Astronomy

People with advanced pancreatic cancer taking an experimental daily pill lived nearly twice as long as those receiving chemotherapy infusions

People with advanced pancreatic cancer taking an experimental daily pill lived nearly twice as long as those receiving chemotherapy infusions

The physics of neutron stars are almost too fantastic to believe. Something the weight of two Suns compacted to a sphere the size of a city. Each teaspoon of its material would weigh billions of tons. If you’ve done any reading on the topic, you’ve heard these facts before. But despite the intense interest these extreme objects hold, we are still actively learning lots about them. One of the most pertinent outstanding questions is where is the line between becoming a neutron star and becoming a black hole when a star dies. A new paper by researchers at the HUN-REN Wigner Research Centre for Physics in Hungary describes what they believe to be a definitive answer to that question - between 2.2 and 2.3 solar masses.

Turmeric is heralded for its anti-cancer and anti-inflammatory properties, but columnist Alice Klein finds that the evidence for this is shaky. Taking high doses of its curcumin extract in supplement form can be risky

Turmeric is heralded for its anti-cancer and anti-inflammatory properties, but columnist Alice Klein finds that the evidence for this is shaky. Taking high doses of its curcumin extract in supplement form can be risky

A new analysis of red lines inside a cave in Wales suggests they were made deliberately by ancient humans some 17,000 years ago

Mathematicians are stunned at the progress AI is making in solving advanced problems, leaving some questioning whether there will still be room for humans

Mathematicians are stunned at the progress AI is making in solving advanced problems, leaving some questioning whether there will still be room for humans

Alan Turing proposed a test for machine intelligence: could a computer convince a human it was human? We have begun conducting the same test on ourselves, writes Max Moser

Alan Turing proposed a test for machine intelligence: could a computer convince a human it was human? We have begun conducting the same test on ourselves, writes Max Moser

Agriculture is at risk of a crisis because of this Middle East conflict. The reason why has to do with how fertilizer is made

Jupiter helped create the different rocky bodies in the Solar System. The massive gas giant created a planet-induced pressure bump in the gas in the disk surrounding the young Sun. This pressure bump filtered different types of dust at different times, leading to the formation of planetesimals with different compositions at different times.

Andrew Scott plays World War II meteorologist James Stagg in a new film Pressure, which explores the crucial role weather forecasting played in D-Day

Fill your bingo card with fascinating science stories, discoveries and ideas all summer long for a chance to win prizes

China apparently didn’t issue any airspace or maritime notices ahead of the maiden launch of this rocket on Monday

4.5 billion years ago was an interesting time for the Earth. The atmosphere was thick and what we would now think of as toxic. The Moon, which was freshly formed, looks much more massive than it does today and faintly glows with the residual heat from its own creation. And the floor was literally lava. Everywhere. If there were any children alive at the time, they would have no chance of winning that game. But for a long time, scientists had thought this molten phase of the Earth didn’t last long. But according to a new paper, available in preprint on arXiv by researchers at the Kapteyn Astronomical Institute, it might have lasted for upwards of half a billion years.

Image: Webb's MIRI image of the interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS in three different light wavelengths

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Smile successfully launched from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana on 19 May 2026.

This timelapse captures the excitement and precision of launch operations as the spacecraft begins its journey to study the connection between the Sun and Earth.

Smile (the Solar wind Magnetosphere Ionosphere Link Explorer) is an international space science mission designed to investigate how the solar wind interacts with Earth's magnetosphere. By observing these dynamic processes from space, Smile will help scientists better understand space weather and its effects on our planet's magnetic environment.

This image of Westerlund 2 features Chandra X-ray Observatory data (pink) and James Webb infrared data (red, orange, green, cyan, and blue).

The TRAPPIST-1 system, located about 41 light years from Earth, has been a focal point of much exoplanetary discussion - mainly because it has 7 confirmed planets orbiting a dim M-dwarf star. Two of those planets - TRAPPIST-1e and -1f - are thought to be in the star’s habitable zone. However, the habitable zone of M-dwarfs is so close to the star itself the planets are likely tidally locked to it, meaning they have a permanent day and night side, with a “twilight terminator” in between. Armed with that knowledge, scientists have been attempting to model the climate on these two exoplanets, and a new paper from Jacob Haqq-Misra of Blue Marble Space uses a new type of climate model to accurately do so with much less computational power.