Space

Feb 16th, 2026 - Follow Earth on Google Stars do not usually just fade away. They shine with steady light for millions or even billions of years. So when a star 3,200 light-years from Earth suddenly dimmed at the end of 2024, astronomers paid attention. The star, known as ASASSN-24fw, is about twice as big as our Sun. For decades, it behaved like clockwork. Then, the star's light dropped dramatically. It stayed faint for more than nine months. That is far longer than a normal eclipse in space. Researchers ... [Read More]

Feb 16th, 2026 - Follow Earth on Google Astronomers have caught a supermassive black hole sprinting away from its home galaxy at about two million miles per hour. Behind it, a 200,000 light-year trail of young stars marks a galaxy suddenly missing its central black hole. New observations reveal the shockwave that proves this cosmic escape is real. A shockwave signature At the tip of the star trail, the James Webb Space Telescope ( JWST ) recorded an arc that looked squeezed and heated. By tracing that arc, ... [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]

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 - 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 14th, 2026 - Next-generation telescopes are mapping this outer frontier. Out beyond the orbit of Neptune lies an expansive ring of ancient relics, dynamical enigmas, and possibly a hidden planet—or two. The , a region of frozen debris about 30 to 50 times farther from the sun than the Earth is—and perhaps farther, though nobody knows—has been shrouded in mystery since it first came into view in the 1990s. Over the past 30 years, astronomers have cataloged about 4,000 Kuiper Belt objects ... [Read More]

Feb 13th, 2026 - The telescope primarily detects light in the infrared in order to observe sources such as the first galaxies and protostars. Two scientists from the University of Sydney have performed a remarkable space science feat from Earth, the BBC reports . By using AI-driven software, the researchers have successfully corrected image blurring in NASA's James Webb Space Telescope. This innovation, called AMIGO, fixed distortions in the telescope's infrared camera, restoring its ultra-sharp vision without ... [Read More]

Feb 13th, 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. ! , Earn Your First Badge Keep Earning Badges See what you've unlocked. Members Exclusive 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 ... [Read More]

Feb 13th, 2026 - Follow Earth on Google Supernova explosions are part of how the universe builds matter, but they're not the only cosmic blasts that shape what we're made of. When a massive star runs out of fuel, it ends its life as a supernova. The star's core collapses, its outer layers blast outward, and the explosion scatters heavy elements like carbon and iron into space. There is also a second, much rarer kind of explosion. In a kilonova, two neutron stars collide and produce even heavier elements, ... [Read More]

Feb 13th, 2026 - The zodiacal light (left) glows against the nighttime sky, with the Milky Way shining beside it (right). Credit: Sky This Week is brought to you in part by Celestron. Friday, February 13 This dark, moonless Friday the 13th evening is the perfect time to head out after dark and try to catch a glimpse of the zodiacal light. The ethereal, cone-shaped glow is actually the reflected light from tiny particles of dust orbiting the Sun, left over from myriad comets as they swing around our star and ... [Read More]

Feb 13th, 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. ! , Earn Your First Badge Keep Earning Badges See what you've unlocked. Members Exclusive 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 ... [Read More]

Feb 13th, 2026 - Amid federal funding uncertainty, commercial spaceflight saw highs and lows, a comet from another star surprised us, and the Vera C. Rubin Observatory began its 10-year survey. By Alison Klesman , Brooks Mendenhall , and Mark Zastrow Our picture of the cosmos is ever-changing, transformed by new discoveries. In 2025, we learned evidence is now piling up to suggest that the mysterious dark energy that guides the evolution of our universe may not be constant over cosmic history, but might grow ... [Read More]

Feb 13th, 2026 - A red dwarf star has planets in a lineup that has never been seen before. Deep in the older, denser reaches of the Milky Way, there is a red dwarf star that shouldn't exist — or at least, its family of planets shouldn't look the way it does. The star is LHS 1903, and it hosts a planetary system that is effectively built backwards, defying the standard architectural rules that governed our own solar system's birth. Typically, from what astronomers have gathered thus far, star systems ... [Read More]

Feb 13th, 2026 - Follow Earth on Google Saturn's moon Enceladus has long fascinated scientists for its towering geysers and hidden ocean, but new research suggests this small icy world influences Saturn far more than previously understood. Instead of acting only as a local source of water vapor and ice, the moon appears to function as a powerful electrical generator within the planet's magnetic environment. As charged particles from Enceladus's plumes interact with Saturn's magnetic field, they create ... [Read More]

Feb 12th, 2026 - These images show the location (and disappearance) of M31-2014-DS1. (A) is a color composite. The area in the yellow dashed square is the region shown in images (B), (C), and (D), where (D) is the difference between (B) and (C). Images (E) through (J) are zoomed-in shots of the star taken in the labeled years. Astronomers recently watched a massive star die, but fail to explode as a supernova. Instead, it collapsed directly into a black hole, ... [Read More]

Feb 12th, 2026 - Reading time 3 minutes Of the solar system's planets, Saturn piques the human imagination with its signature rings and impressive moon count of 274. But compelling new research reignites theories of an ancient collision shaping Saturn's environment as we know it today—especially Titan, its biggest moon. The study, accepted for publication in the Planetary Science Journal, addresses a well-known mystery surrounding the unusually young age of Saturn's rings as well as the oddity of Titan's ... [Read More]