Space

Dec 3rd, 2025 - Early this year, a surprise space rock made headlines around the globe when the International Asteroid Warning Network sounded its highest alarm since its creation in 2013. Threat levels for the newly discovered asteroid, named 2024 YR 4 , were steadily increasing rather than waning, and experts estimated that the superyacht-sized rock had as much as a 1-in-33 chance of hitting Earth in just eight years. Its relatively long four-year orbit meant it would not be detectable again until 2028 on ... [Read More]

Dec 3rd, 2025 - Planned orbital observatories would see satellites cross nearly all of their images. On Wednesday, three NASA astronomers released an analysis showing that several planned orbital telescopes would see their images criss-crossed by planned satellite constellations, such as a fully expanded Starlink and its competitors. While the impact of these constellations on ground-based has been widely considered, orbital hardware was thought to be relatively immune from their interference. But the planned ... [Read More]

Dec 3rd, 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. A "super-puff" exoplanet is leaking a lot of helium into space, new observations show — and may be in the process of losing a lot of its atmosphere. A large plume of helium gas was spotted evaporating from the giant planet, known as WASP-107b, according to research based on observations ... [Read More]

Dec 3rd, 2025 - New research  announced by NASA  on Tuesday details a bevy of exciting discoveries from asteroid dust that could provide clues to how life developed in our neck of the cosmos, including the sugars required for basic life forms, a mysterious gum-like substance and a surprising amount of stardust from supernovae.  NASA's robot spacecraft, Osiris-Rex, scooped up rocks and dust from the asteroid Bennu in 2020 and delivered the sample to Earth in 2023 . Since then, scientists around ... [Read More]

Dec 3rd, 2025 - Reading time 6 minutes In 2025, NASA faced unprecedented uncertainty as it grappled with sweeping layoffs , looming budget cuts , and leadership switch-ups . Despite all of that, the agency somehow still managed to do some seriously astonishing science. The insights we gained from NASA researchers, robots, telescopes, and spacecraft this year underscore the importance of protecting the agency's core mission: to explore the unknown in air and space, innovate for the benefit of humanity, and ... [Read More]

Dec 3rd, 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. A giant rotating filament of the cosmic web may be the largest spinning structure ever seen, and could help reveal how galaxies form. Astronomers have spotted what is likely the "largest spinning object" ever discovered, and its rotation could hold important clues about how galaxies develop. ... [Read More]

Dec 2nd, 2025 - There is a fuzzy orb with a long, glittering tail that's keeping millions of eyes hooked ever since it arrived in our solar system this July. Named 3I/ATLAS, the interstellar comet is currently about 186 million miles away from Earth. After having a brief meeting with Mars, followed by one with the Sun, it is now heading towards Jupiter . This cosmic interloper seems to be the first and last of its kind. Scientists have churned out legions of studies, both eager and curious to document every ... [Read More]

Dec 2nd, 2025 - Follow Earth on Google Astrophysicists have detected a repeating burst of radio waves from a nearby red dwarf, signals that rise and fall in step with a tiny planet named YZ Ceti b orbiting just 12 light-years away. The pattern points to something scientists have long hoped to find beyond the solar system: evidence of a magnetic field around a rocky exoplanet. Researchers at the University of Colorado say YZ Ceti b may be interacting with its star in a way that only a magnetic shield can ... [Read More]

Dec 2nd, 2025 - A few years ago, NASA's scientists Martin Kabatnik, Thomas Bickle, and Dan Caselden were poring through a set of images their telescopes had captured by mapping the space in infrared light. Some of these images stopped them in their tracks, hooking their attention with their fast and furious speed. Zipping at millions of miles per hour through space, the glowing red object was rumbling with mystery. The object didn't meet the specifications of anything they had in their cosmic catalogue of cold ... [Read More]

Dec 1st, 2025 - Reading time 3 minutes In September, NASA officially confirmed the existence of a whopping 6,000 exoplanets—a feat so impressive that it's bizarre to think that, by contrast, the number of confirmed exomoons tallies up to, well, zero. But that imbalance may shift soon if a new proposal by astronomers ends up being as effective as they claim. An upcoming Astronomy & Astrophysics paper describes how astronomers devised and utilized a novel, alternative approach for identifying exomoons, ... [Read More]

Dec 1st, 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. The catastrophic collision that forged the moon, and marked one of the most consequential events in Earth's early history, may have been triggered not by a distant interloper, but by a sibling world that grew up right next door, according to a new study. About 4.5 billion years ago, a ... [Read More]

Dec 1st, 2025 - A tiny sample from asteroid Bennu just revealed a fragile amino acid never before seen beyond Earth. The question of how life started on Earth is rife with speculation, some ending with a delivery truck from space. Panspermia suggests that life or prebiotic molecules — the chemical building blocks required for life — appeared on other planets and were simply imported by passing asteroids or comets. Scientists have found some of these prebiotic ingredients in fallen meteorites ... [Read More]

Dec 1st, 2025 - Monday, Dec. 1, 2025: Your daily feed of the biggest discoveries and breakthroughs making headlines. Here's the biggest science news you need to know. Refresh I'll show myself out The U.S. West Coast is heading out for the evening, but we'll have tons of fresh science news when the British crew signs on. In the meantime, we'll leave you with a classic chemistry joke. Two atoms were sitting at a bar. The first atom says to the second atom: "I just lost an electron." The second asks: "Are you ... [Read More]

Dec 1st, 2025 - The long nights of December are an astronomical delight. The early evening sky hosts Saturn as the main feature, along with Uranus and Neptune. Jupiter rises later and is visible all night, its four main satellites undergoing many notable events. The morning sky shows the best Northern Hemisphere appearance of Mercury for the year.  Let's begin with Saturn and Neptune , 4.3° apart on Dec. 1. Saturn's easterly motion carries it to within 3.5° of Neptune by the 31st. Saturn is easy ... [Read More]

Dec 1st, 2025 - For multiple decades, we have been trying to determine exactly what the explosions of red supergiant stars look like. A new astronomical finding could help solve the mystery of the missing massive red 'supergiants' . According to theory, massive red supergiant stars should cause most supernovae, yet they are rarely observed. To help garner new information, Northwestern University scientists have used the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to make observations. The analysis of these shows an ... [Read More]

Nov 29th, 2025 - Follow Earth on Google Over the past thirty years, astronomers have identified more than 7,000 planets outside of our solar system – a remarkable leap since the first exoplanet discovery in 1995. Now, a group of astronomers has confirmed finding a super-Earth that orbits a star very similar to our Sun. The planet circles a star called HD 20794 and sits in a region where liquid water could exist on a rocky surface. The study appears in Astronomy & Astrophysics and is based on one of the ... [Read More]