Astronomy

In a successful transplant in a man with brain death, scientists prevented the immune system from attacking a genetically modified pig kidney for 61 days, the longest such an experiment has lasted

A thin crescent moon and dark skies could give watchers a clear view of this astronomical event

Some ants kill the queens of another species and take over their colonies, but we now know at least one species gets workers to do the dirty work for them through a kind of chemical subterfuge

Some ants kill the queens of another species and take over their colonies, but we now know at least one species gets workers to do the dirty work for them through a kind of chemical subterfuge

The discovery that fat is a communicative organ with a role in everything from bone health to mood is forcing a rethink of how we view our bodies

The discovery that fat is a communicative organ with a role in everything from bone health to mood is forcing a rethink of how we view our bodies

For decades, the Amazon rainforest has quietly absorbed vast quantities of human-generated carbon dioxide, helping to slow the pace of climate change. Recent evidence, however, suggests that this vital natural buffer may be weakening – though uncertainties remain.

To help close this critical knowledge gap, European and Brazilian researchers have gathered deep in the Amazon to carry out an ambitious European Space Agency-funded field campaign.

Twenty years ago Forbes.com sent hundreds of thousands of messages to the future. Here’s what happened next

When written knowledge is more ephemeral than ever, how can we pass on what’s important?

Black holes and quantum mechanics present a paradox about the preservation of information

Designing nuclear-waste repositories is part engineering, part anthropology—and part mythmaking

A ridiculous but instructive thought experiment involving deep time, plate tectonics, erosion and the slow death of the sun

By exploring the edge of the solar system, astronomers have estimated how long our star stuck around its siblings after birth.

The post The Sun Left Home in a Hurry appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

At this point in history, astronomers and engineers who grew up watching Deep Impact and Armageddon, two movies about the destructive power of asteroid impacts, are likely in relatively high ranking positions at space agencies. Don’t Look Up also provided a more modern, though more pessimistic (or, unfortunately, realistic?), look at what might potentially happen if a “killer” asteroid is found on approach to Earth. So far, life hasn’t imitated art when it comes to potentially one of the most catastrophic events in human history, but most space enthusiasts agree that it's worth preparing for when it will. A new paper, available in pre-print on arXiv, from Maxime Devogèle of ESA’s Near Earth Object (NEO) Coordination Centre and his colleagues analyzes a dry run that happened around a year ago with the discovery of asteroid 2024 YR4.

The same brain areas that help us map physical space help us chart social connections, and the best relationship cartographers have most clout

Scientific American’s editor in chief David M. Ewalt reflects on a 20-year experiment in e-mailing the future

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Copernicus Sentinel-6B was launched on 17 November 2025, ready to continue a decades-long mission to track the height of the planet’s seas – a key measure of climate change. The satellite was carried into orbit on a Falcon 9 rocket from the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, US.

Sentinel-6B follows in the footsteps of its predecessor, Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich, which was launched in 2020. The mission is the reference radar altimetry mission that continues the vital record of sea-surface height measurements until at least 2030.

Copernicus Sentinel-6 has become the gold standard reference mission to monitor and record sea-level rise. The mission’s main instrument is the Poseidon-4 dual-frequency (C-band and Ku-band) radar altimeter. Developed by ESA, the altimeter measures sea-surface height. It also captures the height of ‘significant’ waves as well as wind speed to support operational oceanography.

The latest guardian of our oceans has taken its place in orbit. The Copernicus Sentinel-6B satellite is now circling Earth, ready to continue a decades-long mission to track the height of the planet’s seas – a key measure of climate change.

In March of 2024 the [DESI collaboration](https://www.desi.lbl.gov/collaboration/) dropped a bombshell on the cosmological community: slim but significant evidence that dark energy might be getting weaker with time.

Swift observations with the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT) have revealed the explosive death of a star just as the blast was breaking through the star’s surface. For the first time, astronomers unveiled the shape of the explosion at its earliest, fleeting stage. This brief initial phase wouldn’t have been observable a day later and helps address a whole set of questions about how massive stars go supernova.