Astronomy

Researchers mimicked the air-trapping tricks of diving bell spiders to create aluminum that stays afloat—even when punctured

Dozens of routinely updated CDC databases have gone quiet. Here’s what states and medical societies are doing to preserve U.S. public health

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk says he’s making space-based artificial intelligence the “immediate focus” of a newly expanded company that not only builds rockets and satellites, but also controls xAI’s generative-AI software and the X social-media platform. That’s the upshot of Musk's announcement that SpaceX has acquired xAI.

Arp 220 is a well-known pair of galaxies that are merging. New ALMA observations of polarized light reveal the complex and powerful magnetic fields that shape the process.

NASA engineers temporarily stopped pumping liquid hydrogen fuel into the Artemis II rocket because of an apparent leak

Ants rely on scent to recognise their comrades, and when they are exposed to common air pollutants, other members of their colony react as if they are enemies

Ants rely on scent to recognise their comrades, and when they are exposed to common air pollutants, other members of their colony react as if they are enemies

There’s no safe level of exposure to lead—but a small, strange study shows we’ve made incredible progress in recent decades

The tiny Foskeia pelendonum was a plant-eating dinosaur with a “weird” anatomy, scientists say

The sun is experiencing a violent solar storm, releasing one of the strongest solar flares seen in the past 30 years

This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image shows NGC 7722, a lenticular galaxy about 187 million light-years away in the constellation Pegasus. This “lens-shaped” galaxy sits in between more familiar spiral alaxies and elliptical galaxies in the galaxy classification scheme. The dark, dramatic dust lanes are the fingerprints of an ancient galaxy merger.

NASA's Orion spacecraft sits atop the agency's SLS (Space Launch System) rocket at the launch pad after rollout on Jan. 17, 2026.

Rising over a frozen valley in the

For the first time, researchers have found what seems to be a cloud of dark matter about 60 million times the mass of the sun in our galactic neighbourhood

For the first time, researchers have found what seems to be a cloud of dark matter about 60 million times the mass of the sun in our galactic neighbourhood

“Textbooks will need to be updated”: the solar system’s largest planet appears to be smaller and flatter than we knew

When satellites eventually fall back down to Earth, they mostly burn up because of the friction caused by the atmosphere. Scientific data about this atmospheric reentry process is urgently needed to design future satellites for a quick, safe and sustainable demise at the end of their mission – reducing risks on the ground and in space.

The European Space Agency (ESA) successfully manoeuvred its remaining two Cluster satellites to ensure they can both be observed from a plane as they reenter the atmosphere on 31 August and 1 September 2026.

After a year of protests from astronomers, authorities have abandoned plans for a giant, light-polluting renewable-energy facility in Chile’s Atacama Desert

The most robust evidence to date shows that people with a type of lung cancer lived longer if they received immunotherapy before 3pm

The most robust evidence to date shows that people with a type of lung cancer lived longer if they received immunotherapy before 3pm