Astronomy

Behind the hype of GLP-1 medications lies complex science, serious side effects and a pharmaceutical arms race.

Jupiter is at opposition. Evenings are moonless, and the winter Milky Way arches high over the world. Betelgeuse stands over Sirius.

The post This Week's Sky at a Glance, January 9 – 18 appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

The world’s ocean absorbed more heat in 2025 than in any other year on record

But we’re not going for one thing or another, are we? We’re here to explore ideas – that’s most of the fun anyway. And there’s one more aspect of physics that takes part in the free will discussion, and that’s the concept of emergence.

NASA on Thursday announced it would take the extraordinary step of bringing four crewmembers back to Earth from the space station before their official mission end

Mars has a curious past. Rovers have shown unequivocal evidence that liquid water existed on its surface, for probably at least 100 years. But climate models haven’t come up with how exactly that happened with what we currently understand about what the Martian climate was like back then. A new paper, published in the journal AGU Advances by Eleanor Moreland, a graduate student at Rice University, and her co-authors, has a potential explanation for what might have happened - liquid lakes on the Red Planet would have hid under small, seasonal ice sheets similar to the way they do in Antarctica on Earth.

A new study finds that people who quit weight-loss medications, including GLP-1 drugs, regain weight four times faster than people who stop dieting or exercising

A new study reveals that some smart dogs can learn words just by overhearing humans’ conversations

An area of high pressure is bringing record-high heat to some parts of the U.S., with an added boost from climate change

Tree bark has a total surface area similar to all of the land area on Earth. It is home to a wide range of microbial species unknown to science, and they can either take up or emit gases that have a warming effect on the climate

Tree bark has a total surface area similar to all of the land area on Earth. It is home to a wide range of microbial species unknown to science, and they can either take up or emit gases that have a warming effect on the climate

A new study suggests that primate facial expressions may not just be reflex

A giant asteroid has sent astronomers into a spin, setting a record for how fast it rotates on its axis

A wobbling jet from a giant, voracious black hole is suppressing star formation in a distant galaxy—and astronomers have never seen anything quite like it before

Artemis II crewmembers (left to right) NASA astronauts Christina Koch, mission specialist; and Victor Glover, pilot; CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen, mission specialist; and NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman, commander are led to the crew access arm as they prepare to board their Orion spacecraft atop NASA’s Space Launch System rocket during the Artemis II countdown demonstration test on Dec. 20, 2025.

Astronomers discovered a cloud of hydrogen gas that’s devoid of stars. Held together by an invisible halo of dark matter, the starless cloud may elucidate its nature.

The post Starless Gas Cloud Might Harbor Dark Matter appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

A preliminary analysis suggests that industrially useful quantum computers designs come with a broad spectrum of energy footprints, including some larger than the most powerful existing supercomputers

A preliminary analysis suggests that industrially useful quantum computers designs come with a broad spectrum of energy footprints, including some larger than the most powerful existing supercomputers

This newly discovered Iron Age instrument may have been played in the Celtic resistance against the Roman Empire