China is advancing its Tianwen 3 Mars sample return mission, which aims to bring approximately 500 grams (17.6 ounces) of Red Planet collectibles back to Earth in 2031. According to the China National Space Administration, the Tianwen 3 mission will have a lander, an ascender, a service capsule, an orbiter, and an Earth reentry module. … Read more
The expected Christmas greeting from Beagle 2 never arrived. The British-led lander was due to reach Mars on December 25, 2003 and then transmit from the surface. As no signal arrived, the silence left several possible failures unresolved: entry into the atmosphere, descent, landing or the steps necessary to begin operating later. The images announced … Read more
A small magnet floating above a superconductor has given physicists a way to test an unusually heavy set of dark matter candidates. The detector did not identify dark matter. What it showed was that a small mechanical sensor, kept exceptionally quiet and monitored for long enough, could investigate masses far beyond the reach of previous … Read more
The Crescent Nebula shines in the constellation Cygnus. (Image credit: Kevin Boardman) Astrophotographer Kevin Boardman captured this spectacular view of the Crescent Nebula, which reveals intricate filaments of gas surrounding a massive star nearing the end of its life about 4,700 light-years from Earth in the constellation Cygnus. Boardman’s image depicts a turbulent chapter in … Read more
Scientists may finally know why Earth’s twin Venus lacks a moon, discovering that the solar system’s hottest planet may have consumed its own natural satellite. Venus is often called Earth’s twin due to its size, mass, rock composition, and distance from the sun, but there are some obvious differences between the two planets. Aside from … Read more
The largest dinosaurs that ever lived were able to reproduce at high latitudes (or regions far from the equator) and devised a clever strategy to keep their eggs warm, a study of a trove of titanosaur eggs unearthed in Argentina has revealed. Most titanosaur eggs and shells, like those of other dinosaurs, have been found … Read more
The container ship Ever Laurel, operated by Evergreen Marine, was three days out of Hong Kong on January 10, 1992, bound across the North Pacific to the port of Tacoma, Washington, when a severe winter storm trapped the vessel near the international date line. Twelve 40-foot intermodal shipping containers slid off the deck during the … Read more
Researchers from Google and the Janelia Research Campus of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute announced a major milestone in neuroscience last week. On September 3, scientists published the results of a decade-long project to map every neural connection in the brain and central nervous system of an adult male fruit fly. And of course, a … Read more
All experiments complied with relevant ethical regulations. This study used established human cell lines and involved no human participants, human samples or animals; therefore, no human or animal ethics approval was required. Recombinant DNA experiments were approved by the Institutional Recombinant DNA Experiment Safety Committee of the National Institute of Genetics (R7-7). Additional experimental details … Read more
Planetary defense scientists detected an asteroid crashing into Earth off the coast of Australia this week, and only had a 6-hour warning that it would impact. On Sunday, September 6, 2026, self-tracking telescopes at the Mount Lemmon Observatory in Arizona, USA, captured a faint object crossing the sky. The object turned out to be an … Read more