The United States must harness emerging technological capabilities if it wants to avoid losing a future conflict against its T adversaries, the head of US Space Force warns. General B. Chance Saltzman, chief of space operations for the US Space Force

Mars is a morning object this month, and gets easier to see as the days pass from May into June Mars is famously known as the Red Planet because when it’s visible at its best – high in a dark sky – its colour is very striking, although it shines with

S ending astronauts to the surface of the Moon for the first time in more than 50 years remains one of NASA’s key ambitions. The space agency hopes a crew of four will land close to the lunar south pole in 2026, a year after another crew is sent arou

Ocean tides driven by the Moon release energy, but that energy has to come from somewhere – the spin of Earth, which must slow down. Physics dictates that the total amount of angular momentum has to stay the same between Earth and the Moon, so the or

A side from the fact that the Sun is orbited by the only planet in the universe known to be home to life, it’s pretty normal as far as stars go. Along with 90 per cent of the other stars in the universe, it’s classed as ‘main sequence’ and is powered

Since 2012, NASA’s Curiosity rover has repeatedly detected methane on Mars, specifically near its landing site inside the 154-kilometre (96-mile) wide Gale crater. But that Mars methane is behaving erratically. It only appears at night, it fluctuates

NASA engineers have at last discovered the cause of a communications breakdown N between Earth and the interstellar explorer Voyager 1. It would appear that a small portion of corrupted memory exists in one of the spacecraft’s computers. The glitch c

A civilisation-destroying asteroid may sound like the stuff of science fiction, but the threat is very real. These rocky fragments range in size from mere metres to hundreds of kilometres across, and while most of them orbit the Sun in a belt betwee

Scientists cannot definitively explain the exact nature of dark energy. It’s believed to have a significant effect, accelerating the expansion of the cosmos, but despite making up about 70 per cent of all of the mass and energy in the universe, it re

Although comedian Robin Ince graduated from university with a degree in English and drama, he has become one of the best-known voices for science in the UK. Inspired by science populariser and astronomer Carl Sagan, Ince has been presenting the popul

Future PLC Quay House, The Ambury, Bath, BA1 1UA Editorial Editor Gemma Lavender gemma.lavender@futurenet.com Art Editor Jonathan Wells Production Editor Nikole Robinson Senior Art Editor Duncan Crook Contributors Stuart Atkinson, Christopher S. Bai

In order to preserve your night vision, you should read our observing guide under red light 17 MAY Asteroid 2 Pallas reaches opposition in Hercules at magnitude +9.0 19 MAY Mercury is at its highest altitude in the morning sky, dazzling at magnitude

Hubble has imaged a powerful jet erupting from a natal envelope of gas and dust that represents a newly born star announcing itself to the cosmos. Hubble spotted the infant star slicing its way out of the nebula that birthed it when it zoomed in on t

The energetic particles often associated with solar flares can damage or disrupt our satellite operations. Space-based electronics are usually shielded enough to protect themselves from the energetic X-ray photons from a solar flare, but energetic pa

To commemorate the golden jubilee of the Apollo 11 mission, Haynes released a special edition of this manual. Documenting all of the hardware, software, vehicles and everything you need to know about the most famous space exploration mission, see how

KEEP IN TOUCH /AllAboutSpaceMagazine @spaceanswers space@spaceanswers.com It would appear that the so-called ‘great instability’ event that wreaked chaos among the planets, sending the gas giants I careening through space until they settled into the

Scientists were astounded when they witnessed a ‘dead’ neutron star with one of the most powerful magnetic fields in the cosmos unexpectedly spring back to life. The reactivation of this highly magnetic neutron star, or ‘magnetar’, doesn’t conform to

Visible in binoculars, this lovely cluster looks like a flight of birds. Many of the stars that comprise it are brighter than 14th magnitude, with binoculars revealing a hazy spot as bright as a magnitude +6.0 star. From locations untouched by light

On 8 April 2024, British theoretical physicist Peter Ware Higgs passed away at the age of 94. It was almost 12 years ago, on 4 July 2012, in a fairly inauspicious lecture hall located in Geneva, Switzerland, when Higgs became an iconic figure in mod

Scientists have discovered a hitherto unknown space molecule while investigating a relatively nearby region of intense star birth, a cosmic spot about 5,550 light years away. It’s part of the Cat’s Paw Nebula, also known as NGC 6334. The team, led by

A 3.7-billion-year-old record of our planet’s ancient magnetism has been unearthed, providing evidence that Earth’s magnetic field already existed very early in history. But this discovery is quite surprising. Rocks approaching 4 billion years old ar

Cost: £3,999 / $4,899 From: Unistellar Optical design: Reflector Aperture: 4.5 inches (114 millimetres) Focal length: 17.7 inches (450 millimetres) Focal ratio: f/3.9 Highest useful magnification: 50x optical, 150x digital Total kit weight: Nine kilo

Massive stars gain their magnetism by colliding and merging with other stars, at least according to evidence from a bizarre binary surrounded by a dusty, element-rich nebula. Inside that bipolar nebula, which has the dual designation of NGC 6164/6165

When it comes to primordial black holes being dark matter suspects, their alibi may be falling apart. Tiny black holes, created seconds after the birth of the universe, may have survived longer than expected, re-igniting a suspicion that primordial

One answer considered especially useful by astronomers is the barycentre, the point where the masses of the Sun, the planets and of all bodies in the system balance out. Imagine placing those masses on a huge platform supported by a single pin; slide

Yes, a star can turn into a planet, but only for a particular type of star called a brown dwarf, and only if we use broad definitions of the words ‘star’ and ‘planet’. A brown dwarf is the lightest type of star, with a mass of about 13 to 80 times th

I t’s generally accepted that planetary colonies will have to grow their own food, and no colony illustration is complete without an astronaut tending some crops. But like everything in space, this is not as easy as it looks. Various plants have been

Celestron Cometron 7x50 Cost: £54.95 / $43.95 From: Celestron 1 What most don’t appreciate about children is that they can see a lot better in the dark than adults. That’s because their pupils can dilate wider, which makes their night vision better.

A natural and passionate student, Spitzer earned a place at Yale University, where he studied physics.He also spent a year studying at Cambridge University and entered Princeton, gaining a doctorate in astrophysics under the mentorship of Henry Norri