Science

Global distribution of high mean sonority indexes (MSIs) across 9,179 language varieties from the ASJP database. Color of dots represents the MSI of the language, with redder dots indicating higher and bluer dots indicating lower indices. The fill color of land areas represents the mean annual temperature. Image credit: Wang et al., 2023. In the icy tundra of Siberia, people …

One of the best meteor showers of the year is about to commence, as comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle sends debris at Earth.  The Perseid meteor showers are the result of Comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle, a 26-kilometer (16-mile) wide comet that takes 133 years to orbit the Sun. This “parent” comet, around twice the size of the rock which dinosaured the dinosaurs, is what showers …

The Milky Way may be surrounded by dozens of yet-to-be-detected satellite galaxies, scientists claim. Using the highest-resolution simulation of our galaxy’s dark matter — an invisible entity that shapes the large-scale structure of the universe — and new mathematical models, cosmologists predict that more than 100 additional satellite galaxies beyond the ones already cataloged may be swirling around our own. …

The four crew members of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-11 mission to the International Space Station are pictured inside SpaceX’s Hangar X at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. From left to right: Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Platonov, NASA astronauts Mike Fincke and Zena Cardman, and JAXA astronaut Kimiya Yui. Image: SpaceX The next four-person crew heading to the International Space Station is …

Just a moment… Enable JavaScript and cookies to continue This request seems a bit unusual, so we need to confirm that you’re human. Please press and hold the button until it turns completely green. Thank you for your cooperation! Press and Hold Press and hold the button If you believe this is an error, please contact our support team. 209.74.74.26 …

“That Mars is habitable by beings of some sort or other is as certain as it is uncertain what these beings may be,” wrote Percival Lowell in the early 20th century. While the theories of this well-heeled amateur astronomer might seem fanciful when viewed from 2025, given what was known at the time, a large percentage of the public found …

Mars, the Red Planet, may have been much wetter in the distant past than scientists ever imagined. A groundbreaking discovery has revealed more than 15,000 kilometers of ancient riverbeds in Mars’ Noachis Terra region, suggesting that flowing water, driven by precipitation, once spread across a vast part of the planet. A Hidden Martian Landscape Unveiled The research, led by PhD …

One lucky bidder will soon fork over millions of dollars to take home NWA 16788, a 54-pound (24-kilogram) Martian meteorite. This space rock, discovered in the Sahara Desert in 2023, is the largest chunk of the Red Planet ever found on Earth. Sotheby’s, a New York-based auction house, estimates the meteorite could fetch up to $4 million during its natural …

NASA has discovered a mysterious ‘super-Earth’ planet that appears to flash a repeated signal from 154 light-years away. The planet, named TOI-1846 b, is almost twice the size of Earth and four times as massive.  It orbits a small, cool red dwarf star every four days and causes a strange, repeated dip in the star’s light, a signal that first …

In 2024, researchers transformed readings of an epic upheaval of Earth’s magnetic field flipping 41,000 years ago into an eerie, auditory experience. Now a team containing some of those same scientists has sonified an even earlier flip, from epochs ago. The resulting cacophony is an unnerving translation of geological data on the Matuyama-Brunhes reversal, a switching of the planet’s magnetic …