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Science

Research, space and discovery.

NASA Solar Dynamics Observatory image of a strong solar flare erupting from the Sun.

Can a Solar Flare Knock Out the Power Grid?

A solar flare mostly scrambles radio and GPS. The real grid threat is the coronal mass ejection behind it. Here is how a geomagnetic storm damages transformers.

Science  · 7 Jul 2026, 09:28  · Daniel Okafor
Artist's view of NASA's Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory in orbit.

NASA Launches a Robot to Rescue Its Falling Swift Telescope

The $30 million mission is the first attempt by a private spacecraft to capture a U.S. government satellite that was never built to be caught.

Science  · 4 Jul 2026, 05:42  · Daniel Okafor
Fluorescent microscopy image shows SpudCell, a lab-built synthetic cell, mid-division, glowing red against a dark background.

Minnesota Lab Builds a Synthetic Cell That Grows and Divides

A University of Minnesota team says its lab-built "SpudCell" can feed, grow and divide using only non-living parts, a milestone that comes with an asterisk: peer review hasn't happened yet.

Science  · 3 Jul 2026, 05:26  · Daniel Okafor
NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory image of the X1.1 solar flare, seen as a bright white flash in the upper right of the teal-colored Sun, on June 30, 2026.

Sun’s Strongest Flare in Weeks Could Push Aurora South Friday

NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center has issued a G2 geomagnetic storm watch for July 3 after the sun’s biggest flare of the week triggered radio blackouts across North America.

Science  · 2 Jul 2026, 09:23  · Daniel Okafor
A dense field of stars imaged by the Vera C. Rubin Observatory's LSST camera.

Vera Rubin Observatory Starts Its 10-Year Sky Survey

The world's largest digital camera has begun a decade-long film of the southern sky, imaging it every few nights to catch whatever moves or flares.

Science  · 1 Jul 2026, 09:23  · Daniel Okafor
A diverse collection of insects; a new study sharply raises the estimate of how many species exist. Credit: Shea Oleksa/Cornell University.

Earth May Hold Up to 20 Million Insect Species, Triple the Old Estimate

Genetic data from 1.6 million tropical insects and a wasp survey in Costa Rica suggest most of the planet's insect life has never been recorded.

Science  · 30 Jun 2026, 06:25  · Daniel Okafor
Researchers tested soccer balls aboard the International Space Station to study how internal mass affects motion. (Photo: NASA)

How NASA's Wind Tunnels and the ISS Shaped the World Cup Ball

Knuckling shots aren't luck. NASA's wind tunnels and space-station experiments explain how the four-panel Trionda ball swerves through this World Cup.

Science  · 28 Jun 2026, 09:30  · Daniel Okafor
NASA's Perseverance rover in Jezero Crater, where it sampled the Bright Angel rocks. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech.

Perseverance Finds Complex Organic Carbon in Martian Mudstone

The rover's laser found large carbon molecules sitting in ancient riverbed rock. What made them, biology or chemistry, is exactly what no one can yet say.

Science  · 25 Jun 2026, 09:32  · Daniel Okafor
An artist's interpretation of SpaceX's Starfall reentry capsule (illustration: SpaceX via FAA).

SpaceX Flies Starfall, Its Secretive Orbital Cargo Capsule

A disc-shaped capsule built to bring cargo back from orbit could open a new business for SpaceX: making things in space and landing them on Earth.

Science  · 23 Jun 2026, 09:27  · Daniel Okafor
NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope arrives at Kennedy Space Center on June 21, 2026.

NASA's Roman Space Telescope Reaches Florida for an August Launch

The next great observatory came in by barge, sealed in a case the team calls 'the Chariot,' and ahead of schedule.

Science  · 22 Jun 2026, 09:24  · Daniel Okafor
Artist's illustration of the giant exoplanet GJ504b, the magenta-hued “Pink Planet” (illustration, not a photograph).

Webb Finds Salt Clouds on the 'Pink Planet' GJ504b

A faint magenta world too dim for ground telescopes turned out to be hiding clouds of salt — and a lesson about how astronomers read alien skies.

Science  · 21 Jun 2026, 18:28  · Daniel Okafor
A goblin shark filmed alive in its deep-sea habitat, a first for the elusive species.

Elusive Goblin Shark Filmed Alive in the Deep Sea for the First Time

Researchers have published the first confirmed footage of a goblin shark alive in its deep-ocean habitat, captured near Jarvis Island and in the Tonga Trench.

Science  · 20 Jun 2026, 11:49  · Daniel Okafor
Hubble Space Telescope views of Mars showing dust and cloud in the planet's thin atmosphere.

NASA Picks Eric Schmidt's Relativity Space for a Mars Orbiter

The Aeolus orbiter would map Mars's atmosphere daily, but it rides on a rocket Relativity has not yet flown to orbit.

Science  · 18 Jun 2026, 13:22  · Daniel Okafor
Wonderwerk Cave in South Africa, where evidence of ancient fire use was found.

Burnt Bones Hint Humans Used Fire 1.8 Million Years Ago

Charred bones deep inside Wonderwerk Cave, dated up to 1.79 million years old, point to fire carried in and maintained by early humans, likely Homo erectus.

Science  · 17 Jun 2026, 08:48  · Daniel Okafor
A James Webb Space Telescope view related to the 'black hole star' candidate GLIMPSE-17775.

Webb Finds the Strongest Case Yet for 'Black Hole Stars'

Webb's deepest spectrum of a 'little red dot,' GLIMPSE-17775, points to a supermassive black hole cloaked in dense gas, a possible answer to two cosmic puzzles.

Science  · 16 Jun 2026, 12:29  · Daniel Okafor
Artist's impression of the ultra-hot exoplanet WASP-121 b orbiting close to its star.

Webb Tells Dawn From Dusk on Scorching Planet WASP-121b

On a tidally locked gas giant, Webb told dawn from dusk, finding the evening edge hotter and the air chemistry different across the planet's two faces.

Science  · 14 Jun 2026, 18:53  · Daniel Okafor
NASA's Orion crew module, the spacecraft at the center of the Artemis program's engine-design debate.

China Paper Faults the Single-Engine Risk in NASA's Moon Lander

NASA's lunar lander leans on one main engine for descent and ascent. A Chinese engineering team argues that staking astronauts' lives on a single point of failure is a flaw worth fixing.

Science  · 14 Jun 2026, 08:18  · Daniel Okafor
An illustration of an inflamed, arthritic knee joint, the target of a Stanford treatment that regrew cartilage in mice.

Stanford Drug Regrows Knee Cartilage in Mice by Blocking an Aging Protein

Blocking the enzyme 15-PGDH regrew hyaline cartilage in old mice and stalled arthritis after ACL-type injuries. Human tissue responded too — but this is still a mouse study.

Science  · 13 Jun 2026, 18:02  · Daniel Okafor
The central liquid-scintillator detector of the Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory. Credit: JUNO Collaboration.

China's JUNO Detector Publishes First Neutrino Result in Nature

Using 59 days of data, the underground JUNO observatory sharpened two neutrino oscillation parameters by a factor of 1.6, a debut result its builders say proves the detector is ready for its main goal.

Science  · 12 Jun 2026, 19:43  · Daniel Okafor

Deep-Sea 'Whale Necropolis' in Indian Ocean Holds 476 Fossil Sites

A robotic survey of the southeastern Indian Ocean found 476 whale fossil sites and five living whale-fall ecosystems down to 7,001 meters, the deepest such habitats on record.

Science  · 12 Jun 2026, 19:43  · Daniel Okafor