jupiter, Saturn, and beyond. But they couldn't confirm it around other stars. Until now. The James Webb Space Telescope just changed everything. Researchers aimed its Near-Infrared Spectrograph ( NIRSpec ) at HD 181327, a Sun-like star 155 light-years away. What they found was crystalline water ice swirling ... [Read More]

Feb 17th, 2026 - Scientists may be one step closer in their hunt for signs of past life on Mars after . Nearly a year ago, – one of two – came across an intriguing rock sample that contained some interesting features. On the rock, Curiosity's instruments detected organic compounds that on Earth are most often produced by living things. Though geological processes can also make the material present, researchers concluded in a study Feb. 4 in the journal Astrobiology that such non-biological processes ... [Read More]

Feb 17th, 2026 - Follow Earth on Google Most massive stars end their lives in spectacular supernova explosions that briefly outshine entire galaxies. But astronomers are now seeing evidence that some stars skip the fireworks entirely, collapsing inward so quietly that the only sign of their death is a gradual fading glow. Researchers studying a massive supergiant in the Andromeda Galaxy, named M31-2014-DS1, found that the star disappeared without any visible explosion, leaving behind only faint infrared traces ... [Read More]

Feb 15th, 2026 - Tree-covered hills stand watch over a yawning hole in the ground. The giant pit steps down in stages, its concentric rings growing ever smaller the deeper it goes. Huge trucks rumble up and down these makeshift roadways. This is the scene at Wangu goldfield in China's Hunan province. This area has already been mined for gold, but it seems they've only scratched the surface. In late 2025 came the announcement that they believe there's over one thousand tonnes of gold tucked away below the ... [Read More]

Feb 15th, 2026 - Kaolinite pebbles show evidence of alteration under high rainfall conditions. A recent study showed that Mars was warm and wet billions of years ago. The finding contrasts with another theory that this era was mainly cold and icy. The result has implications for the idea that life could have developed on the planet at this time. Whether Mars was once habitable is a fascinating and intensely researched topic of interest over many decades. Mars , like the Earth, is about 4.5 billion years old and ... [Read More]

Feb 15th, 2026 - Humans in space: Are astronauts obsolete? The Artemis II mission, which will return US astronauts to lunar space, has run into problems that have critics demanding NASA remove the crew from the flight for safety reasons. The bigger question is, why do we have astronauts at all? NASA's Artemis program to set up a permanent US human presence on the Moon has so far cost the American taxpayer an eye-watering US$93 billion in return for, at the time of publication, only one unmanned flight around ... [Read More]