Space

Dec 7th, 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. Quick facts What it is: Emission nebula NGC 6820 and open star cluster NGC 6823 Where it is: 6,000 light-years away in the constellation Vulpecula When it was shared: Nov. 19, 2025 This spectacular image of an emission nebula — a cloud of gas and dust lit up by nearby stars — and a ... [Read More]

Dec 7th, 2025 - Follow Earth on Google An international team has revealed parts of the Milky Way that ordinary star counts have missed. The researchers read elemental clues in stars to outline two inner spiral arms and a faint bridge between them. The experts worked with a carefully selected set of roughly 5,000 stars, focusing on patterns in their chemistry rather than just positions. The result reframes how we chart the galaxy's most crowded regions. Spiral arms concealed in the Milky Way The work was led by ... [Read More]

Dec 6th, 2025 - There is plenty to keep stargazers amused through the rest of December. From a planetary conjunction to the astronomical start of winter to some of 2025's most prolific meteor showers. The month has already got off to a stunning start with a third consecutive supermoon lighting up night skies with the added interest of a rare double lunar halo and the Northern Lights also putting on a dazzling show. Of course these delights rely on clear weather conditions. Check the viewing potential where you ... [Read More]

Dec 6th, 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 celebrity comet 3I/ATLAS is showing itself out of our solar system for good — but not before the cosmic paparazzi at Earth's space agencies snap some of the clearest photos of it yet. Discovered in late June and confirmed to be the third known interstellar object in July, 3I/ATLAS ... [Read More]

Dec 5th, 2025 - Follow Earth on Google A new NASA mission is sending twin spacecraft toward Mars to watch the planet's upper atmosphere as space weather hits it in real time. The ESCAPADE mission to Mars launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on Nov. 13, 2025. The goal is to see how charged particles from the Sun peel away Mars' thin air, effectively "killing" the Red Planet. Those measurements should help explain how a once wetter planet turned into the dry place we see today. How Mars lost its atmosphere The ... [Read More]

Dec 5th, 2025 - A paper, published in  Astronomy and Astrophysics , details the discovery of a grand-design spiral galaxy that formed just 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang. Grand design galaxies are similar to the Milky Way in that they display well-formed spiral arms. Prior to this discovery, astronomers thought such objects took billions of years to achieve grand-design status. Apparently not. Using NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), researchers Rashi Jain and Yogesh Wadadekar, working at the ... [Read More]

Dec 5th, 2025 - Follow Earth on Google On July 23, 2025, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration NASA launched two satellites called TRACERS from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The pair will study the invisible magnetic shield that surrounds Earth and track the bursts of energy that force their way through it. Flying about 360 miles above Earth, the two craft will chase each other through a gap in the magnetic field near the pole. Their goal is to capture detailed snapshots of a process ... [Read More]

Dec 5th, 2025 - Mars Express mission has uncovered a remarkable geological formation on Mars that resembles a butterfly. Situated in the Idaeus Fossae region, this unusual crater has intrigued scientists across the globe, providing valuable insights into the planet's complex geological history. The butterfly shape was formed by a shallow-angle impact, which caused debris to be ejected in two distinct lobes, creating wing-like structures. Some of the ejected material appears fluidised, suggesting possible ... [Read More]

Dec 5th, 2025 - Astronomers have discovered that 3I/ATLAS is carrying methanol and other chemicals that were probably important in the origin of life The interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS is belching out carbon-rich chemical compounds at higher rates than almost any other comet in our solar system. One of these compounds is methanol, a key ingredient in prebiotic chemistry that hasn't been seen in other interstellar objects. 3I/ATLAS , which is only the third visitor to our solar system from elsewhere in the galaxy, ... [Read More]

Dec 4th, 2025 - If you look across space with a telescope, you'll see countless galaxies, most of which host large central black holes, billions of stars and their attendant planets. The universe teems with huge, spectacular objects, and it might seem like these massive objects should hold most of the universe's matter. But the Big Bang theory predicts that about 5% of the universe's contents should be atoms made of protons, neutrons and electrons. Most of those atoms cannot be found in stars and galaxies ... [Read More]

Dec 4th, 2025 - Follow Earth on Google Some of the hottest known planets look far too scorched to hold water. Yet their atmospheres keep flashing unmistakable chemical hints that water is present – and sometimes abundant. A new study offers a surprising solution. Deep inside these worlds, molten rock and hydrogen may be reacting to create water outright. In effect, these planets could be forging oceans from within instead of inheriting them from ancient ice. Led by Harrison Horn of Arizona State ... [Read More]

Dec 4th, 2025 - Time actually runs slightly faster on Mars. This temporal lag is a direct consequence of Albert Einstein's Theory of General Relativity. The rule is simple: the weaker the gravity, the faster time passes. Mars's surface gravity is a weakling, approximately five times weaker than Earth's. That deficit speeds up time. Four hundred seventy-seven microseconds sounds minuscule. It's about one-thousandth of the time it takes you to blink. But for the advanced communication networks of the future, ... [Read More]

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 - 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 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 "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]