Science news - latest stories on space, the environment and nature

Science

Physicists just created an exotic new state of matter by stuffing an atom full of atoms

The new state of matter is formed at highly cold temperatures, using atoms where an electron orbits the nucleus at a great distance.

Feb 27, 2018

By India Ashok

Proxima Centauri: Intense stellar explosion may have wiped out life from Earth's closest exoplanet

The massive stellar blast was nearly 10 times brighter than our Sun's largest solar blasts.

Feb 27, 2018

By Shubham Sharma

MIT engineers create energy generating device

Engineers create device that generates electricity out of thin air and needs no direct sunlight

The device also doesn't need any batteries or depend on wind, relying instead on temperature changes to generate energy.

Feb 27, 2018

By India Ashok

King penguins are under the threat of extinction if they do not find a new habitat soon

"There's not much hope in the future", for these penguins, say researchers.

Feb 27, 2018

By Immanuel Jotham

Climate Change

Are the stars surrounding the Milky Way alien space invaders or were they booted out of the galaxy?

A new study suggests that stars orbiting the Milky Way were formed within the galaxy but were "evicted".

Feb 27, 2018

By India Ashok

Ancient mammoths and mastodons survived the changing environment because of inter species breeding

Cross breeding led to ancient elephants adapting and surviving in different regions across the world over time.

Feb 27, 2018

By Immanuel Jotham

What makes neutron stars shine so bright? A star 28 million light years away provides new clues

Scientists found a fourth ultraluminous X-ray source, which they identified as a neutron star, located in the Whirlpool galaxy.

Feb 27, 2018

By India Ashok

NASA

Scientists plan to capture antimatter and drive it around in a van to shed light on collapsed stars

Scientists plan to capture antimatter in a jar and drive it in a lorry to a lab in a bid to find out what super-dense stars are made of.

Feb 26, 2018

By Roger Baird

Another asteroid just passed between the Earth and Moon for the 17th time this year

The Earth has seen a large number of asteroid visitors lately.

Feb 26, 2018

By Immanuel Jotham

Plants found to evolve away from defences that do not work for them anymore

The adage "evolve or die" still holds true for living organisms and scientists have found direct evidence of it working.

Feb 26, 2018

By Immanuel Jotham

30 Doradus: The Growing Tarantula Within

Building blocks of life found in an alien star-forming cloud 200,000 light years away

The Large Magellanic Cloud, just outside the Milky Way where stars are born, has the capacity to also build life.

Feb 26, 2018

By Immanuel Jotham

How destructive will a space war be? It could wipe out everything in orbit quickly

War in space will not look as good as Star Wars, rather, it will simply wipe out communications, destabilise economies and create clouds of high speed debris.

Feb 26, 2018

By Immanuel Jotham

Mars' tiny potato-shaped moons captured facing each other in stunning Nasa image

Nasa's Odyssey spacecraft was flying 5,615km away from Phobos and nearly 20,000km away from Deimos when the images were captured.

Feb 25, 2018

By Shubham Sharma

NASA

These monkeys attract females with their unusually large and floppy noses

This study is the first to suggest that male-to-male competition and female mating choices may have influenced the evolution of proboscis monkeys' nose.

Feb 25, 2018

By Shubham Sharma