Jan 3rd, 2026 - For nearly a month, NASA has been scrambling to make contact with a spacecraft in orbit around Mars that abruptly fell silent. The space agency lost communication with the MAVEN probe (short for Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN) on Dec. 6, and efforts to re-establish a connection have been futile. Based on bits of data received that day, mission controllers think the probe was spinning unexpectedly. NASA now has to wait until Jan. 16 before it can again try to revive MAVEN, because Mars and Earth have been on opposite sides of the sun since Monday, resulting in a prolonged ... [Read More]

Jan 2nd, 2026 - Reading time 3 minutes Earth's orbit is getting overcrowded, increasing the risk of satellite collisions that could disrupt vital services, create dangerous debris clouds, and—in some cases—send chunks of wreckage careening through the atmosphere. To address this problem, the operator of the largest megaconstellation in the world is going to move thousands of its satellites closer to the ground. On New Year's Day, Michael Nicolls, vice president of Starlink engineering at SpaceX , announced that the company will lower all Starlink satellites orbiting 342 miles (550 kilometers) ... [Read More]

Jan 2nd, 2026 - The sun wanders the Milky Way alone; our star orbits the galaxy's distant center without any stellar siblings. But it wasn't always this way. The solar system was very likely born in a tremendous gas cloud that also birthed thousands of other stars , forming a large, loosely bound stellar family called an open cluster. These stars may have remained enshrouded in that nebula for 10 million years or more, until their combined stellar winds and light pushed away the surrounding nebulosity . No longer embedded in the gas, the cluster gradually disintegrated as its internal motions flung away ... [Read More]

Jan 2nd, 2026 - A woman has died in a rare suspected mountain lion attack in Colorado on Thursday, officials said. Hikers told authorities they saw a mountain lion near a person who was lying on the ground 100 yards away around 12:15 p.m., on the Crosier Mountain trail in unincorporated Larimer County, Colorado Parks and Wildlife said in a news release. The hikers scared the lion away by throwing rocks and then attended to the adult woman, the release said. One of the witnesses was a physician and "did not find a pulse," said Kara Van Hoose, spokesperson with Colorado Parks and Wildlife. The victim's ... [Read More]

Jan 2nd, 2026 - Microsoft's big focus for Windows is AI integration . Meanwhile, Valve has been not-so-quietly pilfering the entire PC gaming ecosystem from Microsoft, turning the Linux-based SteamOS into a real competitor to Windows. In a few years, gaming laptops may run SteamOS instead of Windows. And Microsoft has no one to blame but itself. Valve's big PC gaming push is bigger than the Steam Deck handheld , with a new Steam Machine living room PC. PC gaming — even PC games designed and written first and foremost for Windows — is now much bigger than Windows. Surprise, Microsoft: While you ... [Read More]

Jan 1st, 2026 - A newly revealed magnetic state in ruthenium dioxide could be the secret to faster, denser, and more reliable memory chips. Scientists from National Institute for Materials Science , Japan have confirmed that ultra-thin films of ruthenium dioxide (RuO 2 ) belong to a newly recognised and powerful class of magnetic materials called altermagnets . These materials combine the best of two magnetic worlds: they're stable against interference yet still allow fast, electrical readout—an ideal mix for future memory technology. Altermagnetism is a newly discovered type of magnetism where ... [Read More]

Jan 1st, 2026 - Cases of influenza in the United States are rising, driven by a new strain that public health officials worry current vaccines may not protect against as effectively. Health officials and researchers say that although the flu season has not reached its peak, the spike in cases is not historically unusual — and they stress vaccines probably still offer protection against the worst effects of the strain. [Read More]

Jan 1st, 2026 - Oldest known cremation in Africa poses 9, -old mystery about Stone Age Near the equator, the Sun hurries below the horizon in a matter of minutes. Darkness seeps from the surrounding forest. Nearly 10,000 years ago, at the base of a mountain in Africa, people's shadows stretch up the wall of a natural overhang of stone. They're lit by a ferocious fire that's been burning for hours, visible even to people miles away. The wind carries the smell of burning. This fire will linger in community memory for generations − and in the archaeological record for far longer. We are a team of ... [Read More]