Space

Feb 22nd, 2026 - On Feb. 22, 1906, German astronomer Max Wolf made a discovery that adjusted astronomers' view of the cosmos and provided proof for the century-old predictions of Joseph-Louis Lagrange. A pioneer in the use of a comparator to examine astrophotographs side-by-side, Wolf had discovered 18 new asteroids within his first two years of searching. Wolf's 1906 discovery was an asteroid that appeared to be linked to Jupiter's orbit, remaining about 60 degrees ahead of it. The first Trojan asteroid to be ... [Read More]

Feb 22nd, 2026 - Follow Earth on Google New observations show a small Saturn moon has generated electromagnetic waves that extend more than 313,000 miles behind it inside Saturn's magnetic field. That newly measured reach reveals a tiny icy world acting as a planetary-scale engine, reshaping how scientists understand the power of small moons. Cassini mapped the wake Cassini's instruments repeatedly encountered the same magnetic disturbance far downstream from Enceladus, tracing a vast electrical wake through ... [Read More]

Feb 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. A stunning new Hubble image reveals the most detailed look yet at the Egg Nebula, the youngest and closest pre-planetary nebula to Earth. 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 ... [Read More]

Feb 22nd, 2026 - Follow Earth on Google Physicists think they may have figured out where an extremely powerful, nearly undetectable particle that hit Earth came from, linking it to the final explosion of a very small black hole. If they are right, that single event could offer new insight into what the universe created in its earliest moments after the Big Bang. The signal itself In 2023, the KM3NeT observatory logged a particle near 220 PeV, a unit equal to a quadrillion electron volts, beneath the ... [Read More]

Feb 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]

Feb 22nd, 2026 - The telescope observed the ice giant for a full rotation, revealing how temperature and charged particles vary with altitude. Reading time 2 minutes On January 19, the Webb space telescope stared deep into the chaotic world of Uranus for 17 hours, observing as the faint glow from molecules above the planet's clouds meets its unusual magnetic field. The resulting data helped scientists map Uranus's upper atmosphere in unprecedented detail, revealing new insight into how its tantalizing auroras ... [Read More]

Feb 21st, 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 21st, 2026 - In December 2018, a trio of astronomers –  Scott Sheppard of the Carnegie Institution for Science, David Tholen of the University of Hawaii, and Chad Trujillo of Northern Arizona University – set the record for the most distant object ever discovered in the solar system. Because the small world is located about three times farther from the Sun than Pluto, the researchers dubbed it Farout. Not to be outdone (even by themselves), the same group of boundary pushers announced the ... [Read More]

Feb 21st, 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 20th, 2026 - Reading time 3 minutes is a reddish, snowman-shaped asteroid in the Kuiper Belt and the most distant object explored by a spacecraft. You don't need to be an astrophysicist to assume the asteroid formed via a slow, gentle collision—but the detailed physics involved aren't that simple. Astronomers had long struggled to fully explain the exact physical mechanism behind the formation and survival of multi-lobed objects like Arrokoth, formally known as contact binaries. A new paper published ... [Read More]

Feb 20th, 2026 - What scientists thought were four separate star clusters are actually part of one nearly invisible system. Astronomers have just identified what appears to be a cosmic anomaly: a faint galaxy with so few visible stars that, according to calculations, as much as 99.9 percent of its mass is dark matter . The remaining 0.1 percent is conventional matter. This galaxy, located about 300 million light-years away, is practically invisible. Only four globular clusters, small concentrations of stars ... [Read More]

Feb 20th, 2026 - Follow Earth on Google It started as another exoplanet in a group labeled "ordinary." No one expected that a world, once thought to be a mini-Neptune, would reveal traits of a super-Venus and change how we see certain planetary types. Astronomers used JWST data to learn more about an unusual place called Enaiposha, that orbits a red dwarf star about 47 light-years away from the Sun. A surprising "super-Venus" Enaiposha, that also goes by the identifier GJ 1214 b , was first placed in a category ... [Read More]

Feb 19th, 2026 - An exotic type of dark matter could explain some of the characteristics of our galaxy's central supermassive black hole, but many cosmologists are leery of the idea At the centre of our galaxy lies a supermassive black hole called Sagittarius A* – but one group of researchers is suggesting it may not be a black hole at all. The team says that it, and other black holes around its size, may actually be clumps of dark matter. Dark matter , so named because it doesn't seem to interact with ... [Read More]

Feb 19th, 2026 - Built, integrated, tested, and launched in 22 months at under $80 million, the Clementine probe was devised jointly by NASA and the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, and epitomised the "faster, better, cheaper" management ethos, testing miniaturized sensors, multimode propulsion and attitude-control systems, and gallium arsenide solar cells in deep space. When the spacecraft rose from Space Launch Complex 4 West at California's Vandenberg Air Force Base atop a Titan IIG rocket at 8:34 ... [Read More]

Feb 19th, 2026 - As humanity looks to the moon for science and economic opportunity in the coming years, understanding potential dangers lurking on the lunar surface could become increasingly important. Ridges on the moon that signify moonquakes are the subject of a recent research  paper , which delves into tectonic activity across the lunar maria, a vast network of dark plains that arose from ancient volcanic activity. A team of researchers analyzed lunar formations called small mare ridges to create a ... [Read More]

Feb 18th, 2026 - A study led by SETI Institute scientist Matija Ćuk proposes that Saturn's bright rings and its largest moon, Titan, may have both originated in collisions among its moons. This study was accepted for publication in The Planetary Science Journal  and the preprint is available here . Near the end of its 13-year mission, NASA's Cassini spacecraft measured how Saturn's internal mass was distributed. That has an effect on the planet's precession, which is the change in the ... [Read More]