The asteroid that’s set to drift past Earth this weekend is not the kind of object that usually catches public attention, even in astronomical circles where near-Earth flybys are fairly routine. Still, there are moments when the numbers line up in a way that makes people look twice. A rocky body several times taller than…
Interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS has given astronomers an opportunity they rarely expect to receive. Unlike the countless icy bodies that circle the Sun, this object formed around another star before drifting into our solar system, carrying frozen material that has remained largely unchanged for billions of years. After passing closest to the Sun in late 2025,…
Democritus (Image: Wikipedia) It is one thing to behave well, and quite another to be good. Most of us can manage not to lie, cheat or steal, especially when someone is watching. But the ancient Greek philosopher Democritus pointed to a deeper kind of goodness. Real goodness, he said, is not merely not doing wrong,…
A 23-year-old man from Louisiana has become one of the first people in the United States to be functionally cured of sickle cell disease using Casgevy, the world’s first approved CRISPR-based gene-editing therapy. Daniel Cressy, from Metairie near New Orleans, had lived with the inherited blood disorder since childhood, enduring severe pain crises and repeated…
Most of us have done it at some point. We cram facts before an exam, repeat them back on the page, and forget almost everything within a week. The physicist Richard Feynman saw this happen on a large scale, and it genuinely puzzled him. People, he complained, do not learn by understanding. They learn by…
Around three billion years ago, long before animals, forests, or even complex life existed, a large asteroid struck a young Earth. The collision happened at a time when the planet looked very different from today, with early continents still taking shape and geological processes operating in conditions that remain difficult to reconstruct. Much of the…
The European Space Agency’s Euclid space telescope has delivered one of the most detailed views ever captured of our galaxy’s crowded heart, revealing more than 60 million stars in a single extraordinary image. The observation offers astronomers an unprecedented look into the densely populated central regions of the Milky Way, a part of the galaxy…
Image: University of Würzburg Getting stuck in sand has ended dreams of exploration before. On Mars, where loose dunes, soft soil and rocky terrain stretch for thousands of kilometres, a trapped rover can mean the loss of years of scientific work and millions in investment. Now, researchers in Germany have turned to an unlikely source…
When the Pacific Ocean carried the effects of a powerful earthquake away from Russia’s far eastern coast in late July, most attention focused on the tsunami warnings issued across the region. Less visible was an unusual scientific opportunity unfolding hundreds of kilometres above the waves. By chance, a satellite designed to monitor Earth’s water systems…
Interest in returning astronauts to the Moon has changed considerably over the past few years. What was once centred on individual landings is gradually becoming a much broader effort to establish a lasting human presence beyond Earth. NASA’s latest announcement reflects that shift. Instead of focusing only on the next mission, the agency is preparing…
