Earth's magnetic field acts as a vital shield against radiation arriving from space, but it is not constant. A new international study has examined how a reduction of the magnetic field similar to the Laschamps excursion would affect aviation on routes such as Helsinki-Dubai and Helsinki-New York if it occurred today.
The magnetic field protects Earth from harmful cosmic radiation and solar eruptions. However, its strength slowly varies over time. Occasionally, the field can even reverse, meaning the magnetic north and south poles switch places.

"The effects of a weakening and reversal of the magnetic field on the atmosphere and environment can be dramatic, yet still largely unknown. The consequences could be serious for our modern, highly technological society," says Professor Ilya Usoskin from the University of Oulu, who is a principal investigator of the prestigious large-scale ERC-funded GERACLE project. The new study includes researchers from the Sodankylä Geophysical Observatory and the Space Physics and Astronomy Research Unit at the University of Oulu.

One of the most recent major variations of the geomagnetic field occurred about 41,000 years ago during the Laschamps excursion, when the magnetic field weakened to about five percent of its current strength and became multipolar in structure. The weakening phase lasted roughly two thousand years, and recovery took about five thousand years.

In the new study, researchers modelled the structure of the magnetic field and cosmic radiation throughout the Laschamps excursion. The modelling was based on the updated OTSO tool, developed by Usoskin's team, and the LSMOD.2 paleomagnetic field model, built by GFZ in Potsdam, which reconstructs the Earth's magnetic field in the past. The CRAC:DOMO model, also developed by the team, was used to calculate how much cosmic radiation affects the atmosphere — in other words, to estimate radiation doses affecting humans and technology.

The results show that cosmic radiation penetrated the atmosphere at record levels. The weakening magnetic field reduced the energy threshold required for cosmic particles to enter the atmosphere from today's 17 gigavolts (GV) to only about 4 GV.

At the same time, regions where cosmic radiation could freely enter, the atmosphere expanded threefold irradiating a major fraction of the Earth's atmosphere. Importantly, the exposure was not evenly distributed. The magnetic field became multipolar and irregular, directing cosmic particles in unexpected ways.

"When the magnetic field becomes multipolar, auroras can also appear in unusual locations around the globe," notes Postdoctoral Researcher Pauli Väisänen.

A team of researchers in China has unveiled an all-weather electrolyte designed to boost the performance of lithium batteries across a wide range of conditions. Scientists based in Shanghai and Tianjin report that batteries built with the new hydrofluorocarbon-based electrolyte delivered more than twice the energy density of conventional designs when tested at room temperature.

Beyond efficiency gains, the team says the chemistry remains stable in extreme environments, with batteries continuing to operate effectively at temperatures as low as minus 94 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 70 degrees Celsius).

The development points to a potential path for longer-lasting, more resilient batteries suited for EVs and other demanding applications, where both energy density and reliability under stress are critical.

Veteran astronaut Michael Fincke's sudden medical emergency aboard the ISS is a stark reminder that, as NASA pushes toward long-term lunar missions, astronaut health remains one of spaceflight's biggest unknowns.

As NASA prepares to send four astronauts around the moon for the 10-day Artemis II mission, a veteran space flier's unexplained illness in orbit is spotlighting one of the biggest risks of deep-space travel: the need for medical systems in case of emergencies.

NASA astronaut Michael Fincke said a sudden episode aboard the International Space Station (ISS) in January left him unable to speak and forced NASA's first-ever medical evacuation from the orbiting laboratory. Doctors have ruled out a heart attack, Fincke told the Associated Press, but they still don't know what caused the medical issue.

Powerful X-rays from the nearby naked-eye star Gamma Cas mystified astronomers for decades. Now, a new observatory reveals that they come from its white dwarf companion.

Some 550 light-years away, a bright star called Gamma Cassiopeiae is belching out bursts of X-rays. Now, astronomers have discovered that the radiation is actually coming from the star's invisible companion, which lights up in X-rays as it gobbles up material from the star.

Gamma Cassiopeiae (Gamma Cas for short) is visible to the naked eye at 2nd magnitude, making up the center of the Cassiopeia constellation's distinctive "W" in northern skies. It's a variable star that's exhausting its supply of hydrogen, but it hasn't run out just yet. Unlike other stars like it, it emits X-rays.

The star is surrounded by a gaseous disk, and for years, astronomers theorized that the emission was being produced either from the star's magnetic fields interacting with the disk, or perhaps from disk material falling onto an unseen companion star.

Now, in a study published in Astronomy & Astrophysics, a team led by Yaël Nazé (University of Liège, Belgium) has observed the system with the X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission (XRISM) space telescope. The researchers conclude that the white dwarf companion is the one emitting the X-rays as it consumes material from Gamma Cas. These revelations help astronomers learn more about how these exotic massive stars evolve and interact with each other.

Four years of hyperdevelopment, battlefield testing, and deployment of FPVs, ground robots, AI-enabled kill chains, and soon humanoid robots have permanently altered the course of the modern battlefield, as war technologies once viewed as 2030s-era weapons are being pulled forward into the present day and are now proliferating across battlefields stretching from the Eastern European theater to the Gulf theater, as Eurasia appears to be at war.

The latest reminder is that, regardless of the battlefield across Eurasia, there will increasingly be large swaths of land, miles deep, effectively forming a new kind of no-man's-land controlled by FPVs and ground robots operating with AI kill chains. In Ukraine, that no-go zone stretches 15 miles wide and already means a quick death for any biological soldier, with FPVs able to detect, track, and strike.

A new form of attritional warfare is emerging in which FPVs and robots are cheap and disposable, while soldiers are mainly exposed only when they have to hold, clear, or occupy terrain.

In a development that could shift our basic understanding of fluid mechanics, researchers from Drexel University have reported that, given the right circumstances, it is possible to induce a simple liquid to fracture like a solid object. Recently published in the journal Physical Review Letters, the research shows how viscous liquids can suddenly break if stretched with enough force.

The fracturing behavior suggests that viscosity — a liquid's resistance to flowing — may play a more prominent role in its mechanical properties than previously understood. It also raises new possibilities for how liquids might be manipulated in everything from hydraulics to 3D printers to blood vessels.

"Our findings show that if pulled apart with enough force per area, a simple liquid — a liquid that flows — will reach what we call a point of 'critical stress," when it will actually fracture like a solid. And this is likely true for all simple liquids, including common examples, such as water and oil," said Thamires Lima, Ph.D., an assistant research professor in Drexel's College of Engineering, who helped to lead the research. "This fundamentally changes our understanding of fluid dynamics."

A new study using data from China's Chang'e-4 moon lander found an area of reduced radiation from cosmic rays near the moon. The findings could be used to improve the safety of lunar explorations.

Could being a "morning person" improve your health ... on the moon? Scientists have identified what appears to be a "cavity" of reduced cosmic radiation near Earth's moon. The finding could help lower astronauts' exposure to harmful radiation on future lunar missions by timing some surface operations for local morning hours.

The discovery, based on data from China's Chang'e-4 lunar lander, suggests Earth's magnetic field may affect distances in space farther than scientists previously expected. According to the researchers, the finding challenges the long-held assumption that galactic cosmic rays are roughly uniform throughout the space between Earth and the moon outside our planet's protective magnetic field.

Cosmic rays are among the biggest radiation hazards for astronauts traveling beyond low Earth orbit. These high-energy particles can penetrate spacecraft and human tissue, in turn damaging DNA and increasing the risk of cancer. With more crewed trips planned to the moon, starting with NASA's Artemis II mission launching as soon as April 1, researchers said a better map of radiation intensity could help mission planners reduce astronauts' radiation exposure during surface explorations.

The climate science world ('settled' division) is in shock following the discovery in ancient ice cores that levels of carbon dioxide remained stable as the world plunged into an ice age around 2.7 million years ago. Levels of CO₂ at around 250 parts per million (ppm) were said to be lower than often assumed with just a 20 ppm movement recorded for the following near three million-year period. In addition, no changes in methane levels were seen in the entire period. Massive decreases in temperature with occasional interglacial rises appear to have occurred without troubling 'greenhouse' gas levels, and this revelation has caused near panic in activist circles.

The assumed level three million years ago of CO₂ was around 400 ppm, a convenient mark that has been used to explain the subsequent ice age and a drop to 250 ppm. Due to the recently published paper, this explanation has become more problematic and natural climate variation is correctly noted to have occurred with the temperature changes. Alas, similar explanations are mostly ignored in discussing today's climate changes in the interests of promoting the Net Zero fantasy. Some cling desperately to a dominant CO₂ role, including one of the authors of the findings published in Nature. The co-author states that the results suggest even greater climate sensitivity to the warming effect of CO₂. In short, there is a great deal of applying the laws of physics and chemistry to one era, but failing to extend the same courtesy to another.

The Hubble Space Telescope caught a long-period comet breaking up just after it passed the Sun.

The Hubble Space Telescope is more than 30 years old and has just one functional gyroscope left to steer it, yet the iconic observatory is still making incredible findings. Hubble has now caught a rare, close-up look at a comet that broke into several pieces during a close approach to the Sun. These observations have given us a unique front-row seat to the swan song of one of these icy wanderers.

Caching this event required a good deal of luck. The team of researchers behind the finding originally requested time to observe a different comet — the brightest at the time — but it was moving too fast for Hubble to track. When telescope operators asked for a backup target, the team suggested C/2025 K1 (ATLAS) simply because the comet was in the right place at the right time.

So when the researchers looked at the images, several days after they were taken, they were shocked to find five objects in the frame. The comet had broken apart.

"We were like, 'Whoa, what's that?'" says Dennis Bodewits (Auburn University), who led the study published in Icarus. "It was both exciting and frustrating," he says, because while they'd clearly found a rare event, they couldn't turn Hubble fast enough to see more.

Even without Hubble, though, the team had other ways to look at the break-up. Ground-based telescopes had been tracking the comet, such as the 1-meter telescope at Las Cumbres Observatory Outbursting Objects Key (LOOK) Project. By combining Hubble's high-resolution images with ground-based data, they estimated the breakup started about eight days prior to when Hubble took the images.

Before it fragmented, K1 ATLAS was about 8 kilometers (5 miles) across, slightly larger than the average comet. Hubble captured three 20-second images, one each day starting on November 8, 2025. It witnessed one of K1 ATLAS's smaller pieces break up during that period.

As the comet broke apart, its brightness increased. "From the ground, they could see it was flaring up, and eventually the parts were separating, but we saw four or five different parts" with Hubble, Bodewits explains, "and they went on and off like little fireworks."

On a Saturday afternoon this past March, a piece of the solar system plummeted toward a home in north Houston.

The one-ton space rock broke apart nearly 30 miles above the city, unleashing a violent sonic boom equivalent to 26 tons of TNT. A dark, jagged fragment smashed through a residential roof and even ricocheted around a bedroom like a cosmic pinball.

This would have been stunning in itself, except there were more such meteor strikes. During the first three months of 2026, our planet waded through an unusually dense shooting gallery. The American Meteor Society (AMS) has tracked a staggering wave of large, bright meteors — known as fireballs — lighting up skies from California to Germany.

Earth sweeps up tons of space dust every day. Usually, this material is the size of a grain of sand and burns up harmlessly in the upper atmosphere. But right now, we are colliding with much bigger rocks. And scientists are scrambling to figure out why.

Mike Hankey, a researcher who manages fireball reporting tools for the AMS, analyzed data stretching back to 2011. He shared his findings in a recent AMS report, noting this meteorite season is distinctly visible.

"After years of stable baseline activity, something appears to have shifted," Hankey wrote in the AMS report. "The signal is consistent across multiple metrics."