When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. An illustration of China’s robotic Shenlong space plane above Earth. | Credit: Erik Simonsen/Getty Images China’s reusable space plane is circling Earth once again. The Shenlong (“Divine Dragon”) spacecraft launched from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Gobi
Seeing Earth from space is a privilege that most of us will never get in our lifetime. As we all know, the first lucky people to set foot on the moon were Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin in 1969, and since then, over 290 people have visited NASA’s International Space Station. But, well before the
A strange cosmic outburst might just provide the first direct evidence of an intermediate-mass black hole feeding on a white dwarf star. Discovered by the China-led Einstein Probe space telescope in July 2025, this event could open a window into a long-missing class of black holes. On July 2, 2025, astronomers using the Einstein Probe’s
A “gravity hole” beneath Antarctica is offering scientists a rare glimpse into Earth’s deep interior, a dynamic record of slow-moving processes that have been reshaping our planet for tens of millions of years. This immense, gentle low in Earth’s gravity field, formally known as the Antarctic Geoid Low, reflects how mass is distributed deep inside
The patient: A 64-year-old woman in New South Wales, Australia The symptoms: The woman was admitted to the hospital after experiencing abdominal pain and diarrhea for three weeks. She also had a persistent dry cough and night sweats. A CT scan of her lungs showed opaque areas where the tissue had thickened, likely due to
Laughlin, S. B. The metabolic cost of information—a fundamental factor in visual ecology. In Ecology of Sensing (eds Barth, F. G. & Schmid, A.) 169–185 (Springer, 2001); https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-22644-5_9 Land, M. F. & Nilsson, D.-E. Animal Eyes (Oxford Univ. Press, 2012). von Uexküll, J. in Instinctive Behavior 5–80 (International Univ. Press, 1934). Donner, K. Temporal vision:
President Donald Trump just gave the longest State of the Union address in recorded history, a speech filled with examples of the United States’ leadership status in the world, but it omitted one possible point of pride: NASA’s upcoming Artemis 2 moonshot, America’s first lunar flight with astronauts in over 50 years, which didn’t even
Using supercomputers, researchers have discovered how the rotation of these stars plays a crucial role in mixing materials between their cores and outer layers. For years, scientists have been trying to understand how the chemical changes in a star’s core affect its surface as it evolves into a red giant. This new discovery offers an
New research into how people perceive differences between colors is reshaping a theory first proposed nearly 100 years ago by physicist Erwin Schrödinger. Roxana Bujack, a scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory, led a team that applied geometry to precisely describe how we experience hue, saturation and lightness. Their findings, presented at a major visualization
But in the worst worst-case scenario, we don’t have any control. Instead, the station will crack through the atmosphere. Sure, many pieces will likely end up in the ocean, but some might hit people, possibly in a town or a city. The station could break apart across thousands of miles and multiple continents. This would