New Scientist Space - Space Headlines
We’ve just seen a huge space explosion and don’t know what it is
There’s an enormous, fast-moving explosion in space unlike anything we’ve seen before, and astronomers around the world are scrambling to figure out what it is
Categories: Astronomy
Colonists could use genetically modified bacteria to settle Mars
Mars colonists could build their habitats and clothes from “living” self-healing materials and make them air-tight with rubber grown by E. coli
Categories: Astronomy
The space-time echoes that point to a new theory of reality
The discovery of gravitational waves was the crowning glory of Einstein's relativity. They might now have provided the first hint of something to scupper it
Categories: Astronomy
Colony ship to nearest star only needs crew of 100 to survive
A mission to Proxima Centauri b, the closest Earth-like exoplanet, would take over 6000 years – but you only need a small crew to get started
Categories: Astronomy
Team moon vs team Mars: the battle over the future of NASA
Decades of infighting and political interference have got NASA no closer to landing astronauts on the moon or Mars. Can its new leader spark a relaunch?
Categories: Astronomy
NASA outlines its plans to deal with a large asteroid impact
NASA is designing and testing missions to deflect a potential asteroid from hitting Earth, and working with emergency responders to plan for a day when one does
Categories: Astronomy
The Milky Way has devoured 15 other galaxies since it formed
Our galaxy formed fast, and with an appetite. It’s devoured 15 other galaxies, including a big one nicknamed Kraken that we didn’t know existed until now
Categories: Astronomy
Alien preppers could hoard stars to survive in a doomed universe
Dark energy is accelerating the expansion of the universe, meaning eventually all galaxies will be inaccessible, but aliens could be working on a solution right now
Categories: Astronomy
Trump has directed the US military to establish a Space Force
President Trump has announced the creation of a Space Force, the first new US military branch since 1947, but it’s not yet clear what this new corps will do
Categories: Astronomy
Stars gravitate to Stephen Hawking’s memorial service
There was only one Stephen Hawking but there were a thousand ways to celebrate a genius and science’s only global celebrity at London’s Westminster Abbey
Categories: Astronomy
We’ve seen a gigantic black hole tear a star in half and eat it
We’ve gotten one of our best looks yet at a star being devoured by a black hole, thanks to astronomers who watched a decade-long meal
Categories: Astronomy
Antimatter neutrinos caught shape-shifting between flavours
We’ve seen antineutrinos morphing from one ‘flavour’ to another, and it could help us figure out why the universe is full of normal matter and not antimatter
Categories: Astronomy
NASA’s Opportunity rover is stuck in a huge dust storm on Mars
A dust storm bigger than North America has blown up on Mars, and it’s blocking out the sunlight that powers NASA’s ageing Opportunity rover. Is this its last gasp?
Categories: Astronomy
Clouds of spinning diamonds around stars solve an old mystery
Tiny diamonds in clouds circling bright young stars may be the source of unexplained microwave radiation from space that has baffled astronomers since 1996
Categories: Astronomy
Mars has complex organic material that may be from ancient life
The Curiosity rover has found methane in Mars’s atmosphere and complex organic molecules preserved for 3.5 billion years. Both could have come from life
Categories: Astronomy
Why Richard Branson’s promises about space tourism are empty
The billionaire businessman says he'll ride into space within months, paving the way to routine suborbital passenger trips. Don't get too excited, says Paul Marks
Categories: Astronomy
Lightning reveals where Jupiter stores its ‘missing’ water
Decades ago a space probe found less water on Jupiter than expected, and now astronomers have tracked some of that water down by mapping lightning storms
Categories: Astronomy
The New Horizons probe is awake and ready for its next flyby
For the last 6 months, the New Horizons spacecraft that flew past Pluto in 2015 has been in hibernation, hurtling towards a distant rock – it has just woken up
Categories: Astronomy
Cosmic cooperation is just what space exploration needs
Questions such as whether Mars ever hosted life are too big to be left to any one nation – efforts to join forces on space missions are the future
Categories: Astronomy
Two meteors in two days lit up the sky in China and Botswana
On 1 and 2 June, two meteors streaked across the sky, one in China and one in southern Africa. One of them was the third we’ve ever detected before it hit Earth
Categories: Astronomy