Across Earth, every night, thousands of automated stargazers are waiting to take pictures of shooting stars. I am one of the scientists who study these meteors.
Decomposition of dead leaves in Veluwe forests has declined by tens of percent since the turn of the century. Meteorologists from Wageningen University & Research discovered this in an analysis of long-term measurements. The cause appears to lie in soil acidity. This is noteworthy because nitrogen deposition in the area has actually decreased over the same period. The effects of nitrogen entering the ecosystem in the past may still be lingering.
Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus XL cargo spacecraft, with its two prominent cymbal-shaped UltraFlex solar arrays, is in the grasp of the Canadarm2 robotic arm before being released from the International Space Station on March 12, 2026. Image: NASA/Jessica Meir The next cargo run to the International Space Station will arrive at the orbiting outpost midday on Monday. Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus XL spacecraft is expected to be captured by the Canadarm2 on the ISS around 12:50 p.m. Continue ReadingLive coverage: Space Station to capture, berth Cygnus XL ’S.S. Steven R. Nagel’ cargo spacecraft
A new study led by researchers at the Institute of Materials Science of Barcelona (ICMAB-CSIC) reveals why a particular boron-rich molecule, called o-FESAN, behaves in an unusually helpful way, remaining intercalated into DNA even though it was thought it should be repelled by it. The paper is published in the journal Aggregate and builds on research published in 2024 in the Journal of Materials Chemistry B.
Physicists in China have simulated the effect of “false vacuum decay”: a phenomenon believed to play out constantly in the seemingly empty expanses of space, and which one theory even suggests could bring an abrupt end to the entire universe. In a paper published in Physical Review Letters, Yu-Xin Chao and colleagues at Tsinghua University, Beijing, mimicked the effect using a simple tabletop experiment.
Artemis 2’s Victor Glover and Christina Koch are all smiles after splashdown. Continue ReadingArtemis 2 astronauts celebrate successful return to Earth | Space photo of the day for April 13, 2026
British scientists have launched a crew of microscopic worms to the International Space Station in a pioneering experiment that could help unlock the secrets of long-duration space travel—and support ambitions to reach the moon and beyond.
The successful Artemis II trip around the moon was a historic achievement—the first crewed lunar fly-by in more than 50 years, and the greatest distance yet traveled by humans from our “pale blue dot.”
The Artemis 2 mission to the moon beamed back some incredible photos, and we’ve rounded up the best ones. Continue ReadingArtemis 2: Our favorite photos from NASA’s historic moon mission
Light, as we usually conceive of it, is defined by the astonishing velocity at which it moves from one point to another. For example, in just one second, light can travel most of the distance between Earth and the moon. This property is what makes light useful for communication, which we expect to happen at lightning speed in the modern age.
A rare stargazing spectacle will unfold on Friday, April 13, 2029, as the asteroid Apophis passes closer than satellites over Europe and Africa in a true once-in-a-lifetime event. Continue Reading‘God of Chaos’ asteroid Apophis will blaze across the sky on April 13, 2029 — here’s why this once-in-a-lifetime event is worth traveling for
Scientists outline how a once-in-a-century solar storm could disrupt the technology modern society depends on. Continue ReadingA worst-case solar storm could knock out satellites, GPS and power grids, report warns
Never-before-glimpsed views of the moon’s far side. Check. Total solar eclipse gracing the lunar scene. Check. New distance record for humanity. Check.
COLORADO SPRINGS – Sophia Space will begin deploying edge compute nodes on Kepler Communications satellites in late 2026, under a strategic pact announced April 13. Through the partnership, Sophia Space will demonstrate its Orbital Data Center (ODC) software, while relying on Kepler’s optical data relay network “to enable distributed, resilient compute infrastructure in space,” according […] The post Sophia and Kepler to marry orbital compute with optical links appeared first on SpaceNews.
The weak nuclear force is the eccentric cousin of the four forces — the one that only shakes hands with left-handed particles. That bizarre preference turns out to be absolutely critical for stars, nuclear fusion, and the existence of most matter. And neutrinos love it. There’s just one problem: neutrinos appear to only exist in one handedness, which makes no sense at all.
As NASA’s Artemis II mission completed its lunar flyby, the astronauts sent back a stunning image of the colorful Earth setting behind the moon. This breathtaking photo, called Earthset, draws inevitable comparisons with the original Earthrise photo from the Apollo 8 flight in 1968.
Every piece of electronics ever sent to Venus has been destroyed within hours of landing, cooked alive by surface temperatures hot enough to melt lead. Now a team of engineers at the University of Southern California has built a memory chip that laughs in the face of that heat, surviving temperatures hotter than molten lava and it started with a happy accident!
What if the same collisions we think of as forces of destruction were actually the spark that created life on Earth? New research published in the Journal of Marine Science and Engineering is making a compelling case that meteor impacts didn’t just reshape our planet’s surface, instead that they may have built the very cradles where life first emerged.
A crater the size of two football pitches has appeared on the Moon and for the first time, scientists have been able to watch exactly what happened. Captured by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter before and after the impact, this remarkable discovery is giving planetary scientists an unprecedented close up of one of the Solar System’s most fundamental processes. Here’s what they found.
Scientists in Japan have developed a high-resolution X-ray telescope sharp enough to distinguish an object just 3.5 mm wide from one kilometer away, by combining precision mirror-making technology with space astronomy. To test its performance, they built a first-of-its-kind evaluation system, capable of simulating starlight on the ground to measure the telescope’s sharpness before its launch on the US-Japan FOXSI sounding rocket mission. The findings, published in Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, represent a landmark achievement for Japanese X-ray astronomy and pave the way for high-resolution X-ray observations on future smaller satellites.
