Astronomy

As the sun grew hotter, so did Mars, prompting much of its atmospheric carbon dioxide to rain out and ultimately get locked up in rocks.

AI could be used to comb through electronic health records and warn vulnerable people about dangerous heat waves

This planet triggers flares on its star—spelling its ultimate doom

Astronomers using the European Space Agency’s Cheops mission have caught an exoplanet that seems to be triggering flares of radiation from the star it orbits. These tremendous explosions are blasting away the planet’s wispy atmosphere, causing it to shrink every year.

This is the first-ever evidence for a ‘planet with a death wish’. Though it was theorised to be possible since the nineties, the flares seen in this research are around 100 times more energetic than expected.

Some planets take the expression "you're your own worst enemy" to the extreme — triggering stellar flares from their own parent stars by being too clingy.

Space.com sat down recently with retired NASA astronaut Terry Virts to talk about space, politics and his run in Texas for a seat in the U.S. Senate.

An object from another star has been seen entering the solar system at high speed, and is expected to whip around the sun in the coming months

An object from another star has been seen entering the solar system at high speed, and is expected to whip around the sun in the coming months

An object thought to have come from another star has been seen entering the solar system at high speed, and is expected to whip around the sun in the coming months

An object thought to have come from another star has been seen entering the solar system at high speed, and is expected to whip around the sun in the coming months

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Two meteorological missions – Meteosat Third Generation Sounder-1 (MTG-S1) and the Copernicus Sentinel-4 mission – have launched on board a SpaceX Falcon 9 from Cape Canaveral in Florida, US.

Both are world-class Earth observation missions developed with European partners to address scientific and societal challenges.  

The MTG-S1 satellite will generate a completely new type of data product, especially suited to nowcasting severe weather events, with three-dimensional views of the atmosphere. It is the second in the MTG constellation to be prepared for orbit and is equipped with the first European operational Infrared Sounder instrument.

Copernicus Sentinel-4 will be the first mission to monitor European air quality from geostationary orbit, providing hourly information that will transform how we predict air pollution across Europe, using its ultraviolet, visible, near-infrared light (UVN) spectrometer.

Our Red Planet explorers may encounter a peculiar threat.

SpaceX launched 27 Starlink satellites into low Earth orbit today (July 2), on the 500th Falcon 9 rocket launch in the company's history.

Launching in 2028, China’s Tianwen-3 Mars sample return mission could bring Red Planet rocks back to Earth as early as 2031—years ahead of competing U.S.-European efforts

Dolphins seem to “feel” their way across the sea with narrow, sweeping beams of sonar

Auroras may be visible from Alaska to New York as an incoming solar storm could spark geomagnetic storm conditions overnight.

Pictures of a distant supernova remnant show two concentric rings, providing clear evidence that exploding white dwarf stars go boom twice in the blink of an eye

Pictures of a distant supernova remnant show two concentric rings, providing clear evidence that exploding white dwarf stars go boom twice in the blink of an eye