Space

Mar 2nd, 2026 - On March 2, 2004, the Rosetta-Philae spacecraft launched from French Guiana, with the goal of rendezvousing with a comet to learn more about the early solar system. The European Space Agency mission would need 10 years, three gravity assist flybys of Earth , and one gravity assist from Mars to get the spacecraft to its target. But in August 2014, Rosetta successfully slipped into orbit around Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko and, a few months later, deployed the Philae lander to its surface. ... [Read More]

Mar 2nd, 2026 - Follow Earth on Google A star can burn for millions of years and still manage one final surprise. In this case, that surprise arrived as a sudden flash of light from a nearby galaxy, even though the blast itself happened millions of years ago. Space is huge, and light takes its time getting anywhere. That delay is the whole trick. The star blew up roughly 40 million years ago, but the light only reached Earth on June 29, 2025. When the light arrived, sky surveys caught it fast, and astronomers ... [Read More]

Mar 2nd, 2026 - Smart underwear measures farts, brain cells play Doom , and AI discovers rules of an ancient game. It's a regrettable reality that there is never enough time to cover all the interesting scientific stories we come across each month. So every month, we highlight a handful of the best stories that nearly slipped through the cracks. February's list includes the revival of a forgotten battery design by Thomas Edison that could be ideal for renewable energy storage; a snap-on device to turn those ... [Read More]

Mar 2nd, 2026 - Whether or not galaxies merge depends on how strong the gravitational attraction is between the galaxies and whether the universe's expansion is more powerful than gravity. Gravity affects everything in the universe. The Milky Way Galaxy is gravitationally pulling on NGC 3370, nearly 100 million light-years away. The catch, however, is that the gravitational attraction between the Milky Way and NGC 3370 is so tiny that the universe's expansion can overcome it. Over small scales, the force of ... [Read More]

Mar 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 Get the Live Science Newsletter Get the world's most fascinating discoveries delivered straight to your inbox. By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and ... [Read More]

Feb 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 Get the Live Science Newsletter Get the world's most fascinating discoveries delivered straight to your inbox. By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and ... [Read More]

Feb 27th, 2026 - Follow Earth on Google Astronomers say that 3I/ATLAS, a comet that entered our solar system from interstellar space, is not sending out any radio signals that would suggest it is an alien spacecraft. That finding pushes back against speculation that the object could be artificial and sets a clear standard for how scientists will examine the next visitor from beyond our solar system. A comet under scrutiny On December 18, 2025, the Green Bank Telescope ( GBT ) tracked 3I/ATLAS for a directed ... [Read More]

Feb 27th, 2026 - Sky This Week is brought to you in part by Celestron. Friday, February 27 Asteroid 7 Iris reaches opposition at 1 P.M. EST today. Now shining at 9th magnitude, you can best spot the main-belt world after dark, rising higher in the hours after sunset.  By 10 P.M. local time, Iris is 40° high in the southeast, located in the constellation Sextans. Even a small scope under suburban light pollution can pick it up, tonight less than a degree northwest of 5th-magnitude Beta (β) ... [Read More]

Feb 27th, 2026 - Reading time 2 minutes Interstellar visitor comet 3I/Atlas may have bid farewell to Earth, but spacecraft traveling through the solar system kept a close watch on the mysterious traveler. The European Space Agency's (ESA) Jupiter mission caught a glimpse of the comet shortly after it whizzed past the Sun. JUpiter ICy moons Explorer, or JUICE for short, captured images of comet 3I/Atlas in spectacular detail, revealing hints of jets, rays, filaments, and streams. The spacecraft directed five of ... [Read More]

Feb 27th, 2026 - How far are we from finding exomoons and exorings? If you examine our solar system's giant planets, you'll notice right away that they've all got moons—a lot of moons. While Earth only has the one, Jupiter has about 100 that we know of (and likely hundreds more, depending on what you define as a "moon," that is ). Saturn has almost 275! Many of these moons are huge; Saturn's Titan and Jupiter's Ganymede are both about the size of Mercury, and if they orbited the sun on their own, we'd be ... [Read More]

Feb 27th, 2026 - Follow Earth on Google A dead star about 730 light-years from Earth has been sending a powerful wave of fast-moving gas into space for at least 1,000 years. That kind of long-lasting blast is not supposed to happen around a star like this, and it suggests there is a hidden source of energy that astronomers still cannot explain. Accidental stellar find Maps from Chile's Very Large Telescope traced a bright arc and long tail around the dead star. While hunting for short-lived stellar explosions, ... [Read More]

Feb 26th, 2026 - Largest ever image obtained by specialist telescope in Chile represents scientific and aesthetic breakthrough Scientists have captured a beautiful image in unprecedented detail of the vast Milky Way galaxy, of which our own solar system is a part. The stunning image is the largest ever obtained by the specialist telescope in Chile called the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (Alma) radio telescope, according to the group behind the project. The picture not only serves to stir the ... [Read More]

Feb 26th, 2026 - NASA has released new images from the James Webb Space Telescope showcasing the Exposed Cranium Nebula, officially designated Nebula PMR 1. This cloud of space dust and debris may capture a moment in the final stages of a star's life. The images reveal distinct regions capturing different phases of the nebula's evolution. It features an outer shell of gas, blown off first, that consists mostly of hydrogen, and an inner cloud with more structure containing a mix of different gases. A dark ... [Read More]

Feb 26th, 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 Get the Live Science Newsletter Get the world's most fascinating discoveries delivered straight to your inbox. By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and ... [Read More]

Feb 26th, 2026 - Follow Earth on Google Astronomers have observed a distant supernova, known as SN 2025wny or "SN Winny," whose light was bent by the gravity of two foreground galaxies, producing five visible images. Because each of the images brightens at a slightly different time, scientists can use the delays between them to measure how fast the universe is expanding today. In a high-resolution color image, SN 2025wny appears five times around a pair of foreground galaxies that bend its light into separate ... [Read More]

Feb 26th, 2026 - Reading time 3 minutes The Vera C. Rubin Observatory spent the night staring at the dark cosmos, alerting astronomers of ongoing changes in the skies in real-time. The observatory fired off its first wave of notifications from its new alert system on Tuesday night, sending 800,000 alerts to astronomers' computers around the world. The Alert Production Pipeline, a software developed at the University of Washington, is designed to eventually produce up to 7 million alerts per night, documenting ... [Read More]