I can calculate the motions of the heavenly bodies, but not the madness of people

— Sir Isaac Newton

Astronomy

Africa’s forests are now emitting more CO2 than they absorb

New Scientist Space - Cosmology - Fri, 11/28/2025 - 5:00am
Logging and mining are destroying swathes of the Congo rainforest, with the result that African forests went from being  a carbon sink to a carbon source in 2010 to 2017
Categories: Astronomy

Africa’s forests are now emitting more CO2 than they absorb

New Scientist Space - Space Headlines - Fri, 11/28/2025 - 5:00am
Logging and mining are destroying swathes of the Congo rainforest, with the result that African forests went from being  a carbon sink to a carbon source in 2010 to 2017
Categories: Astronomy

Plastic can be programmed to have a lifespan of days, months or years

New Scientist Space - Cosmology - Fri, 11/28/2025 - 5:00am
Inspired by natural polymers like DNA, chemists have devised a way to engineer plastic so it breaks down when it is no longer needed, rather than polluting the environment
Categories: Astronomy

Plastic can be programmed to have a lifespan of days, months or years

New Scientist Space - Space Headlines - Fri, 11/28/2025 - 5:00am
Inspired by natural polymers like DNA, chemists have devised a way to engineer plastic so it breaks down when it is no longer needed, rather than polluting the environment
Categories: Astronomy

This Week's Sky at a Glance, November 28 – December 7

Sky & Telescope Magazine - Fri, 11/28/2025 - 4:51am

Saturn remains super-thin-ringed high after dark. The interstellar comet, 11th magnitude, is now nice and high in the dark before dawn. Don't wait; moonlight approaches.

The post This Week's Sky at a Glance, November 28 – December 7 appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

Categories: Astronomy

Our verdict on sci-fi novel Every Version of You: We (mostly) loved it

New Scientist Space - Cosmology - Fri, 11/28/2025 - 4:47am
New Scientist Book Club members share their thoughts on our November read, Grace Chan's Every Version of You
Categories: Astronomy

Our verdict on sci-fi novel Every Version of You: We (mostly) loved it

New Scientist Space - Space Headlines - Fri, 11/28/2025 - 4:47am
New Scientist Book Club members share their thoughts on our November read, Grace Chan's Every Version of You
Categories: Astronomy

Read an extract from The Player of Games by Iain M. Banks

New Scientist Space - Cosmology - Fri, 11/28/2025 - 4:40am
The New Scientist Book Club is currently reading Iain M. Banks's classic sci-fi novel The Player of Games. In this extract, we meet protagonist Gurgeh for the first time
Categories: Astronomy

Read an extract from The Player of Games by Iain M. Banks

New Scientist Space - Space Headlines - Fri, 11/28/2025 - 4:40am
The New Scientist Book Club is currently reading Iain M. Banks's classic sci-fi novel The Player of Games. In this extract, we meet protagonist Gurgeh for the first time
Categories: Astronomy

Why sci-fi novelist Iain M. Banks was an ‘astounding’ world-builder

New Scientist Space - Cosmology - Fri, 11/28/2025 - 4:35am
The New Scientist Book Club is currently reading the late Iain M. Banks’s Culture novel The Player of Games. Fellow science fiction author Bethany Jacobs reveals how his work inspired her
Categories: Astronomy

Why sci-fi novelist Iain M. Banks was an ‘astounding’ world-builder

New Scientist Space - Space Headlines - Fri, 11/28/2025 - 4:35am
The New Scientist Book Club is currently reading the late Iain M. Banks’s Culture novel The Player of Games. Fellow science fiction author Bethany Jacobs reveals how his work inspired her
Categories: Astronomy

Dione and Rhea Ring Transit

APOD - Fri, 11/28/2025 - 4:00am

Seen to the left of Saturn's banded planetary disk, small icy moons


Categories: Astronomy, NASA

Earth from Space: Eye of the Sahara

ESO Top News - Fri, 11/28/2025 - 4:00am
Image: The Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission captures a spectacular geological wonder in the Sahara Desert of Mauritania: the Richat Structure.
Categories: Astronomy

Supermassive dark matter stars may be lurking in the early universe

New Scientist Space - Cosmology - Fri, 11/28/2025 - 1:00am
Stars powered by dark matter instead of nuclear fusion could solve several mysteries of the early universe, and we may have spotted the first hints that they are real
Categories: Astronomy

Supermassive dark matter stars may be lurking in the early universe

New Scientist Space - Space Headlines - Fri, 11/28/2025 - 1:00am
Stars powered by dark matter instead of nuclear fusion could solve several mysteries of the early universe, and we may have spotted the first hints that they are real
Categories: Astronomy

Massive Computer Simulation Creates a Hyper-Realistic Model of the Milky Way

Universe Today - Thu, 11/27/2025 - 5:45pm

Research led by the RIKEN Center for Interdisciplinary Theoretical and Mathematical Sciences (iTHEMS) in Japan has successfully performed the world’s first Milky Way simulation that accurately represents more than 100 billion individual stars over the course of 10,000 years.

Categories: Astronomy

Galaxies Struggle To Grow In Crowded Environments

Universe Today - Thu, 11/27/2025 - 4:51pm

New research shows how a galaxy's surroundings influence its development. Its size, shape, and growth rate are all affected. It's all based on "the finer details of the cosmic landscape."

Categories: Astronomy

Origin story of domestic cats rewritten by genetic analysis

New Scientist Space - Cosmology - Thu, 11/27/2025 - 2:00pm
Domestic cats originated in North Africa and spread to Europe in the past 2000 years, according to DNA evidence, while in China a different species of cat lived alongside people much earlier
Categories: Astronomy

Origin story of domestic cats rewritten by genetic analysis

New Scientist Space - Space Headlines - Thu, 11/27/2025 - 2:00pm
Domestic cats originated in North Africa and spread to Europe in the past 2000 years, according to DNA evidence, while in China a different species of cat lived alongside people much earlier
Categories: Astronomy

The Incredible, Unlikely Story of How Cats Became Our Pets

Scientific American.com - Thu, 11/27/2025 - 2:00pm

Two new studies dig into the long, curving path that cats took toward domestication

Categories: Astronomy