Space

Mar 24th, 2026 - Follow Earth on Google Researchers have detected radio bursts from 2MASS 2228-4310, a fast-spinning brown dwarf , making it the fastest T dwarf ever found at radio wavelengths. The finding moves this dim, star-like object into one of astronomy's rarest categories and sharpens it into a target for studying how magnetism and weather interact on worlds between planets and stars. Detecting brown dwarf 2M2228 Inside two overlooked radio observations from 2015, the object called 2M2228 flashes far ... [Read More]

Mar 24th, 2026 - As soon as April 1, four people will embark on a journey that will take them farther from the Earth than anyone has ever traveled before. When NASA's new moon rocket lifts off as soon as April 1, its immense core stage will mix 537,000 gallons of liquid hydrogen with 196,000 gallons of liquid oxygen and ignite the propellant in four, eight-foot-wide engines, producing some 1.7 million pounds of thrust. Shortly after these main engines fire, two solid rocket boosters, one on each side, will ... [Read More]

Mar 24th, 2026 - Follow Earth on Google Astronomers have identified 45 rocky worlds as the strongest places to search for alien life among the more than 6,000 exoplanets known so far. That finding turns a sprawling cosmic inventory into a focused set of destinations where the search for life can become far more direct. Potential life on exoplanets From that wider census , only a few dozen planets stayed on the list after the team focused on rocky worlds. Using Gaia data from the European Space Agency's mission, ... [Read More]

Mar 24th, 2026 - Our solar system's rocky planets – Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars – may have formed from two rings around the young sun, rather than a single disc The inner solar system may have formed differently from how we have long thought it must have. For decades, researchers have thought that the rocky planets formed from a single disc of dust and debris in the early solar system, but new simulations indicate there might have been two separate discs of material. Models featuring a single ... [Read More]

Mar 24th, 2026 - Planets around other stars can help answer one of the greatest mysteries: How did we get here? How did the spinning disk of material left behind by our sun's birth form our planet and its seven neighbors? Typically astronomers find planets of similar ages to the ones in our solar system, but that's starting to change. In a study published today in the Astrophysical Journal Letters , astronomers reveal a baby solar system forming around a star some 437 light-years from Earth—it is only the ... [Read More]

Mar 23rd, 2026 - "We can't quite afford to support everything that we have done in the past." Jupiter's colossal storms generate lightning flashes at least 100 times more powerful than those on Earth, according to scientists analyzing data from NASA's Juno spacecraft. The findings were published March 20 in the journal AGU Advances.  Researchers used data recorded by Juno in 2021 and 2022, after NASA granted an extension to the spacecraft's operations upon completing a five-year science campaign at ... [Read More]

Mar 23rd, 2026 - Larger, more powerful storms on Jupiter produce stronger lightning than on Earth. New measurements could shed light on electrical phenomena associated with thunderstorms on our planet. Jupiter, the most massive planet in our solar system, has correspondingly humongous storms, some of which last for centuries. Some of these storms also generate terrific bolts of lightning, according to a new study by University of California, Berkeley scientists. Some flashes are 100 times more powerful than ... [Read More]

Mar 23rd, 2026 - As black holes feed, they pull material into a disk around them. The material orbiting in this disk gets heated to extreme temperatures, and so it becomes a plasma — a state of matter in which some of the electrons are separated from their atoms. This creates ions, or atoms that become charged because the number of electrons and protons are no longer the same. So, there are both positively charged ions and negatively charged electrons in this plasma. As these charged particles move, they ... [Read More]

Mar 22nd, 2026 - Follow Earth on Google The Hubble Space Telescope, the most celebrated observatory in history, turns 36 years old next month. Last year, to mark its 35th birthday, NASA released a fresh gallery of images spanning our solar system and well beyond – from Mars's ruddy surface to star-forming nebulae and a neighboring galaxy. The new portraits serve not only as a birthday gift to the public, but also as a vivid reminder of how profoundly Hubble has transformed modern astronomy and popular ... [Read More]

Mar 22nd, 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]

Mar 21st, 2026 - Follow Earth on Google Bennu, a near-Earth asteroid, had been studied for years using powerful telescopes. From a distance, it seemed fairly simple. Researchers expected a mix of rocks and smoother areas, maybe even patches of loose sand. That expectation didn't last long. When NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft arrived at Bennu in 2018, the surface told a very different story. Instead of smooth, easy-to-sample terrain, the asteroid looked rough and chaotic. Huge boulders covered nearly every inch. ... [Read More]

Mar 20th, 2026 - It's "common knowledge"—and the scare quotes should be a warning—that the sun is an average star. But it's not, and in fact it's not even close: The sun is in the top 90th percentile of stars by mass. That's because well more than half of the universe's stars are tiny, cool red dwarfs, dim bulbs with half to less than 10 percent of the sun's mass. The lower limit is around 7 to 8 percent of the sun's mass; any less than that, and there isn't enough pressure in the core to sustain ... [Read More]

Mar 20th, 2026 - There may be a river delta hidden under the obvious delta in a Martian crater. When NASA's Perseverance rover landed in Jezero Crater in 2021, its primary mission was to scour the remnants of a dried-up Martian lakebed for signs of ancient life. Scientists have been focused on the crater's spectacular Western Delta, a fan-shaped geologic feature deposited by a river flowing into the basin billions of years ago. But now Perseverance's ground-penetrating radar (called RIMFAX) detected what is ... [Read More]

Mar 20th, 2026 - Astronomers have found a 710-metre-wide asteroid that spins once every 1.9 minutes, so fast that it should have spun itself apart The Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile has spotted the fastest-rotating large asteroid ever seen. Despite measuring more than half a kilometre across, this asteroid spins about once every 1.9 minutes – a speed once thought to be impossible. Dmitrii Vavilov at the University of Washington in Seattle and his colleagues found this asteroid, along with several ... [Read More]

Mar 20th, 2026 - Sky This Week is brought to you in part by Celestron. Friday, March 20 The vernal equinox occurs at 10:46 A.M. EDT, bringing astronomical spring to the Northern Hemisphere as the Sun stands directly over Earth's equator. On this day, the Sun also sits at the celestial equator as its path takes it from south to north of this invisible line. Meteorological spring, which is measured differently, began March 1. The equinox is well known as the date when night and day are equal lengths. But you may ... [Read More]

Mar 20th, 2026 - Reading time 3 minutes A pair of spacecraft has been flying in formation, creating an artificial solar eclipse to help scientists probe the elusive outermost part of the Sun's atmosphere. For the past month, however, one of the spacecraft has been silent after suffering an in-flight anomaly, leaving its partner hanging. But now, the probe has finally phoned home and may be ready to resume operations soon. The European Space Agency's (ESA) Proba-3 mission recently reestablished connection with ... [Read More]