Water was born as the result of exploding stars pixelparticle/Getty Images The first water molecules may have formed just 100 million to 200 million years after the big bang – before even the first galaxies – kicking off a process that led to life on Earth… and possibly elsewhere. Shortly after the big bang, most…
BBC On Christmas Eve, an autonomous spacecraft flew past the Sun, closer than any human-made object before it. Swooping through the atmosphere, Nasa’s Parker Solar Probe was on a mission to discover more about the Sun, including how it affects space weather on Earth. This was a landmark moment for humanity – but one without…
Mars appears light blue in this near-infrared image taken by the Hera spacecraft. Its moon Deimos is the dark mark towards the centre of the image ESA A space exploration mission to study an asteroid that NASA deliberately crashed a spacecraft into three years ago has taken stunning bonus images of Mars and its moon…
NASA’s headquarters in Washington DC John M. Chase/Getty Images NASA is preparing for substantial budget cuts that may force the cancellation of ongoing and upcoming missions across the solar system, leaving it facing a “brutal” future, experts have warned. The space agency has already begun some layoffs as part of the extensive restructuring of US…
An artist’s impression of a Starlink satellite in orbit Michal Bednarek/Shutterstock A fragment of an out-of-control SpaceX Starlink satellite smashed into a farm in Canada last year, New Scientist can reveal – raising questions about the risks of de-orbiting space junk. “That’ll punch a hole in whatever it lands on, including your head,” says Samantha…
Georgina Rannard Climate and science reporter Watch: Lift-off for Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin as rocket New Glenn launches into orbit Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’s space company has blasted its first rocket into orbit in a bid to challenge the dominance of Elon Musk’s SpaceX. The New Glenn rocket launched from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station…
The Big Wheel galaxy formed 2 billion years after the big bang Weichen Wang A newly-discovered spiral galaxy, dubbed the Big Wheel, formed just 2 billion years after the big bang – far earlier, considering its size, than astronomers thought possible. Themiya Nanayakkara, at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, Australia, says the discovery was…
Watch: SpaceX loses Starship spacecraft but catches booster on seventh test flight The latest test of Space X’s giant Starship rocket has failed, minutes after launch. Officials at Elon Musk’s company said the upper stage was lost after problems developed after lift-off from Texas on Thursday. But the Super Heavy booster managed to return to…
Alison Francis Senior Science Journalist NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona Asteroid Bennu is a 500m-wide pile of boulders, rocks and rubble The chemical building blocks of life have been found in the grainy dust of an asteroid called Bennu, an analysis reveals. Samples of the space rock, which were scooped up by a Nasa spacecraft and brought…
Artist’s impression of a future Interlune moon mining mission Interlune A space start-up will launch a moon mining mission in 2027, with the eventual goal of delivering a rare form of helium that is essential for some quantum computers and future nuclear fusion reactors. If successful, it will be the first commercial mission of its…
