Astronomy

An out-of-this-world weather report from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope reveals how clouds move across a giant planet hundreds of light-years from Earth

Experts question this study’s design and its recommendations—and point out that you probably get more exercise than you think

Gold doesn’t tarnish like similar metals do. A new paper says that the key is the intricate “herringbone” pattern of its atoms.

This NASA Hubble Space Telescope images reveals the lenticular galaxy, NGC 1266. This enigmatic post-starburst galaxy has a bright center and a face that hints at spiral structure, yet it holds no discernable spiral arms.

NASA’s Psyche spacecraft completed its close approach of Mars on May 15, capturing images as it came within 2,864 miles (4,609 kilometers) of the planet’s surface. This is an enhanced-color view of the large double-ring crater Huygens and the surrounding heavily cratered southern highlands.

This year’s expected El Niño could hamper hurricanes in the Atlantic but boost them in the central and eastern Pacific

Artificial intelligence built by OpenAI has cracked a decades-old conjecture by Paul Erdős, which mathematicians have hailed as a monumental moment for AI in mathematics

Artificial intelligence built by OpenAI has cracked a decades-old conjecture by Paul Erdős, which mathematicians have hailed as a monumental moment for AI in mathematics

Superluminous supernovae are the royalty in the supernova world. They're up to 100 times brighter than a standard supernova, and astrophysicists want to know why. New research shows that magnetars are responsible.

While drugs such as Wegovy target a single gut hormone, retatrutide is among a new class of GLP-1 drugs that aims at three hormone receptors

Some people experience vivid, incessant dreams that leave them feeling exhausted the next day, with researchers calling for this "epic dreaming" to be classed as a sleep disorder

Some people experience vivid, incessant dreams that leave them feeling exhausted the next day, with researchers calling for this "epic dreaming" to be classed as a sleep disorder

A chatbot’s result for the 80-year-old “unit distance” conjecture is the first AI proof that would likely be published in math’s top journal if humans had done it alone

This eerily simple math says our days are numbered—and nobody can agree why it’s wrong

Dust scatters light, absorbs light, re-emits light, and ruins everything. It's why our maps of the Milky Way were wrong before 1930, and it's why one of the biggest cosmological announcements of the 2010s quietly evaporated.

Friday’s flight could be the most pivotal test of the Starship megarocket

It’s getting crowded up there. Over the past few years, the advent of SpaceX’s Starlink and other players in the mega-satellite constellation game are adding an exponential load of satellites and orbital debris to the low Earth orbit environment. But all that goes up, must eventually come down. Now, a new study looks at solar activity over time as a predictor for how reentries trend.

Follow the total solar eclipse with the European Space Agency (ESA), in person or online. 

The liquid iron in Earth’s outer core doesn’t always behave as expected. When it changed direction in an unexplained way, ESA satellites provided data on the direction of flow, helping scientists gain better insight into the dynamics at the centre of our planet.

Neutrinos, the second most common fundamental particles in the universe, are notoriously difficult to detect. So far we’ve only been able to do so by building giant vats of water far underground with hundreds of photodetectors watching for brief flashes of light. But a new CubeSat mission hopes to change that dynamic and enable the neutrino detectors of the future a much less constrained and expensive existence - in space.