Science

A crucial piece of evidence in support of a long-standing hypothesis on planet formation has been observed by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), meaning astronomers are confident they’ve got a part of the cosmic process right. JWST data processed by an international team of researchers backs up the theory of ‘icy pebble drift’, which

Last month was the hottest October on record globally, Europe’s climate monitor said Wednesday, as months of exceptional heat are likely to make 2023 the warmest year in history. With temperatures soaring beyond previous averages by exceptional margins, scientists say the pressure on world leaders to curb planet-heating greenhouse gas pollution has never been more

Scientists in China have announced the birth of a primate like no other, with eyes that shined green and fingertips that glowed yellow – and those were just the observable features. Beneath the skin and deep within its genes, this creature was apparently even more remarkable. The lab-born male monkey was the product of an

AUSTIN, Texas — SpaceX launched a cargo Dragon mission to the International Space Station Nov. 9 from one Florida pad as it completes work on a neighboring pad to support crew and cargo missions. A Falcon 9 lifted off from Launch Complex 39A at 8:28 p.m. Eastern and placed a cargo Dragon spacecraft into orbit

In the last 260 million years, dinosaurs came and went, Pangea split into the continents and islands we see today, and humans have quickly and irreversibly changed the world we live in. But through all of that, it seems Earth has been keeping time. Research into ancient geological events suggests that our planet has a

A technique for squeezing light in the arms of LIGO’s interferometer has allowed its measurements to cross the quantum barrier. For LIGO (the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory), it’s a bold new realm of sensitivity, giving the gravitational wave detector the ability to find 60 percent more dead star mergers than the rate of its previous

The impact of human activity on the Earth system could result in unpredictable chaos from which there is no return, physicists have calculated. Using a theory conceived to model superconductivity, a team of physicists led by Alex Bernadini of the University of Porto in Portugal showed in a preprint paper this year that, after a

A citizen scientist has given us a brand new look at the time NASA slammed a spacecraft into an asteroid. Using a bank of recently released raw images, amateur image processor Jacint Roger Perez compiled a series of stabilized videos of the DART spacecraft slamming into the asteroid Dimorphos, giving us a new perspective on

The last remaining Northern Greenland ice shelves bracing the region’s vast ice sheet have lost a third of their volume in the last four decades, researchers said on Tuesday, warning of the risk of “dramatic” sea level rise. The floating shelves play a crucial role in regulating the flow of ice into the ocean from

If you’ve found the superconductor highs and lows of the past year to be exhausting, you are not alone. The field has been plagued by a series of astonishing claims followed by skepticism, social media turmoil, failures to replicate, accusations of misconduct and eventual retractions. Now, Nature – one of the top scientific journals in

WASHINGTON — The European Union is in the final stages of completing a deal with SpaceX to launch four Galileo navigation satellites in 2024. In press briefings during the European Space Summit in Seville, Spain, Nov. 7, Thierry Breton, commissioner for the internal market for the European Commission, said he was “finalizing the discussions” for

Strip life down to its simplest components, you’re left with fragments of genes and proteins that rely on the cellular machinery of host organisms to reproduce – elements we call viruses. As if to prove there is no honor among even the smallest of thieves, some virus-like entities known as mobile genetic elements (MGEs) can

A super-small, highly precise, ultra-cold physics experiment has revealed a brand new quantum state, called the spinaron. It occurs under extremely cold conditions when a cobalt atom on a copper surface is subjected to a strong magnetic field, causing its direction of spin to flip back and forth. The discovery could trigger a major rethink

New research on the mysterious remains of mummified baboons, found far from their natural habitat over a hundred years ago in Egypt, has shed light on the sacred significance of the primates in the ancient Arabian Peninsula. In studying the curious creatures, researchers on the project also believe they have revealed new evidence that Punt

NASA asteroid probe Lucy found a huge surprise when it completed the first of its flybys of its asteroid targets. Asteroid Dinkinesh, hanging around in the main belt that orbits between Mars and Jupiter, is not alone. The chunk of gray space rock has its own tiny little asteroid moon, wrapped in a close orbit

Earth’s boreal forests circle our planet’s far northern reaches, just south of the Arctic’s treeless tundra. If the planet wears an Arctic ice cap, then the boreal forests are a loose-knit headband wrapped around its ears, covering large portions of Alaska, Canada, Scandinavia and Siberia. The boreal region’s soils have long buffered the planet against

WASHINGTON — NASA has delayed the award of contracts to develop a lunar rover for future Artemis missions by four months, raising concerns in industry about the future of the program. NASA had intended to make an award for the Lunar Terrain Vehicle (LTV) services contract in November. In a final request for proposals issued

In Paris in the 1930s, letters and small parcels could be delivered via an elaborate network of underground pneumatic tubes that interlaced the city. Cells inside living fish embryos have been spotted doing a similar thing on a micro-scale. In a study made available on the pre- peer review archive bioRxiv, researchers in France witnessed

An experiment has finally revealed how it might feel to touch a quantum superfluid. Physicists dunked a special, finger-sized probe into an isotope of helium cooled to just a smidge over absolute zero, and recorded the physical properties therein. It is, they say, the first time we have gleaned an inkling of what the quantum

Declassified satellite images from an old CIA spy program in the Cold War have been used to discover 396 undocumented Roman forts and fort-like buildings in Eastern Europe. The snapshots of land were taken in what is now Syria and Iraq in the 1960s and 1970s and were declassified in the 1990s, and, more recently

Dark matter is a powerful cosmological model, but it isn’t without its problems. In addition to our inability to detect dark matter particles, one issue deals with the number of dwarf galaxies surrounding the Milky Way. According to the most popular models of dark matter, galaxies should be surrounded by clumps of dark matter within

The space industry has seen an unprecedented surge in startups recent years, each with their own vision for the future of space exploration and commercialization. As we approach the end of 2023, SpaceNews has been faced with the daunting task of selecting one startup to stand out as the Startup of the Year. This is

It’s difficult to miss or mistake the distinctive smell of cannabis. Now scientists have discovered more about where the aroma comes from – and it’s not, as had been thought, all down to the naturally occurring chemical compounds known as terpenes in the plant. Two research groups had previously identified volatile sulfur compounds (VSCs), also

The evaporation of liquid water into steam or mist is one of the most well-studied physical processes on Earth. In an unexpected twist, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) think they have discovered a whole new source of evaporation, and its transformative effect on liquid water could eclipse even that of heat. Light

Time is one of those things that most of us take for granted. We spend our lives portioning it into work-time, family-time and me-time. Rarely do we sit and think about how and why we choreograph our lives through this strange medium. A lot of people only appreciate time when they have an experience that

Astronomers have found plenty of white dwarf stars surrounded by debris disks. Those disks are the remains of planets destroyed by the star as it evolved. But they’ve found one intact Jupiter-mass planet orbiting a white dwarf. Are there more white dwarf planets? Can terrestrial, Earth-like planets exist around white dwarfs? A white dwarf (WD)

In the wake of the destructive Hurricane Otis, we find ourselves at a pivotal moment in the history of weather forecasting. The hurricane roared ashore with 165mph winds and torrential rainfall, slamming into the coastal city of Acapulco, Mexico and claiming the lives of at least 48 people. The speed at which Otis intensified was

On Monday US President Joe Biden released a wide ranging and ambitious executive order on artificial intelligence (AI) – catapulting the US to the front of conversations about regulating AI. In doing so, the US is leap frogging over other states in the race to rule over AI. Europe previously led the way with its

TAMPA, Fla. — International regulators have given Ovzon another six months to provide services from its debut satellite following a series of manufacturing and launch delays for the project, the Swedish satcoms provider announced Oct. 31. The company risked losing priority spectrum rights for Ovzon 3 after a change in launch providers from Arianespace to

Paleontologists have unearthed the fossils of two 160 million-year-old lamprey species, discovering the once small fish had already evolved into monster chompers – growing more than ten times longer than the earliest lampreys. The earliest fossil evidence of lampreys dates back 360 million years, earning them the nickname ‘living fossils’ due to their long history