Astronomy

The New Scientist Book Club has various issues with Masud Husain's prize-winning popular science book about neurology

In this passage from the opening of Grace Chan’s sci-fi novel, the November read for the New Scientist Book Club, we are introduced to her protagonists as they spend time in a virtual utopia which is becoming increasingly tempting in a dying world

In this passage from the opening of Grace Chan’s sci-fi novel, the November read for the New Scientist Book Club, we are introduced to her protagonists as they spend time in a virtual utopia which is becoming increasingly tempting in a dying world

Grace Chan, author of Every Version of You, the November read for the New Scientist Book Club, explores the philosophical implications of the choices her characters make

Grace Chan, author of Every Version of You, the November read for the New Scientist Book Club, explores the philosophical implications of the choices her characters make

Image: To celebrate Halloween, we bring you these spooky sights of Lake Carnegie in Australia, captured from space by Copernicus Sentinel-2.

Image: Flickering flame: spooky spirits or serious science?

Saturn is in excellent view all evening. In a telescope its rings look like a thin needle piercing the big yellow globe. Soon the rings will turn exactly edge-on.

The post This Week's Sky at a Glance, October 30 –November 9 appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

How could the principle of “radical mundanity” proposed by the Fermi paradox help explain why humans haven’t found evidence of extraterrestrial technological civilizations (ETCs)? This is what a recently submitted study hopes to address as a lone researcher investigated the prospect for finding ETCs based on this principle. This study has the potential to help scientists and the public better understand why we haven’t identified intelligent life beyond Earth and how we might narrow the search for it.

The green mummified remains of a teenager buried in Italy 200 to 400 years ago have given us new insights into the preservative properties of copper

The green mummified remains of a teenager buried in Italy 200 to 400 years ago have given us new insights into the preservative properties of copper

The Vera Rubin Observatory saw first light in June 2025. Its images from that time are called the Virgo First Look images because they focus on the Virgo Cluster of galaxies. M61 is one of the galaxies in that cluster, and the VRO has detected a stellar stream of stars around the distant spiral galaxy in Rubin's images.

Astronomers from the International Centre of Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) in Australia have created a stunning new radio colour image of the Milky Way. By mapping different radio frequencies to RGB colours, the image reveals large-scale astrophysical phenomena and gives researchers a new tool to understand the lifecycle of stars.

Interstellar objects like 3I/ATLAS are exciting, but there is no reason to claim that they are evidence of alien spacecraft – sometimes a comet is just comet, says Robin George Andrews

Interstellar objects like 3I/ATLAS are exciting, but there is no reason to claim that they are evidence of alien spacecraft – sometimes a comet is just comet, says Robin George Andrews

Immunologist Zachary Rubin explains how the World Health Organization decides which strains of influenza end up in annual flu vaccines.

Standard techniques for removing kidney stones often require repeated surgery, but a magnetic gel seems to make the process more efficient

Standard techniques for removing kidney stones often require repeated surgery, but a magnetic gel seems to make the process more efficient

Are we the only rational thinkers? New research on our primate cousins suggests otherwise

A new study has found that the 260-day ritual calendar is the key to understanding how the Maya predicted solar eclipses.

The post Maya 260-day Calendar Provides Key to Solar Eclipse Predictions appeared first on Sky & Telescope.