Astronomy

From “trenfluencers” to complex drug regimens, influencers are reshaping how millions approach steroid use. Now, researchers are trying to catch up with what this means for our health

Magnets could make bulky centrifuges obsolete in space oxygen systems.

As AI grows more fluent in mimicking human empathy, language and memory, we’re left asking: If a machine can fake awareness so well, what exactly is the real thing?

Aboard the International Space Station, astronauts use creativity and culture to make life in orbit feel a little more like home.

Mathematicians have unraveled a key conjecture about knot theory

"Since I landed in Lucknow around 7:30 this morning, I must have clicked about 2,000 selfies."

Less than three weeks since the first MetOp Second Generation weather satellite, MetOp-SG-A1, was launched, this remarkable new satellite has already started transmitting data from two of its cutting-edge instruments, offering a tantalising glimpse of what’s to come.

Wait wait wait. There are other, less stressful options. I don’t want to end on such a downer note. There is hope for us yet!

For nearly a century, cosmologists have relied on a simplified model of the universe that treats matter as uniform particles that don't interact with each other. While this approach helped scientists understand the Big Bang and the expansion of space, it ignores a fundamental reality, that our universe is anything but uniform. Stars cluster into galaxies, matter collapses into black holes, and vast empty voids stretch across space, all constantly interacting through gravity and other forces.

When most stars like the Sun die, they don't go out with a bang, they fade away as white dwarf stars, Earth-sized remnants that slowly cool over billions of years. For decades, it was thought these stellar corpses were poor candidates for hosting life because they cool predictably, giving any orbiting planets only brief windows in the "habitable zone" where liquid water could exist. But new research suggests this assumption may be fundamentally wrong.

September’s night sky features the iconic Summer Triangle, almost directly overhead at nightfall, and a newcomer to the evening sky: the planet Saturn, which will rise in the east not long after sunset. Get tips for viewing these and lots more stargazing info by downloading this month’s Sky Tour podcast!

The post September Podcast: Hello, Saturn! appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

What's hovering above the Sun?

Today, NASA recovers over 90% of the water used in space.

SpaceX's Starship spacecraft will soon get a few more Raptor rocket engines than it had before.

People who do several very short bouts of strenuous activity each day are much less likely to die in the next few years than those who do no exercise at all

People who do several very short bouts of strenuous activity each day are much less likely to die in the next few years than those who do no exercise at all

You can feast guilt-free on farmed oysters and mussels as their production can have environmental benefits – but those probably don't include capturing carbon

You can feast guilt-free on farmed oysters and mussels as their production can have environmental benefits – but those probably don't include capturing carbon

That the human mind treads a delicate line between order and disorder is a radical idea that’s gaining traction - and is changing our understanding of intelligence, consciousness and creativity

That the human mind treads a delicate line between order and disorder is a radical idea that’s gaining traction - and is changing our understanding of intelligence, consciousness and creativity