Astronomy

When the New Horizons spacecraft swept past Pluto and Charon in 2015, it revealed two amazingly complex worlds and an active atmosphere on Pluto. Those snapshots redefined our understanding of the system. Now, new observations using the James Webb Space Telescope taken over the space of a week, show that Pluto's atmosphere is completely different from any other one in the Solar System.

As the years go by, the chance of Europa hosting life seems to keep going down. But it's not out of contention yet.

On the surface (you're welcome for the joke), Venus is not even close to being hospitable to life. But that's not the end of the story.

Chinese rocket startup Space Epoch put on a show recently, with a demonstration test launch of their reusable Yanxinghe-1 rocket booster.

Mars is by far the most Earth-like planet in the solar system…but that's not saying much.

During recent protests in Los Angeles, fires triggered “thermal runaway” in several Waymo robotaxis’ lithium-ion battery packs. The phenomenon sent temperatures past 1,000 degrees Celsius, vaporized much of the cars and spewed lung-searing hydrogen fluoride

Asteroid 2024 YR4, once the highest impact risk ever recorded, now poses no threat to Earth but has a slightly increased chance of striking the moon in 2032.

Here's the surprising math at the heart of auction theory

Amid a patchwork of fields, towns, and winding rivers and roads in central Brazil stands a monolithic oval-shaped plateau. This conspicuous feature, the Serra de Caldas (also known as the Caldas Novas dome and Caldas Ridge), is perched about 300 meters (1,000 feet) above the surrounding landscape in the state of Goiás.

Our ability to study faint radio signals from when the first stars began to form is being threatened by SpaceX's Starlink satellites, which seem to be unintentionally leaking radio signals that overpower astronomers' telescopes

To prevent Salmonella food poisoning, refrigerate your eggs, cook them well, never eat them raw and clean, clean, clean

A new understanding of how tumours exploit our nervous system is leading to new ways to treat cancer using familiar drugs like Botox and beta blockers

A sauropod dinosaur fossil has been found with preserved stomach contents for the first time, providing insights into what they ate and how

As cases of chronic kidney disease emerge in outdoor laborers around the world, scientists are finding that repeated damage from prolonged extreme heat seems to be a leading factor to kidney failure

The most anticipated particle physics result of recent years is here—but the real news came one week before: the “muon g–2 anomaly” might have never existed

The newest generation of superheroes are complex, irreverent and exactly what our kids need

Video: 00:02:00

ESA project astronaut Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski is heading to the International Space Station on his first mission as part of Axiom Mission 4 (Ax-4). He is the second ESA project astronaut from a new generation of Europeans to fly on a commercial human spaceflight mission with Axiom Space. 

Sponsored by the Polish government and supported by ESA, the Polish Ministry of Economic Development and Technology (MRiT), and the Polish Space Agency (POLSA), the mission—called Ignis—features an ambitious technological and scientific programme. It includes several experiments proposed by the Polish space industry and developed in cooperation with ESA, along with additional ESA-led experiments.

Follow Sławosz's journey on the Ignis mission website and discover more about the next mission patch to be hung on the walls of the Columbus Control Centre.

The Milky Way’s big crash with Andromeda might not be a sure thing. Plus, we discuss an overheated ocean, a giant planet circling a tiny star and worms that build living towers.

Why would the sky glow like a giant repeating rainbow?