Science

The Doomsday Clock now stands at 85 seconds before midnight. The change was announced by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Last year, it was set at 89 seconds. The clock is updated annually. It is meant to reflect global conditions, not predict specific events. Scientists involved in the process look at security risks, environmental…

NASA’s Artemis II Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft are seen atop a mobile launcher at Launch Complex 39B, after being rolled out to the launch pad at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. AP/PTI(AP01_19_2026_000008B) NASA teams in Florida are moving through a careful stretch of work as preparations continue for the Artemis…

Elon Musk’s SpaceX Dragon delivers final orbital boost to the ISS before return (AI-generated) The International Space Station received another small lift late last week, continuing a routine but essential process that keeps the orbiting laboratory at the right height above Earth. On Friday, January 23, a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft attached to the station fired…

For centuries, Earth’s seasons were assumed to follow a shared, predictable rhythm. Spring arrived, summer peaked, autumn faded, and winter reset the cycle. But two decades of satellite observations now show that this assumption is breaking down. Using long-term global datasets, scientists have found that the timing of seasons is becoming increasingly uneven, fragmented, and…

Ageing is often described as a slow accumulation of damage, but a new study suggests something more subtle may be happening inside our cells. Researchers at University of California, San Francisco report that as cells grow older, they do not simply wear out, they lose the coordinated gene activity that keeps them functioning efficiently. By…

Solar wind explained: How the sun’s particle stream impacts our solar system (Image source: NASA) Solar wind sounds poetic, but it’s a very real and powerful phenomenon, connecting the Sun to every part of our solar system. Unlike the wind we feel on Earth, solar wind isn’t moving air; it’s a constant stream of charged…

A rocket launch looks like a contest between raw power and engineering control, but the most critical moments happen before the vehicle even leaves the ground. In the final seconds on the launchpad, forces build rapidly as engines ignite while the rocket is still restrained. To an outside observer, some of the systems activated at…

NASA tests space sensors for tracking ocean debris (AI-generated) Scientists at NASA are beginning to look at ocean debris from an unfamiliar angle, not from ships or beaches, but from orbit. The work follows a recent finding that space based sensors can detect plastic pollution on land, a result that has quietly shifted expectations. Rather…

The idea of dark matter has existed for decades, mostly as a necessary explanation rather than something clearly seen. New observations from the James Webb Space Telescope are adding texture to that idea, without resolving it completely. Scientists working with Webb data have produced a detailed map showing where dark matter appears to sit in…

Distant planets once linked to oceans may be full of magma (AI-generted) Astronomers have spent the past decade cataloguing thousands of planets beyond the solar system, many of them falling into a strange middle category. These worlds, known as sub Neptunes, are larger than Earth but smaller than Neptune, and they appear everywhere modern telescopes…