New Scientist Space - Space Headlines

The earliest acoustic vibrations in the cosmos weren’t exactly sound – they travelled at half the speed of light and there was nobody around to hear them anyway. But Jim Baggott says from the first moments, the universe was singing

The curse of having to remember easily hackable passwords may soon be over, as a new alternative is set to take over in 2026

The benefits of sleep may be more universal than we thought. We know it helps clear waste from the brain in humans, and now it seems that even creatures without brains like ours get similar benefits

An ambitious form of climate modelling aims to pin the blame for disasters – from floods to heatwaves – on specific companies. Is this the tool we need to effectively prosecute the world’s biggest carbon emitters?

For nearly three decades, the International Space Station has been the only destination in low Earth orbit, but that will change this year. Could it be the start of a thriving economy in space?

Modelling suggests both carbon taxes and green subsidies will be necessary to decarbonise the US economy, but the inconsistent policies of successive presidents are the "worst case" scenario

The Prudhoe ice dome disappeared during a warm period 7000 years ago. Global warming could cause similar temperatures by 2100, showing the Greenland ice sheet’s vulnerability

For years, we've thought of autism as lying on a spectrum, but emerging evidence suggests that it comes in several distinct types. The implications for how we support autistic people could be profound

A galaxy cluster in the early universe is 10 times hotter than it ought to be, which may reshape how we think these enormous structures formed

A study of 160 European famines between 1500 and 1800 shows that El Niño weather events led to the onset of some famines and extended the duration of others

A host of new science books are due to hit shelves in January, by authors including Claudia Hammond, Deborah Cohen and Daisy Fancourt

The US government is approving the drug leucovorin to address rising rates of autism, despite limited evidence that it works. This year, results from the largest trial yet should give more insight into its potential

Researchers at Google have used their Willow quantum computer to demonstrate that "quantum contextuality" may be a crucial ingredient for its computational prowess

Big hitter Peter F. Hamilton has a new sci-fi novel out this month – and Booker winner George Saunders ventures into speculative fiction with his latest book, Vigil

An analysis of several experiments aimed at detecting the mysterious neutrino has identified a hint of a crack in the standard model of particle physics

Did Sahelanthropus, which lived 7 million years ago, walk on two legs like a modern human? It's complicated

Astronomers were puzzled by a black hole around 50 million times the mass of the sun with no stars, spotted by the James Webb Space Telescope – now simulations suggest it could be a primordial black hole, something we have never seen before

The New Scientist Book Club has just finished our December read, Iain M. Banks's sci-fi novel The Player of Games - and most of us were fans of this big-thinking Culture tale

The author of the award-winning science fiction novel Annie Bot, the January read for the New Scientist Book Club, on how she created her startling protagonist

In this extract from the award-winning science fiction novel Annie Bot, the January read for the New Scientist Book Club, we are introduced to Sierra Greer's protagonist, a sex robot called Annie