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The author of the award-winning classic science fiction novel, the latest read for the New Scientist Book Club, on the science behind his creation

In this extract from the classic science fiction novel, the latest read for the New Scientist Book Club, we meet Ringworld’s protagonist Louis Wu, as he travels a future Earth

In this extract from the classic science fiction novel, the latest read for the New Scientist Book Club, we meet Ringworld’s protagonist Louis Wu, as he travels a future Earth

The European Space Agency's XMM-Newton is playing a crucial role in investigating the longest and most energetic bursts of X-rays seen from a newly awakened black hole. Watching this strange behaviour unfold in real time offers a unique opportunity to learn more about these powerful events and the mysterious behaviour of massive black holes.

Astronomers have used space-based telescopes, including NASA's Swift X-ray observatory, to watch a monster black hole spring to life with powerful X-ray eruptions.

Get a huge discount on a great beginner telescope in time for the upcoming Lyrid meteor shower, full moon and other night sky events.

Diamonds formed in Earth’s lower mantle contain tiny flecks of minerals that are helping us understand the inner workings of our planet

Diamonds formed in Earth’s lower mantle contain tiny flecks of minerals that are helping us understand the inner workings of our planet

From a garden on planet Earth, 38 hours of exposure

What's at the tip of this interstellar jet?

Sometimes, the Moon visits the Pleiades.

How much mass do flocculent spirals hide?

Why are there so many moonquakes?

In dramatic silhouette against a cloudy daytime sky over Paris, France,

Made with a telescope shaded from bright sunlight by an umbrella,

Image: This Copernicus Sentinel-2 image shows part of one of the world’s natural wonders – the Great Barrier Reef in the Coral Sea off the east coast of Queensland, Australia.

The two most prominent satellite galaxies of the Milky Way are the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds. A team of astronomers have recently tracked the movements of 7,000 stars in the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) and found that many of them are being pulled away towards the Large Magellanic Cloud! It seems the SMC is being pulled apart, perhaps leading to its eventual destruction as the tidal forces strip away its stars!

For the first time since Russian cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova’s solo flight in 1963, a spacecraft will fly with only women aboard. Blue Origin’s all-female crew includes pop star Katy Perry.

One of the things about astronomy that captivates me is that for every question we answer, we open up a whole bunch of other questions. Dark matter and dark energy are one such phenomenon that rather continues to confound us. There’s also the mystery of missing infrared light too but a team of astronomers think they may have found it! The team examined a region of sky using the Herschel Space Telescope and, by staking 141 images, found where individual dust-rich galaxies appeared blended together. The galaxies are absorbing starlight and re-emitting infrared radiation, and is this that may well account for the missing light.

China is getting ready to 3D-print bricks on the moon using lunar soil, in what could be a huge step toward building a base on the lunar surface.