Astronomy

Feedback is entertained by the commotion at the International Association for Cryptologic Research's recent elections, where results could not be decrypted after an "honest but unfortunate human mistake"

What were the year's top sci-fi shows? Andor and Severance are still up there, but our TV columnist Bethan Ackerley also has some unexpected tips to share

Texas-based firm Ocean Infinity will send swarms of autonomous underwater vehicles into the southern Indian Ocean in a high-risk attempt to locate this missing jet

We've long known that we move through the Universe relative to the cosmic microwave background, but a new study of radio galaxies finds an even faster result, which could contradict the standard model of cosmology.

This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image features the spiral galaxy NGC 4535.

We know that pets influence our microbiome, but scientists have now found that having a dog seems to change this ecosystem in a way that could boost our well-being

We know that pets influence our microbiome, but scientists have now found that having a dog seems to change this ecosystem in a way that could boost our well-being

The covid-19 pandemic opened the door to once-controversial human challenge trials. Now, volunteers are willingly catching norovirus and influenza to reveal how our immune systems really fight back

The covid-19 pandemic opened the door to once-controversial human challenge trials. Now, volunteers are willingly catching norovirus and influenza to reveal how our immune systems really fight back

More than half a million satellites are planned to launch by the end of the 2030s, and simulations suggest they will have a severe impact on space-based astronomy

More than half a million satellites are planned to launch by the end of the 2030s, and simulations suggest they will have a severe impact on space-based astronomy

New results from the MicroBooNE experiment at Fermilab found no evidence of a hypothetical fourth flavor of neutrino

Proliferating satellites are beginning to harm the science work of the beloved Hubble Space Telescope and other observatories

The European Space Agency has release its ESA/Webb Picture of the Month and it features a pair of dwarf galaxies engaged in a tentative dance, like nervous partners at a social. The pair are a staggering 24 million light-years away. But even at that great distance, the pair of galaxies is the closest-known interacting pair of dwarfs, other than the Milky Way's Magellanic Clouds, where both the stellar populations and the gas bridge linking the galaxies have been observed.

Conventionally, the moon is thought to have formed during one big impact, but a three-impact model might make more sense

Conventionally, the moon is thought to have formed during one big impact, but a three-impact model might make more sense

Here are the 67 books Scientific American staffers couldn’t put down this year, from fantasy epics to gripping nonfiction

There’s been a lot of speculation recently about interstellar visitor 3I/ATLAS - much of which is probably caused by low quality data given that we have to observe it from either Earth, or in some case Mars. In either case it’s much further away that what would be the ideal. But that might not be the case for a future interstellar object. The European Space Agency (ESA) is planning a mission that could potentially visit a new interstellar visitor, or a comet that is making its first pass into the inner solar system. But, given the constraints of the mission, any such potential target object would have to meet a string of conditions. A new paper by lead Professor Colin Snodgrass of the University of Edinburgh of his colleagues, discusses what those conditions are, and assesses the likelihood that we’ll find a good candidate within a reasonable time of the mission's launch.

Scientific American unveils its first-ever best fiction and nonfiction books of the year, spotlighting stories that blend science, imagination and unforgettable voices.

True to its promise, the European Space Agency’s EarthCARE satellite is now being used to calculate directly how clouds and aerosols influence Earth’s energy balance – the all-important balance that regulates our climate. In doing so, EarthCARE is poised to sharpen the accuracy of climate models, the very tools that guide global climate policy and action.