As Voyager fades, NASA redirects New Horizons away from the Kuiper Belt — Forty-six years after departing Earth, Voyager 2 is running low on energy. Its nuclear batteries are fading, slowly depriving the spacecraft of the power needed to run its instruments. In response, operators have been gradually switching off less essential parts of the spacecraft. As the power output continues to fall…

The first stars were vast, pure and utterly mysterious — The outbreak of World War II proved an unexpected boon for astronomy. Across Europe and Asia cities dimmed their lights, a move intended to hinder the attacks of enemy warships and planes. …

An event unparalled in human history swept through the solar system last year — Voyager 1 spotted it first. From its viewpoint, perched twenty billion miles from Earth, the wave of energy sweeping towards the Solar System showed up as a burst of activity in its particle detectors. Hours later, as the wave buffeted Mars, rovers and satellites scattered across the planet registered its…

A brief glimpse of the Earth’s dark future — One day, billions of years from now, the Sun will begin to die. Like other stars of its kind, it will gradually swell as it cools; growing in size as it transforms into a red giant. …

Engineering challenges are far from the only thing preventing SpaceX from trying again — As Starship’s engines flickered into life last April 20, it was hard not to feel a surge of excitement. For over two years the world has been waiting for the inaugural launch of Starship and its Super Heavy booster, which together form the most powerful rocket ever built. If all…

The search for a second Earth comes up empty handed, for now — Compared to the hundreds of solar systems now known to be scattered across the galaxy, ours is something of an outlier. Most, indeed, appear rather more chaotic: featuring giant planets orbiting far closer than Mercury, or rocky planets flung far into cold and remote orbits. That makes the TRAPPIST-1 system…

Asteroids contain vital ingredients for life, researchers find — How did life begin on Earth? Though researchers have traced back the tree of life over billions of years, the question of how life began — how chemistry became biology — has remained one of the deepest mysteries of science. Most life is based around the chemical DNA, but scientists…

Demand for rockets is soaring, just as supply collapses — Barely a week seems to go by without news of another start-up trying to put their rocket in orbit. In March it was the turn of Relativity Space, whose Terran 1 rocket soared into the sky before falling back to Earth a few minutes later. PLD Space, a Spanish company…

One physicist claims to have achieved room temperature superconductivity. Are his claims too good to be true? — Along with nuclear fusion and quantum computing, room temperature superconductivity is one of the holy grails of physics. If it ever works it could revolutionise the world, ushering in an era of ultra-efficient electrical devices. …