Science

From 13 billion light-years across the gulf of space and time, we’ve just caught a glimpse of the most distant black hole merger discovered yet. Using JWST, an international team of astronomers has discovered two supermassive black holes, and their attendant galaxies, coming together in a colossal cosmic collision, just 740 million years after the

WASHINGTON — The first launch of the Ariane 6 is expected in the first half of July as the vehicle takes shape at its French Guiana launch site. The European Space Agency announced May 21 that the joint team working on the Ariane 6, including ESA, prime contractor ArianeGroup, launch services provider Arianespace and the

A grisly find of two skeletons maimed in exactly the same way suggests that limb amputation was used as a punitive form of punishment with shocking precision in the Eastern Zhou Dynasty of China, more than 2,000 years ago. One skeleton, most likely male, that paleoanthropologist Qian Wang of Texas A&M University and colleagues studied

The detailed mechanics of how matter falls down onto a black hole from outside the event horizon have been revealed in a new paper. As predicted by Einstein’s theory of gravity, there’s a point at which material stops circling the black hole and falls straight down, plunging precipitously beyond the point of no return. Now,

HELSINKI — China sent a new set of four Beijing-3 optical remote sensing satellites into orbit late Sunday. A Long March 2D rocket lifted off at 11:06 p.m. Eastern, May 19 (0306 UTC, May 20), from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center, north China. The China Aerospace Science and Technology Group (CASC) confirmed launch success within

Slowly but surely, the ground is regurgitating its secrets. The history that lies buried beneath the swirling sands of time yields, piece by piece, to technology. But one such piece, in a well-explored region, has archaeologists a little baffled. Near the famous ancient Great Pyramid of Giza, Egypt, ground-penetrating radar and electrical resistivity tomography have

Within the last five years, astronomers have discovered a new type of astronomical phenomenon that exists on vast scales – larger than whole galaxies. They’re called ORCs (odd radio circles), and they look like giant rings of radio waves expanding outwards like a shockwave. Until now, ORCs had never been observed in any wavelength other

Abnormally warm patches of water in the Pacific Ocean, often referred to as ‘blobs’, have been having a disastrous effect on marine ecosystems since 2010. Now we may know what’s causing them to keep appearing. A new study from an international team of researchers, and involving some detailed computer simulations, has linked the blobs to

WASHINGTON — NASA is gearing up for back-to-back launches of cubesats designed to provide key data for improving models of the Earth’s climate. The first of twin cubesats for NASA’s Polar Radiant Energy in the Far Infrared Experiment, or PREFIRE, mission is scheduled to launch no earlier than May 22 on an Electron rocket from

Mention the Milky Way and most people will visualise a great big spiral galaxy billions of years old. It’s thought to be a galaxy that took shape billions of years after the Big Bang. Studies by astronomers have revealed that there are the echoes of an earlier time around us. A team of astronomers from

Almost two centuries after California’s gold rush, the United States is on the brink of a lithium rush. As demand for the material skyrockets, government geologists are rushing to figure out where the precious element is hiding. In September 2023, scientists funded by a mining company reported finding what could be the largest deposit of

WASHINGTON — NASA and Boeing have once again delayed first crewed flight of the company’s CST-100 Starliner as they work to resolve a helium leak in the spacecraft’s propulsion system. In a statement late May 17, NASA announced that the Crew Flight Test (CFT) mission, previously scheduled for May 21, has been pushed back to

Scientists have discovered a long-buried branch of the Nile river that once flowed alongside more than 30 pyramids in Egypt, potentially solving the mystery of how ancient Egyptians transported the massive stone blocks to build the famous monuments. The 64-kilometre-long river branch, which ran by the iconic Giza pyramid complex among other wonders, was hidden

A solar flare measured at X8.7 on the strength scale just emerged from AR 3664, the sunspot region responsible for last weekend’s solar storms that sparked vivid auroras. That’s the most powerful solar flare of the current cycle, absolutely the most powerful since 2017, and comfortably within the top 20 solar flares ever measured. As

We could be producing concrete that’s 30 percent stronger by processing and adding charred coffee grounds to the mix, researchers in Australia discovered. Their clever recipe could solve multiple problems at the same time. Every year the world produces a staggering 10 billion kilograms (22 billion pounds) of coffee waste globally. Most ends up in

Viruses are a mysterious and poorly understood force in microbial ecosystems. Researchers know they can infect, kill and manipulate human and bacterial cells in nearly every environment, from the oceans to your gut. But scientists don’t yet have a full picture of how viruses affect their surrounding environments in large part because of their extraordinary

WASHINGTON — Lithuania has become the 40th nation to sign the Artemis Accords outlining best practices for responsible space exploration. During a May 15 ceremony in Vilnius, Aušrinė Armonaitė, Lithuania’s minister of economy and innovation, signed the accords in the presence of Kara C. McDonald, U.S. ambassador to the country. “The Lithuanian space sector has

Powerful new imaging techniques reveal humans were already crafting complex hunting weapons from wood 300,000 years ago, upending the stereotype of the Stone Age. Archeologists have previously suspected humans have been using wooden tools for at least as long as stone ones, but due to wood’s more fragile nature, most evidence has rotted away. Now,

Stars, like people, come in a dazzling array. There are stable yellow-white stars, like the Sun; there are ginormous, blazing, short-lived behemoths, and small, dim red dwarfs. At the tiniest end of the range are ultracool dwarfs: just a little bigger than Jupiter, and barely warm at all, by star standards. It’s around one of

Tree ring data confirms it’s been 2,000 years since the Northern Hemisphere had a summer as hot as last year’s. Not since the height of the Roman Empire has life on Earth experienced a summer so extreme. The new analysis suggests we’ve breached the 2015 Paris Agreement to limit warming to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial

Google on Tuesday said it would introduce AI-generated answers to online queries, in one of the biggest changes to its world leading search engine in 25 years. “I’m excited to announce that we will begin launching this fully revamped experience, ‘AI overviews,’ to everyone in the US this week,” Google chief executive Sundar Pichai said

WASHINGTON — The launch of Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft on its first crewed flight has slipped at least four days because of a helium leak in the spacecraft. Boeing announced May 14 that the launch of the Crew Flight Test (CFT) mission, previously scheduled for May 17, has been rescheduled for no earlier than May

A centuries-old lock of hair that turned out to be from an unknown woman and advanced genomic sequencing technologies in 2023 debunked a long-running theory that German composer Ludwig van Beethoven had died from lead poisoning. Instead, on a stormy day, wracked with jaundice, the famed pianist succumbed to what is believed to be liver

I can remember when Perseverance was launched, travelled out into the Solar System and landed on Mars in February 2021. In all the time since it arrived, having clocked up 1000 days of exploration, it has collected 23 samples from different geological areas within the Jezero Crater. The area was once home to an ancient

Our reliance on plastic has become a huge problem, which is why researchers are excited about a new type of material – one that comes with built-in biodegrading capabilities, due to the bacterial spores living inside it. The new self-digesting plastic combines thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) and Bacillus subtilis bacteria, which had to be engineered to

WASHINGTON — NASA and the Japanese space agency JAXA plan to operate an instrument on an X-ray astronomy satellite as-is for at least the next year and a half despite an issue affecting one of its instruments. JAXA launched the X-ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission (XRISM) in September 2023 and the spacecraft, whose instruments were

The gym can be a discouraging place. Puffed and exhausted, it’s never wise to sneak a peek at the clock. A 10-minute session on the bike might sound like an achievable goal before the timer starts, but when your body gets going, those seconds are about to feel longer than normal, according to a series

A colossal structure in the distant Universe is defying our understanding of how the Universe evolved. In light that has traveled for 6.9 billion years to reach us, astronomers have found a giant, almost perfect ring of galaxies, some 1.3 billion light-years in diameter. It doesn’t match any known structure or formation mechanism. The Big

Around five and half millenia ago, northern Africa went through a dramatic transformation. The Sahara desert expanded and grasslands, forests and lakes favoured by humans disappeared. Humans were forced to retreat to the mountains, the oases, and the Nile valley and delta. As a relatively large and dispersed population was squeezed into smaller and more

A ‘cage of cages’ is how scientists have described a new type of porous material, unique in its molecular structure, that could be used to trap carbon dioxide and another, more potent greenhouse gas. Synthesized in the lab by researchers in the UK and China, the material is made in two steps, with reactions assembling