Uranus Rolls Around the Sun on Its Side and the Seasons Are Staggering
A Planet Knocked Sideways by History Most planets spin like tops — upright, steady, predictable. Uranus does something far stranger. With an axial tilt of roughly 97.8 degrees, it lies almost flat compared to its path around the Sun. Instead of spinning upright, it rolls…
Our Nearest Galactic Neighbor Is Slowly Dying Out, Hubble Reveals
A Galaxy Running Out of Steam Andromeda is a spiral galaxy comparable in size to our Milky Way, close enough to be seen with the unaided eye from areas with dark skies. It has long captivated astronomers and stargazers alike. But a sweeping new study…
The Ocean’s Most Mysterious Voice Has Been Calling for Decades With No Reply
Scientists have spent decades tracking a mysterious whale that calls at a unique frequency no other whale responds to, raising questions about whether the animal is truly isolated or simply communicating in a way we cannot yet understand. Researchers caution that the ocean’s depths may conceal far more complex interactions than current technology allows us to detect.
A SpaceX Rocket Is About to Hit the Moon and Nobody Is in Charge of Stopping It
A discarded SpaceX rocket stage is on a collision course with the Moon, but the bigger concern is what happens as lunar space gets increasingly crowded. With more missions from both government agencies and private companies heading to the Moon, experts say there is a growing need for clearer rules around safety and accountability for space debris and abandoned hardware.
Space Robots Are Strapping Jetpacks on Dying Satellites to Keep Them Flying
A New Kind of Space Rescue A two-armed space robot blasted off on a private salvage operation on July 21 to slap life-extending jetpacks on old satellites running low on fuel thousands of miles up. It sounds like science fiction — a robotic mechanic cruising…
Our Second-Nearest Potentially Habitable Neighbor Is a World You’ve Never Heard Of
A Cosmic Neighbor Hidden in Plain Sight There is something almost comic about the name GJ 887 d. It sounds like a storage code, not a place. The star it circles is better known to catalogues than to the public, and the planet itself has…
Catfish Are Spreading Cancer to Each Other Like a Parasite, Scientists Find
Scientists have identified only the fourth known transmissible cancer in history, and the first ever found in a fish. Researchers discovered a melanoma spreading between catfish in a Vermont lake, where tumor cells pass directly from one fish to another. The rare finding adds to a very short list of cancers known to transmit between individual animals.
Rare Deep-Sea Squid Filmed Carrying Thousands of Eggs Off Chile’s Coast
Scientists exploring the deep seafloor off Chile have captured rare footage of a mysterious creature gliding across the ocean bottom. What makes the sighting especially remarkable is that the animal appears to be carrying something, and researchers note it will continue holding onto it for months. The footage has been described as extraordinary and highly unusual for deep-sea observation.
Saturn’s Titan Is Bigger Than a Planet — And Stranger Than You Think
A Moon That Defies the Rules When most people picture a moon, they imagine something like our own — a barren, cratered rock hanging silently in the sky. Saturn’s moon Titan is nothing like that. A moon in our solar system is wider than a…
This Tapeworm Hacks Ants’ Biology to Live Longer Than Their Own Queen
A Parasite With an Unlikely Gift A tapeworm fundamentally changes the lives of ants: workers of the species Temnothorax nylanderi infected with the tapeworm Anomotaenia brevis live several times longer than their uninfected nestmates. We’re not talking about a modest bump in lifespan — infected…
