China’s Shenzhou-20 spacecraft took a hit from a piece of space debris floating through orbit, causing Chinese officials to delay the spacecraft’s return from its Tiangong space station in early November 2025.
Tracking time is one of those things that seems easy, until you really start to get into the details of what time actually is. We define a second as 9,192,631,770 oscillations of a cesium atom. However, according to Einstein’s theory of general relativity, mass slows down these oscillations, making time appear to move more slowly for objects in large gravity wells. This distinction becomes critical as we start considering how to keep track of time between two separate gravity wells of varying strengths, such as on Earth and the moon.
Black holes, regions of spacetime in which gravity is so strong that nothing can escape, are intriguing and extensively studied cosmological phenomena. Einstein’s general theory of relativity predicts that when two black holes merge, they emit ripples in spacetime known as gravitational waves.
Platelets are small, disk-shaped cell fragments in the blood that are essential to stop bleeding and to initiate blood clotting after injury. Platelet transfusions in patients with severe trauma or medical conditions, including bone marrow disease, leukemia, or sepsis, can be lifesaving.
How fast and in which direction is our solar system moving through the universe? This seemingly simple question is one of the key tests of our cosmological understanding. A research team led by astrophysicist Lukas Böhme at Bielefeld University has now found new answers, ones that challenge the established standard model of cosmology.
The ESA’s Euclid space telescope has been in space for just over a year, investigating some of the deepest mysteries of the cosmos. By observing cosmic structures up to a distance of 10 billion light-years, the observatory will chart the evolution of the universe, attempt to constrain the influence of dark energy, and study the morphology of galaxies. In terms of galaxies, Euclid will attempt to answer the question of why the universe contains such a variety of galaxies, characterized by size, shape, and colors.
With NASA’s International Space Station set to come out of service in 2030, American aerospace firm Vast has stepped into a frenzied race for the world’s first commercial space station.
An international team of astronomers has performed photometric and spectroscopic observations of a distant Type Ibn supernova known as SN 2024acyl. Results of the observational campaign, published November 6 on the arXiv preprint server, shed more light on the properties and origin of this supernova.
Intense solar storms responsible for breathtaking auroras across the U.S. delayed the launch of Blue Origin’s big new rocket Wednesday.
Scientists from New York University Abu Dhabi (NYUAD) have uncovered new evidence that water once flowed beneath the surface of Mars, revealing that the planet may have remained habitable for life much longer than previously thought.
Emissions of the greenhouse gas methane from lakes and reservoirs risk doubling by the end of the century due to climate change, according to a new study from Linköping University, Sweden, and NASA Ames Research Center in the US. This in turn could raise Earth’s temperature more than suggested by the UN climate panel IPCC’s current worst-case scenario.
This article is a speculative piece based on the European Space Agency (ESA) Strategy 2040 plan for the future of space exploration. Dr. Orson Sutherland, a program manager responsible for Mars exploration at ESA, shared his expertise and work on multiple ongoing projects.
If there is, or ever has been, life on Mars, the chances are it would exist in caves protected from the severe dust storms, extreme temperatures, and high radiation present on its surface. One place to focus our attention could be eight possible cave sites (called skylights) recently discovered by Chenyu Ding at Shenzhen University in China, and colleagues.
Traveling up from the Mars equator toward its north pole, we find Coloe Fossae: a set of intriguing scratches within a region marked by deep valleys, speckled craters, and signs of an ancient ice age.
Exploring one of science’s most exciting frontiers, the book “Life in Space” bridges astrophysics and biology to uncover the conditions that make life possible—on Earth and beyond. Designed for students and general readers alike, it introduces the emerging field of astrobiology through vivid explanations, real-world examples, and ethical reflections on humanity’s role in the cosmos. From the detection of habitable planets to the search for biosignatures and intelligent life, the book offers a captivating, comprehensive view of life’s place in the universe.
Using ESA’s XMM-Newton satellite, European astronomers have observed ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) in the galaxy NGC 4631. As a result, they detected a new pulsating ULX, which received the designation X-8. The research is published November 6 on the arXiv preprint server.
The discovery of a superheated star factory that forms stars 180 times faster than our own Milky Way could help solve a long-standing puzzle about how galaxies grew so quickly in the early universe.
It’s a beautiful clear night. The stars are out and the moon looks breathtaking against the sky, so you reach for your phone to take a snap. The results are, to be blunt, disappointing.
Flinders University fossil experts have unearthed more clues about why kangaroos and wallabies have endured to become one of the continent’s most prolific marsupial groups. They have analyzed the powerful limbs of Australia’s earliest “true” kangaroo—the shared ancestor of modern-day kangaroos and wallabies.
At a young age, we’re told how the sun warms Earth and makes life possible. That idea sticks with most of us for life. But when we want to understand things more thoroughly and we dig more deeply, we learn that Earth has its own heat sources that help it maintain habitability: remnant heat and radioactive decay. Other rocky worlds can have these sources, too.
