Science

In this episode, SpaceNews Mike Gruss interviews Kevin Lausten, CEO of Morpheus Space, at the 2026 Small Satellite Conference in Salt Lake City, Utah. They discuss why propulsion is critical for enabling adaptation in a moment of congestion and competition, what sovereignty means for the market and how autonomy is changing production. Sponsored by Frontgrade

Your pupils quickly dilate when you enter a dark room, letting in more light to help you see. Once you’re in brighter conditions, they contract accordingly. This reflex is well-known, but pupil dilation can also happen for other, less obvious reasons. When we’re surprised, for example, our pupils may dilate as if we’re suddenly engulfed

In April 2019, London took drastic action against traffic emissions in a bid to reduce the toxic air pollution that choked up the city’s center. It’s called the Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ). Now, five years’ worth of data from this ‘natural experiment’ has provided scientists with strong evidence that central London’s ULEZ (and the

Would you eat a cookie that was made from plastic? Technically, we’re all ingesting an ungodly amount of plastic already, in the form of micro- and nanoscopic particles in our food. But now, researchers from Southern Illinois University (SIU) Carbondale are trying to get us to eat the stuff on purpose. It takes the form

SALT LAKE CITY – The Aerospace Corp. is continuing to demonstrate the viability of pancake-shaped DiskSats in the wake of their December launch on a Rocket Lab Electron. “It’s the biggest advancement in containerized satellites since cubesats were introduced in the early 2000s,” Darren Rowen, DiskSat demonstration mission chief engineer, told SpaceNews. After launch from

Thank you for reading this article: By supporting science journalism, you’re also supporting higher standards in scientific research – which benefits us all. A new study published in Media and Communication looks at the practice of watchdog science journalism, where journalists investigate issues such as malpractice, fraud, and corporate manipulation in scientific research. Journalism researchers

Look closely at one of the most famous photographs ever taken of Earth and you might struggle to find Earth at all. There are no blue oceans. No continents. No clouds. Just darkness, scattered sunlight, and a tiny pale blue point almost lost within it. That dot is us. The photograph was taken 36 years

The world is drowning in plastic waste.  Our bodies are full of microplastics and no environment is safe. Plastics are strewn atop the most remote mountains, the deepest parts of the sea, and the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is so prominent that it has become a proper noun and its own ecosystem.  Polyethylene, the world’s

Paris, France | August 2026– More than 6,500 Earth observation (EO) satellites are expected to launch by 2035, generating $155.9 billion in manufacturing revenues as governments expand sovereign intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities, according to the latest edition of Novaspace’s Earth Observation Satellite Systems report. “The rules of the game are changing,” said Federico Banfi, Consultant

Chances are, there are thousands of photos on your phone right now – and you probably never look at them. Selfies at parties. Brunch spreads, carefully staged for Instagram. Your cat sleeping in slightly different positions. Sunsets, supermoons, and travel snaps. One of the main reasons people take photos is to help us remember an

The Universe can pull some wild monkeyshines, especially when it comes to scale. From giant black holes to massive sheet-like walls of galaxies, our reality is full of mind-boggling chonkers. But a galaxy named IC 1101 is bonkers in a way that dramatically exceeds the upper end of normal. Using the deepest observations yet of

It’s well known that where there’s smoke there’s fire, but did you know that where there’s rain there’s ice? Or so the conventional thinking goes, as atmospheric ice crystals allow raindrops to grow large and heavy enough to fall from cold clouds.  There are also ‘warm clouds’, which generate much of Earth’s rain, especially in

If scientists can develop networks based on quantum physics, the potential is huge. It could improve communication security, unite the capabilities of quantum computers, and help create next-generation research instruments. But a key challenge lies in a quantum phenomenon called entanglement: the way that two objects can be inextricably linked no matter the distance between

Policy documents from both the White House and the Office of Space Commerce this summer acknowledge that space is a complex system, as to which forms of adaptive governance should apply. This is a move in the right direction.  But the complex systems approach they embrace — which solves problems by analyzing systems, relationships, patterns

Psychedelics are becoming more clinically relevant, and a slew of recent research has explored the effects of psilocybin in ever-greater detail, revealing that it has the ability to imprint lasting, meaningful changes in brain activity.  Psilocybin, the psychoactive powerhouse in ‘magic mushrooms’, is thought to induce brain plasticity, reorganizing neural connections and signaling pathways to

If an asteroid above a certain size ever gets close enough to Earth, humanity may be in serious trouble. Even a relatively small space rock – around the size of a football field – would be large enough to completely destroy a city. Because some are so dark and non-reflective, asteroids can be hard to

The statistics for how much of the day we spend staring at our phones make for sobering reading: Individual usage varies a lot of course, but if you’re ‘average’ you might expect to spend six hours a day on your phone, and unlock it twice every hour. With ongoing questions about how our ever-present digital

WASHINGTON — Castelion, a defense-tech startup seeking to mass produce lower-cost hypersonic weapons, has raised more than $1 billion in new financing as it moves to expand missile production and develop a broader portfolio of offensive and defensive weapons. The Series C financing announced Aug. 19 includes $800 million in equity and a $250 million

Our brains comprise 86 billion neurons and the trillions of connections between them, whipping up an orchestrated storm of electricity and chemicals that pulse within a 3-pound lump of jellified fat, protein, and water. The intricate biological machine that defines us humans requires about 20 years to mature, a much lengthier developmental period than in

In the extreme environment at the heart of the Milky Way galaxy, things can get a little hinky. And by hinky, we mean almost inconceivably bonkers. There lurks a supermassive black hole named Sagittarius A*, tipping the scales at around 4.3 million times the mass of the Sun. Although that’s relatively modest as far as

It’s called climate change because it’s not just about hotter or drier, colder or wetter climate shifts. It’s about the increased and often unpredictable variability in the weather events that make up climate. The remarkable climate stability of the past 10,000 years or so is a major driver of the growth and prosperity of human

Existing gas turbines aren’t ready to run on hydrogen, according to researchers from Germany, China, and France, who just published a study in Nature Materials. There’s a lot of excitement about hydrogen fuel as a sustainable energy solution, though to be truly emissions-free, it must be harvested from water using renewable energy. Currently, most of

WASHINGTON — A new analysis of the Trump administration’s fiscal 2027 defense budget finds that the proposed surge in Space Force spending is concentrated in missions like moving-target tracking, missile warning, command and control and classified programs. The report, written by Robert Wilson, director of strategy and national security at The Aerospace Corporation’s Center for

The wreck of the Dutch East India Company ship Batavia, which sank off the coast of Western Australia in 1629, is one of the most infamous in the region’s history – primarily because of the massacre and mutiny that took place amongst the survivors. Researchers from Australia and Germany have now published a paper in

At the center of our galaxy lurks a supermassive black hole: a ravenous object capable of devouring matter that strays too close. Yet new observations from the JWST suggest that right in that black hole’s cosmic neighborhood, a dying star is still casting matter back out into space. Not all stars are massive enough to

We all know the frustration of being stuck behind a tentative motorist, but there may be something to be said for driving like a person with a will to live after all. Hooning your car like you needed to arrive yesterday is known to accelerate vehicular wear and tear. Owners of electric vehicles (EVs) likely

TAMPA, Fla. — Lynk Global has completed its merger with Omnispace and rebranded as Elveo Mobile, adding globally coordinated S-band spectrum to expand direct-to-device (D2D) satellite services beyond basic messaging. The companies said Aug. 17 they had cleared all U.S. and foreign regulatory approvals needed to close the transaction, which was announced in October for

There’s something about drawing stick figures with weapons and monsters in the margins of your homework that stands the test of time. Even in the age of iPads and Minecraft, give most kids a pencil and paper (and, even better, a piece of schoolwork to procrastinate), and they will find their way into the age-old

Life on Earth, beginning with simple microorganisms that evolved and diversified into the incredible breadth of species living today, has always been turbulent. Mass extinction events happen seemingly without warning, wiping out countless species and allowing others to take their place. But it’s not just disasters like supervolcanos and asteroid impacts that cause mass extinction.

WASHINGTON — NASA plans to award three more lunar missions this year through a commercial services program, including an orbiter that would replace the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. In earnings calls this week, executives with Firefly Aerospace and Intuitive Machines, the two companies that have landed spacecraft on the moon through NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services,