Space

Dec 26th, 2025 - By studying rare meteorites, scientists are uncovering which asteroids might someday fuel humanity's expansion into space. Scientists are assessing the makeup of carbon-rich asteroids to see whether they could one day fuel space exploration—or even be mined for valuable resources. For long duration missions to the Moon and Mars, using materials found in space could significantly reduce the need for supplies launched from Earth. However, improved identification and classification is ... [Read More]

Dec 26th, 2025 - As a science communicator, I don't think a week goes by without a press release hitting my inbox informing me of astronomers finding some new record-breaking object. Sometimes it's the smallest planet yet discovered or the most iron-deficient star. But a very common claim is a distance record: the farthest galaxy from Earth ever seen, for example. When it comes to these sorts of record breakers, I have complicated feelings, built over decades of writing about them. Such announcements must be ... [Read More]

Dec 26th, 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. From Orion and Taurus to Auriga and Perseus, here are 10 easy sets of stars to find in the Northern Hemisphere's winter night sky. Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Flipboard Join the conversation Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter Subscribe to our newsletter On a clear winter night, ... [Read More]

Dec 26th, 2025 - Sky This Week is brought to you in part by Celestron. Friday, December 26 The Moon passes 4° north of Saturn at 11 P.M. EST, right as the pair is setting along the U.S. East Coast. It's better to observe them earlier in the evening — they are more than 40° high in the southwest around 7 P.M. local time.  The waxing Moon lies to the upper right of Saturn, sandwiched between the giant planet and the Circlet of Pisces. While the Moon itself is in the constellation Pisces, Saturn ... [Read More]

Dec 25th, 2025 - Follow Earth on Google From Earth, Saturn's rings look like a razor – tens of thousands of kilometers wide yet only about 10 meters thick in the vertical direction. That knife-edge geometry is a big part of their drama. But new evidence suggests the rings don't end where the eye expects. Specks of ring material appear to float far above and below the main plane. Seen this way, the system behaves less like a flat vinyl record and more like a vast, dusty doughnut. Cassini's steep dives ... [Read More]

Dec 25th, 2025 - A rare triple system was identified by astronomers about 1.2 billion light-years away from Earth. The system, known as J1218/1219+1035, is found to contain three interacting galaxies with active supermassive black holes at their centers. The research revealed that the black holes are constantly growing, accreting, actively feeding, and shining extremely bright. According to the study published in  The Astrophysical Journal Letters , the scientists used the U.S. National Science Foundation ... [Read More]

Dec 24th, 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. Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Flipboard Join the conversation Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter Subscribe to our newsletter Scientists may have witnessed a massive, dying star split in two and then crash back together, triggering a never-before-seen double explosion. The explosion ... [Read More]

Dec 24th, 2025 - Follow Earth on Google The night sky looks calm, but it's crowded and active. Gas drifts between stars, dust clouds hide newborn suns, and faint galaxies stack up in every direction. Much of that activity never reaches our eyes because it shines at wavelengths we can't see. Infrared light fills in those missing pieces. It reveals cold dust, drifting molecules, and the stretched glow of distant galaxies whose light has traveled for billions of years as the universe expanded. Without infrared ... [Read More]

Dec 24th, 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. Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Flipboard Join the conversation Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter Subscribe to our newsletter A distant exoplanet appears to sport a sooty atmosphere that is confusing the scientists who recently spotted it. The Jupiter-size world, detected by the ... [Read More]

Dec 24th, 2025 - Follow Earth on Google A team of astronomers has captured a young world, WISPIT 2b, sitting inside a dark ring around its star. The object is a protoplanet, a planet still forming inside a broad disk of gas and dust. Instead of hiding in the central hole of the disk, WISPIT 2b shows up in a distinct ring gap, a quieter lane between two bright dust rings. That placement makes this detection unusual and scientifically valuable. The research was led by Laird Close of the University of Arizona , ... [Read More]

Dec 24th, 2025 - Astronomers love a challenge. They place their observatories on the highest mountains , in the driest deserts, on the coldest ice shelves, beneath the deepest oceans, in orbit around Earth and the Sun , and at the farthest-flung outposts of the Solar System . But now, they're planning to build telescopes on the far side of the Moon. These instruments will probe one of the last unexplored windows on the Universe. Here, astronomers hope to get a glimpse of the elusive Cosmic Dawn , the moment ... [Read More]

Dec 24th, 2025 - A star is born out of a giant cloud of gas and dust collapsing under its own gravity. As gravity pulls the gassy material inwards, some material is left swirling around the star. Over time, the momentum of the spinning material flattens it into the shape of a pizza-like disk, often called a protoplanetary disk. If all this makes it look like it's just a giant cookie of gassy debris, then you're incorrect. These celestial disks don't just offer a cradle for the star to be born, but also become ... [Read More]

Dec 23rd, 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. Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Flipboard Join the conversation Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter Subscribe to our newsletter A few months from now, a NASA spacecraft called the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) will begin its 20th year of observing the Red Planet from above. And, ... [Read More]

Dec 22nd, 2025 - Supermassive black holes are an anomaly that sits quietly at the centers of galaxies, holding gas and stars closer with their powerful gravity. But now scientists have discovered a mind-boggling phenomenon: a supermassive black hole skyrocketing through space. According to a new study , NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) captured the runway black hole that measures about 10 million times larger than the sun and moving at a speed of 2.2 million miles per hour. The supermassive black hole ... [Read More]

Dec 22nd, 2025 - The universe may be lopsided – new research The shape of the universe is not something we often think about. But my colleagues and I have published a new study suggests it could be asymmetric or lopsided, meaning not the same in every direction. Should we care about this? Well, today's "standard cosmological model" – which describes the dynamics and structure of the entire cosmos – rests squarely on the assumption that it is isotropic (looks the same in all ... [Read More]

Dec 22nd, 2025 - Follow Earth on Google Astronomers have finally watched a hidden partner star move in an almost perfect circle around a bloated red giant about 530 light years away. The system, called pi1 Gruis, offers an unusually clear preview of how close companions can reshape dying stars like our Sun billions of years from now. Pi1 Gruis started with roughly the Sun's mass, yet it has ballooned to hundreds of times the Sun's size and now outshines it thousands of times over. By catching a nearby companion ... [Read More]