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A new 3D map of Uranus is shedding light on one of the solar system's most mysterious planets. Using NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, scientists observed the ice giant for nearly a full rotation, revealing the inner workings of its upper atmosphere for the first time. The team, led by Paola Tiranti from Northumbria University, mapped out the temperature and density of ions in the electrically–charged layer that sits 3,100 miles (5,000km) above the cloud tops.

"It's the only launch vehicle that can meet the orbit, the schedule and the cost to achieve something unprecedented with emerging technology."A history-making robotic rescue mission scheduled to launch next year will fly on a rocket dropped from a plane.In September, NASA announced that it has chosen Arizona company Katalyst Space Technologies to boost the altitude of its Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, a space telescope whose orbit has gotten dangerously low since its November 2004 launch...The $500 million Swift observatory was built by Orbital Sciences, a company that in 2014 became Orbital ATK, which was then acquired by Northrop Grumman...

Explanation: Some comets are regular guests of our solar neighborhood; others come by only once, never to return. We won’t have another chance to see Comet C/2024 E1 (Wierzchoś), which is currently making its way through the inner Solar System. The hyperbolic orbit of this comet indicates that it will likely become an interstellar traveler. Comet Wierzchoś is today near its closest approach to the Earth, passing roughly the same distance from the Earth as is the Sun. The featured 30-minute exposure was taken last week in Chile and shows a 5-degree long ion tail as well as three shorter...

OpenAI's GPT-5.2 has derived a new formula for gluon interactions, overturning assumptions of zero amplitude and advancing theoretical physics. For a long, long time physicists treated this interaction as a cosmic impossibility — a mathematical dead end so absolute it was taught almost with the certainty of Newton's laws and the elegance of Einstein's equations. Zero, in quantum physics, isn't a shrug; it's a verdict. And this particular verdict had stood unchallenged for decades. But every so often, science gets a jolt — a falling apple, a bending beam of starlight… or, in 2026, an AI model that refuses to...

Research led by Scott Duncan (Auckland University of Technology) and Melody Smith (University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau)In A Nutshell Play isn’t just for kids: Playful adults cope better with stress, feel more positive emotions, and report higher life satisfaction. Design matters: Cities and social norms often discourage adult play, but embedding playful spaces into everyday life could boost community well-being. It’s a mindset, not a toy box: Adult play is about curiosity and spontaneity, whether through humor, movement, creativity, or social interaction. Play strengthens relationships: It builds empathy, emotional intelligence, and even bridges generational divides. Somewhere along the...

Once in a lifetime! Scientists Track a Green Comet on a Permanent Escape Path | 9:43 NASA Space News | 597K subscribers | 2,030 views | February 16, 2026

On the morning of February 14, 2026 (Local time), Mount Semeru in East Java, Indonesia experienced continued eruptive activity with multiple pyroclastic flows traveling down the volcano’s slopes. According to the Indonesian Centre for Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation (PVMBG) and recent seismic monitoring reports, the volcano produced several eruption events and pyroclastic flow earthquakes throughout the afternoon. Massive Pyroclastic Flow Descends Entire Slope of Mount Semeru Volcano (Feb 13, 2026) | 9:30afarTV | 564K subscribers | 178,660 views | February 13, 2026

This active volcano still spews gas -- and a major eruption could trigger a deadly tsunami. Locals live in its shadow, knowing history could repeat itself. Nisyros is a small, volcanic island and municipality in the Dodecanese group of islands in the Aegean Sea, located between Kos and Tilos. The Volcano That Could Wipe Out the Greek Islands Volcano Documentary | 44:43 Autentic Documentary | 95.8K subscribers | 58,260 views | December 9, 2025

Of the more than 4,500 stars known to have planets, one puzzling statistic stands out. Even though nearly all stars are expected to have planets and most stars form in pairs, planets that orbit both stars in a pair are rare. Of the more than 6,000 extrasolar planets, or exoplanets, confirmed to date - most of them found by NASA's Kepler Space Telescope and the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) - only 14 are observed to orbit binary stars. There should be hundreds. Where are all the planets with two suns, like Tatooine in Star Wars? ... ... Over time,...

Scientists watching the nearby Fomalhaut star system have directly seen two protoplanets smash together for the first time. Then, they saw it happen again...The Fomalhaut system is no stranger to such crashes. It's famously known as the "Eye of Sauron" due to its resemblance to the fiery, all-seeing eye from J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of The Rings franchise. The likeness comes from the spectacular dust belt that surrounds Fomalhaut at a distance of 133 astronomical units (AU), with one AU being equal to 93 million miles (150 million km) — the average distance between the sun and Earth.

Jupiter is slightly smaller and flatter than scientists thought for decades, a new study finds. Researchers used radio data from the Juno spacecraft to refine measurements of the solar system's largest planet. Although the differences between the current and previous measurements are small, they are improving models of Jupiter's interior and of other gas giants like it outside the solar system, the team reported Feb. 2 in the journal Nature Astronomy. "Textbooks will need to be updated," study co-author Yohai Kaspi, a planetary scientist at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, said in a statement. "The size of Jupiter...

A monster sunspot is taking aim at Earth after firing off dozens of powerful flares Sunday and Monday (Feb. 1-2) — including the most intense solar eruption in years. Elevated geomagnetic activity — possibly resulting in vibrant northern lights at lower latitudes than usual — is possible Thursday (Feb. 5), according to an alert from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC). However, it's still too soon to know for certain. The sunspot, called region 4366, appeared suddenly several days ago and has rapidly grown to roughly half the size of the infamous Carrington Event sunspot,...

BREAKING: SpaceX wants to turn Space into the World’s Biggest AI Data Center. • SpaceX is seeking approval to launch and operate up to one million satellites designed to function as orbital data centers. • These satellites would provide massive computing power to support advanced artificial intelligence and data processing. • The system would rely on near constant solar energy in space, reducing operating costs and environmental impact compared to Earth based data centers. • Satellites would operate between 500 km and 2,000 km in altitude, across multiple orbital shells, to handle global demand. • High speed laser links would...

Artemis II Wet Dress Rehearsal Delayed, SpaceX to Merge with xAI!? | 4:42 Ellie in Space | 216K subscribers | 4,773 views | January 30, 2026

A new study reveals that tiny fragments of Earth's atmosphere are transported to and absorbed by the moon via gusts of solar wind and our planet's magnetic field, upending a 20-year-old theory based on NASA's Apollo lunar samples... This surprising case of cosmic cannibalism is thanks to supercharged solar winds and, more importantly, our own planet's magnetic field...Ever since NASA's Apollo missions first returned lunar samples to Earth in the early 1970s, scientists have been puzzled by traces of volatiles -- substances that vaporize at relatively low temperatures, including water, carbon dioxide, helium, argon, and nitrogen -- that they found...

In a remarkable twist that bridges ancient ambition with cutting-edge science, physicists working at the Large Hadron Collider have achieved what medieval alchemists only dreamed of: turning lead into gold. While attempting to recreate conditions moments after the Big Bang, researchers on the ALICE experiment in Switzerland inadvertently produced minuscule quantities of the precious metal, marking an unexpected breakthrough in particle physics. The Accidental Discovery The extraordinary transformation occurred during experiments where beams of lead nuclei were fired at each other at velocities approaching the speed of light. While the primary goal was to study the primordial state of the...

Explanation: A mere 56 million light-years distant toward the southern constellation Fornax, NGC 1365 is an enormous barred spiral galaxy about 200,000 light-years in diameter. That's twice the size of our own barred spiral Milky Way. This sharp image from the James Webb Space Telescope's Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) reveals stunning details of this magnificent spiral in infrared light. Webb's field of view stretches about 60,000 light-years across NGC 1365, exploring the galaxy's core and bright newborn star clusters. The intricate network of dusty filaments and bubbles is created by young stars along spiral arms winding from the galaxy's central bar....

A solar storm has just impacted Earth that's been one of the strongest in the last 20 years, with an immediate G4 geomagnetic storm starting whilst a S4 radiation was already blasting the Earth with high-energy solar particles. With bulk solar wind velocity greater than 1000 km/s and magnetic field values currently creater than 60 nT, this is a near-Carrington level impact and certainly a historic solar storm. Geophysicist Stefan Burns forecasting this possibility more than a year in advance based on the latest space science and more, and now he reports for you LIVE on the current historic space...

Do you think that the U.S. federal government might be a good place to seek reasonable guidance on matters involving science? If so, I question your sanity. In recent years the part of the federal enterprise masquerading as “science” has suffered one debacle after another resulting from acceptance and promotion of pseudoscience, examples being Covid lockdowns and school closures, let alone the entire catastrophic climate change fiasco. Do you remember the CDC ordering (on no authority) a nationwide eviction moratorium (until struck down by the Supreme Court)? And of course, the acceptance of pseudoscience by a federal bureaucracy is somehow...

The asteroid, 2025 MN45, completes a full rotation once every 1.88 minutes, meaning it must have a very high strength to keep itself together. An artist's impression of the asteroid 2025 MN45. NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory/NOIRLab/SLAC/AURA/P. Marenfeld ===================================================================== The Vera C. Rubin Observatory has observed a record-breaking ultra-fast-rotating asteroid. The space rock is the fastest-spinning asteroid larger than 500 meters (0.3 miles) to have ever been observed. The asteroid, designated 2025 MN45, completes a full rotation every 1.88 minutes. Announced at the NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory First Look event in June 2025, it was one of 1,900 new...