Latest Stories
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Time flies – except when it starts to crawl
What is time? Some people have found the weeks of lockdown passing incredibly quickly; for others, every day has been agonisingly slow – suggesting that we trust too much in clocks.
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Send in the troops – there’s trouble on Mars
Is space the next war zone? As the superpowers step up their competing exploration programmes, experts worry that future conflicts could be decided outside the Earth’s atmosphere.
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Mile-wide asteroid gives Earth a near miss
Are asteroids our biggest threat? Several giant space missiles passed us by recently – and scientists are coming up with amazing plans to protect the planet from intergalactic impact.
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US military confirms UFOs are known unknowns
Should we embrace the unknown? After years of secrecy, the US government has released astonishing videos of UFOs, admitting it still doesn’t know if Earth has been visited by aliens.
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Stunning new image marks Hubble’s 30th birthday
Should learning about space make us feel calmer? The world’s most famous telescope shows us the true scale of the Universe. Some people think this is comforting; others find it terrifying.
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Now you can help see into the mind of God
Is this the path to a fundamental theory of physics? The computer scientist Stephen Wolfram has unveiled an ambitious new project: crowd-sourcing an all-encompassing theory of everything.
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Cometh the hour, cometh the British boffin
Should we put the boffins in charge? As the emergency spreads, brainboxes such as Chris Whitty, the medical voice of calm, and Rishi Sunak, the Star Wars-loving chancellor, are on the rise.
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The book that answers the ultimate question
Does life have any meaning? A hugely important new book called Until the End of Time has just been published by leading physicist Brian Greene. Here are the key points he makes.
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Nasa’s daring mission to find life on Mars
Can we finally unlock the mystery of Mars? A new mission to the Red Planet will explicitly search for signs of life. If there ARE little green men up there, we will soon find them.
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Daredevil killed in rocket launch disaster
Was he a hero or a fool? Mike Hughes, who believed the Earth was flat, died launching a homemade rocket this weekend. Supporters mourn an eccentric daredevil; critics say he was a crackpot.
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Alien-hunting astronomers demand more money
Does the search for intelligent life in space deserve more funding? Mysterious radio signals have been picked up from the depths of the Universe. Scientists want us to pay more attention.
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Site of Earth’s oldest asteroid discovered
Should we embrace randomness? As scientists discover more evidence that we are the product of many million-to-one chances, perhaps we should give up trying to plan our lives so much.
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Trains ‘to replace planes’ within 20 years
Are they the future of travel? Britain, yesterday, announced its new railway. Meanwhile, engineers are designing “space travel on Earth” to replace planes with clean, super-fast trains.,
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The living robot! Part-frog, part-machine
Is it dangerous to create living robots? Using the cells of a frog and artificial intelligence, scientists have designed an entirely new life form small enough to travel inside a human body.
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Spacecraft to seek the secrets of the Sun
Will the source of life on Earth also be its end? This weekend, a new space probe will blast off towards the Sun to investigate one of the biggest threats to our planet – the solar wind.