Although Kosmos 2612 is now backing away, the maneuver raised alarm bells for analysts who see it as part of a pattern of Russian aggression.

© ICEYE

The mission, which launched on Monday, is headed to Phobos, the larger of the two moons of Mars. It could carry back the first samples from the Martian system.

© Yuichi Yamazaki/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

At Sotheby’s, a feast of rare science books includes volumes from Copernicus, Galileo and Newton that together revolutionized human understanding of the cosmos.

Our reporters share a compendium of debuts, discoveries and (sometimes overdue) appearances in the paper.

© The New York Times

Advances in self-driving technology have made it easier to traverse distant worlds.

© JPL-Caltech/NASA, via Reuters

Scientists believe there are planets outside our solar system where life is even more abundant and sustainable.

Advances in self-driving technology have made it easier to traverse distant worlds.

© JPL-Caltech/NASA, via Reuters

On the Science desk, Victoria Jaggard spends her days pondering the universe’s most pressing mysteries.

On the Science desk, Victoria Jaggard spends her days pondering the universe’s most pressing mysteries.

Intense flash of radio waves is more than 10bn years old and has travelled through ‘approximately 80% of cosmic history’

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, a mysterious flash of energy was released into the universe.

Astronomers have now detected that flash – a burst of radio waves which travelled for more than 10bn years before reaching Earth – what they believe to be the most distant fast radio burst (FRB) ever recorded.

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© Photograph: Brendon Wainwright/Wikipedia

© Photograph: Brendon Wainwright/Wikipedia

© Photograph: Brendon Wainwright/Wikipedia

The woman who helped put astronauts on the moon was a software engineer when the field was not prestigious or lucrative.

© Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The woman who helped put astronauts on the moon was a software engineer when the field was not prestigious or lucrative.

© Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Margaret Hamilton, the first female programmer hired to work on the space project at M.I.T., was 90.

© NASA/Alamy

As well as books, the new facility in Colorado offers hundreds of kits to connect people with the natural world. We asked five of the first visitors what they thought of it

Mark Fink knows exactly why he opened the first public nature library in the US. “There are a lot of barriers for people to access nature here. We want people to learn about the birds and the plants in their own back yard and to appreciate that you don’t need a three-day camping trip in the mountains to experience nature.”

The library offers people in Colorado’s Adams county the opportunity to borrow books and equipment to help them to engage with the natural world – for free.

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© Composite: Kevin Mohatt

© Composite: Kevin Mohatt

© Composite: Kevin Mohatt

Francis Halzen, a physicist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, has won the 2026 Nobel Prize in Physics "for decisive contributions to the IceCube Neutrino Observatory and the discovery of high-energy neutrinos of astrophysical origin.” Halzen spearheaded the development and construction of the IceCube Neutrino Observatory in Antarctica, enabling physicists to capture high-energy neutrinos created in the distant universe.

“It was a great surprise, and I obviously didn’t expect it,” Halzen said during a news conference in Stockholm, Sweden, speaking by phone from Italy. While the Nobel was awarded to Halzen, he emphasized that his work was the result of a “large collaboration” with other researchers.

“This reflects on the really courageous people who joined me in this project when really no respectable conservative physicist would have joined me. But many talented people did, and that’s why I’m here,” he said.

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© IceCube/NSF

The Nobel Committee honored Francis Halzen for his “vision and scientific leadership” of a telescope within the ice at the South Pole.

© Christine Olsson/TT News Agency, via Reuters

We asked 100 scientists about unsolved problems in their fields. They sent back provocations — on the origins of life, the possibilities for human progress and much more.

© Photo illustration by Jane Stockdale for The New York Times

A treaty from the 1960s declared that nobody can own outer space. Half a century later, billionaires and superpowers see fortunes to be made nonetheless.

© NASA

The United States wants a reactor on the moon by 2030. A Russian-Chinese alliance is working on one for 2036. Some leading scientists say the danger is great.

© NASA

A world away from the tourist hotspots of the coast, Extremadura and Castile and León offer unpolluted skies, lower prices – and hope for the future of vulnerable wildlife

As photographed at night from a satellite, or the International Space Station (ISS), the Iberian peninsula looks encrusted with lights along its coastal edges. Madrid forms a big pulsing cluster near the centre, while surrounding hinterlands appear as something of a void. Ever fewer people live out in Castile and León and Extremadura, adjoining regions that cover much of what is known as La España Vacía, or “Empty Spain”.

Not many visit either, or at least not compared with Barcelona and other glowing nodes of the tourist circuit. So, while the big ports and resorts struggle to manage surplus holidaymakers, there is room for plenty more out west, toward the Portuguese border. Some have been following the stars that way lately, under the auspices of an astrotourism initiative called Extremadura Buenas Noches.

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© Photograph: Extremadura, Buenas Noches

© Photograph: Extremadura, Buenas Noches

© Photograph: Extremadura, Buenas Noches

Uncovering evidence of alien life would be “the biggest discovery ever made by humanity,” one expert said. But so far, there’s a lot of blurry photos and unconfirmed reports.

Venus is shrouded in a veil of mystery. The yellowish “lower haze” at the bottom of its atmosphere was discovered by the Venera and Pioneer Venus probes in the 1970s. These spacecraft were some of the first to successfully send images of the planet back to Earth, but the haze they saw went unexplained for decades. Now the mystery Venus was keeping has been unveiled.

What nobody knew then was that the haze is an accumulation of particles from meteorites. “Shooting stars” that burn up in the atmosphere leave behind cosmic dust particles, and after sulfuric acid interacts with these particles, it leaves behind a haze. Planetary scientist Hiroki Karyu and his research team at Tohoku University in Sendai City, Japan, finally figured out how the haze formed using a microphysical model. This type of model involves microphysics—the micro-scale processes that create clouds and precipitation on Earth and other bodies.

“The continuous influx of cosmic dust is sufficient to sustain this lower haze layer with the particle size distribution observed by the entry probes,” Karyu said in a study published in Nature Astronomy. “These haze particles of cosmic origin act as efficient condensation nuclei, promoting cloud formation in the main cloud deck even far from their initial source.”

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© JAXA / ISAS / DARTS / DAMIA BOUIC.

Previously: NASA to bump telescope back into space to avoid it falling to Earth. It didn't work. Why: An attempt to save NASA's $500 million Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory from dropping out of orbit fell short, but the behind-the-scenes machinations required just to make a rescue possible deserve recognition, government and commercial space officials said in a recounting of the mission.

An attempt to save NASA's $500 million Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory from dropping out of orbit fell short, but the behind-the-scenes machinations required just to make a rescue possible deserve recognition, government and commercial space officials said in a recounting of the mission.

The rescue mission was developed by Katalyst Space Technologies, working under a $30 million contract awarded by NASA last September. NASA gave Katalyst nine months to build and launch a satellite to capture Swift flying some 200 miles above the Earth and boost it into a higher orbit.

Katalyst's rescue spacecraft, known as Link, successfully launched July 3 and completed some of its initial checkouts before a malfunction caused it to spin out of control a few weeks later. NASA announced in August that Link would not be able to reach Swift as intended, and the rescue mission was aborted.

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© NASA/Sophia Roberts

Backyard astronomer contributes to world-first Saturn discovery. An amateur astronomer helps discover a mysterious decagon on Saturn's south pole, which he tracked from his homemade backyard observatory.

Beta Pictoris b appears to have an aurora caused by a powerful magnetic field. If confirmed, it would be the first such field known outside our solar system.

© NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Ralf Crawford (STScI)

A previous mission left two astronauts stuck in space for months. Still, the space agency is investing $359 million to keep the craft flying.

© NASA, via Associated Press

The 14th test flight marks a crucial milestone toward the company’s ambitions of sending people to the moon and Mars, but it was not a complete success.

© SpaceX, via Reuters

Next Thursday, Google is sending an experimental satellite into orbit that will have enough computing power to answer simple A.I. queries from space.

© Philip Cheung for The New York Times

Google is preparing to launch a satellite that can run its A.I. technologies from the heavens. But this is just a first step.

© Philip Cheung for The New York Times

Next Thursday, Google is sending an experimental satellite into orbit that will have enough computing power to answer simple A.I. queries from space.

© Philip Cheung for The New York Times

Google is preparing to launch a satellite that can run its A.I. technologies from the heavens. But this is just a first step.

© Philip Cheung for The New York Times

At a whopping 728 feet wide, the newfound basin hints at the risks that impact events may pose to planned human outposts.

© NASA Goddard/Intuitive Machines

Pamela Toler (History in the Margins, 9/5/26), "The Great Panic of 1893": "occasionally an event, or person, or book, or idea ... shows up in footnotes or casual asides ... if it's interesting or important enough, I share it ... Lately, the Great Panic of 1893 has become insistent." Neil Flanagan (The Birth of a Capital, 9/4/26), "How often do you think about the 1893 World's Fair?": "what draws us to an event, story, or image depends less on the context of the events than the context we inhabit." Photos / maps / VR of the fair. Foods, sweet treats, and "orange cider" of the fair. Pall Mall Magazine and RIBA Journal on the fair. And other magazines that began in 1893 feature Ida Tarbell on "Pasteur at Home," famous prints, rules for psychic / occult investigators, articles on orchidology and astronomy, "Last Week's Paris" followup on anarchists, and the first story of Sexton Blake.

The discovery of “hypersoft” X-ray beacons could help solve some mysteries about the universe.

© X-ray: NASA/CXC/Univ. of Alabama/M. Muhibullah et al.; Optical: NASA/ESA/STScI; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/N. Wolk

A new simulation suggests little red dots, unusually compact objects seen in photos from space, might be one stage in the evolution of black holes.

© NASA, ESA, CSA, V. Kokorev (University of Texas at Austin), A. Pagan (STScI)

Troy E. Meink’s comments were the first public acknowledgment of American weapons in orbit. The Pentagon has been preparing for potential conflict in space with Russia or China.

© Pool photo by Matt Rourke

Thousands of planets have been discovered beyond our solar system, offering clues to where life might thrive and whether Earth is truly unique.

The Times’s Science section is introducing new columns, projects and more as part of its online relaunch.

New estimates using the planet’s surface wrinkles show that our smallest planet is growing even smaller, at a faster clip than expected.

© NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington

It would be the rocket company’s second private launch site after Starbase, its headquarters in South Texas.

© Edmund D. Fountain for The New York Times

The milestone by the private company, LandSpace, could put China closer to challenging SpaceX’s rule in lower-cost spaceflight.

© LandSpace/Xinhua, via Associated Press