Space

Feb 5th, 2026 - Reading time 2 minutes A large rocky asteroid will make a close approach to Earth in 2032, with the tantalizing prospect of smashing directly into the Moon. If it does, the lunar impact is likely to produce a bright flash visible from Earth, generate meteor showers in Earth's atmosphere, and create a long-lasting infrared glow, according to a new study. Astronomers deemed asteroid 2024 YR4 as potentially hazardous when it was first spotted two years ago, with the odds of it striking Earth ... [Read More]

Feb 5th, 2026 - Weird new object escalates 'black hole star' debate Researchers have found what might be a little red dot transitioning into its final state, where x-rays burst through its gas cocoon. Others argue the object is nothing special Astronomers have found a potential new piece of the ongoing puzzle over "little red dots" (LRDs). It's a distant smudge in the sky reminiscent of the mysteriously compact, crimson orbs that keep cropping up in observations performed by NASA's James Webb Space Telescope ... [Read More]

Feb 5th, 2026 - Reading time 3 minutes Astronomers have yet to fully grasp the Galactic Center —the heart of the Milky Way—although they're fairly certain that Sagittarius A*, a supermassive black hole, exists and dictates the cosmic objects in its vicinity. But a new study proposes the black hole might not be as influential as we believe. Instead, the dominant force in charge may be a huge clump of invisible matter. The paper, published today in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society , ... [Read More]

Feb 5th, 2026 - Dubbed "Jetty McJetface," the tidal disruption event's energy keeps getting brighter and should peak in 2027. Back in 2022, astronomers were puzzled by a so-called " tidal disruption event " (TDE), dubbed , that had faded when it was first noticed three years earlier, only to unexpectedly reanimate and burp out extremely bright radio waves. University of Oregon astrophysicist Yvette Cendes, a co-author of that 2022 paper, dubbed the black hole "Jetty McJetface" (a nod to the 2016 online British ... [Read More]

Feb 5th, 2026 - Space archaeologists may have found a long-lost Soviet lander on the moon Humanity's first successful lunar lander is missing. Sixty years ago the Soviet Luna 9 became the first human-made object to achieve a soft landing on the moon—or, for that matter, any celestial body. Yet today its exact location remains a mystery. While NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) and India's Chandrayaan-2 have mapped nearly the entire lunar surface—capturing the Apollo landing sites and Soviet ... [Read More]

Feb 4th, 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 4th, 2026 - A newly active area on the sun is responsible for dozens of eruptions known as solar flares, including back-to-back X-class flares earlier this week. Solar flares typically originate from active regions on the sun, which are marked by groups of sunspots -- such as Region 4366. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory was watching as Region 4366 unleashed multiple X-class flares, the strongest category on the space weather scale. X-class flares are the most intense type of solar flare, and the number ... [Read More]

Feb 4th, 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. A new finding of ammonia on the icy surface of Jupiter's moon Europa could have important implications for the search for extraterrestrial life. Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Pinterest Flipboard Join the conversation Add us as a preferred source on Google Get the Live Science Newsletter Get the ... [Read More]

Feb 4th, 2026 - As an astronomer, I collect stars. There are several hundred billion of them in our Galaxy, the Milky Way, so it's important to find a way to categorise them. While others might rank their stars by colour or size, I prefer to order them chronologically. That way, we can simply look through them to read the history of the Universe. There is, however, a glaring gap in my collection: the very first generation of stars are missing. And I'm not the only one to have encountered this problem. All the ... [Read More]

Feb 4th, 2026 - 'Baby cluster' of galaxies may challenge cosmic models Astronomers have spotted a mysteriously mature "baby cluster" of galaxies in the early universe, scarcely a billion years after the big bang. Although not a full-grown, full-blown galaxy cluster, the protocluster is still bigger and more developmentally advanced than most models can easily explain—and also may be the most distant ever seen. Unveiled using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), the ... [Read More]

Feb 4th, 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 3rd, 2026 - There's a pressing need to understand and respond to what's known as "space weather". When a solar storm strikes Earth, it can disrupt technology that's vital for our daily lives. Solar storms occur when magnetic fields and electrically charged particles collide with the Earth's magnetic field. This type of event falls into the category known as "space weather". The Earth is currently experiencing one of the most intense solar storms of the past two decades, reminding us of the need for ways to ... [Read More]

Feb 3rd, 2026 - Even the Sun, Earth's brightest star, has a dark side. Sitting 93 million miles away, it rises every day to bathe our beloved Earth in a soft golden glow that sustains all life. But from time to time, its magnetic field develops concentrated, cool regions of electrically charged gas called plasma. Scientists call these concentrated patches sunspots, per NASA . Like stretched rubber bands, the magnetic field lines in these sunspots start twisting and snapping, eventually jolting the magnetic ... [Read More]

Feb 3rd, 2026 - Follow Earth on Google Astronomers measured four planets orbiting a young star and found them far larger than expected for their mass, making them some of the lowest-density planets ever directly weighed. That imbalance exposes a brief but decisive stage when common planets remain swollen with gas before contracting into the smaller forms seen across the galaxy. Early snapshot of planet formation The finding centers on V1298 Tau, a youthful star whose tightly packed planets preserve an early ... [Read More]

Feb 3rd, 2026 - Reading time 3 minutes I've yet to meet a physicist that didn't believe in the beauty of the general theory of relativity— Einstein's description of gravity as the curvature of spacetime. After all, it's consistently reinforced a myriad of breakthroughs, especially in astrophysics. So when some cosmic phenomenon confuses scientists, it feels right for them to count on general relativity to find some answers. One such mystery, described in a recent paper in The Astrophysical Journal ... [Read More]

Feb 2nd, 2026 - This would have taken a human astronomer decades. For more than three decades, the Hubble Space Telescope has collected targeted images to answer specific scientific questions, from mapping galaxies to studying nearby nebulae. Hubble has gathered so much data that despite their best efforts, astronomers haven't had the time to analyze it all in detail yet. Alongside its many targets, the Hubble archive also contains many unexpected objects that were never the focus of the original observations. ... [Read More]