Science

Jupiter, Venus and Mercury will appear together in the predawn sky on Sept. 1. (Image credit: Created by Anthony Wood in Canva.) Early risers are in for a spectacular show next week, when Jupiter, Venus and Mercury form a planetary lineup in the predawn sky on Sept. 1. Look above the eastern horizon in the hours preceding dawn on Sept. …

This illustration of early Earth includes liquid water as well as magma seeping from the planet’s core due to a large impact. Scientists at NASA are investigating the chemistry that might have existed at this time in the planet’s history. Credit: Simone Marchi The study finds life’s origin faces severe mathematical challenges. Chance alone may not be enough. A new …

Launched in 2004, the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory – formerly the Swift Gamma-Ray Burst Explorer – has been dutifully studying gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) during its two-year mission, before moving on to a more general space observation role during its ongoing mission. Unfortunately, the observatory is in LEO, at an altitude of around 370 km. The natural orbital decay combined with …

Joe Raedle/Getty Images When the Space Shuttle lifted off from Kennedy Space Center in 1981, it was the first reusable spacecraft. The massive orange external fuel tank was the major component designed to be destroyed on every flight. However, parts of the Shuttle orbiter had to be swapped out before the spacecraft …

Kate Adamala had been working on something dangerous. At her synthetic biology lab, Adamala had been taking preliminary steps toward creating a living cell from scratch with one key twist: all the organism’s building blocks would be flipped. Changing these molecules would create an unnatural mirror image of a cell, as different as your right hand from your left. The …

Press enter or click to view image in full size (Credit: Ciyavula) The biggest uncertainty about the interstellar object 3I/ATLAS involves the diameter of its solid-density nucleus. The flux detected by the SPHEREx space observatory at a wavelength of 1 micrometer from 3I/ATLAS on August 8–12, 2025 suggests a huge nucleus or alternatively an opaque dust cloud that scatters sunlight …

ERROR: The request could not be satisfied The request could not be satisfied. Request blocked. We can’t connect to the server for this app or website at this time. There might be too much traffic or a configuration error. Try again later, or contact the app or website owner. If you provide content to customers through CloudFront, you can find …

New research reveals that Jupiter’s birth triggered high-speed collisions that created molten droplets preserved in meteorites, tiny time capsules from the solar system’s earliest days.Credit: Shutterstock Ancient droplets found in meteorites reveal the history of planet formation. About 4.5 billion years ago, Jupiter expanded quickly into the giant planet we see today. Its immense gravity disturbed the paths of countless …

Credit: McAlpine Research Group / University of Minnesota A breakthrough in stem cell biology has been 3D-printed in Minnesota—and the lab results show promise for spinal cord injury recovery, and even reversal. A research team at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities demonstrated a groundbreaking process that combines 3D printing, stem cell biology, and lab-grown tissues to provide spinal cord …

Scientists have just made a fascinating discovery on Mars: a new mineral called ferric hydroxysulfate. The name is a mouthful, but the implications it brings are exciting. This particular mineral hints at a watery, chemically active past on the Red Planet. And this time, it wasn’t the rover that made the discovery, but a team of researchers from the SETI …