Science
May 2026
Every article published in May 2026. 662 articles · Back to full archive
Constellations
Atomic oxygen in low Earth orbit slowly eats spacecraft surfaces, and the ISS survives because engineers learned to coat, test, and replace the materials most vulnerable to it
Constellations
The Vela satellites were built to catch secret nuclear tests, but they accidentally recorded flashes from deep space that opened a new branch of astrophysics
Space Industry
Webb just clocked nearly 9,000 young star clusters and found the biggest ones break from their birth clouds in 5 million years, a timing clue that could reshape how astronomers model galaxies growing up
Constellations
The Hubble Deep Field began as a gamble on a tiny patch of sky that had been chosen because it looked almost empty, and it ended by revealing nearly 3,000 galaxies hiding in what seemed like nothing.
Constellations
Titan’s atmosphere is thicker than Earth’s, its rivers and lakes are made of methane and ethane, and NASA is sending a nuclear-powered drone there because on Saturn’s largest moon, flying may be easier than driving.
Constellations
Enceladus is a tiny moon of Saturn that sprays water vapor and ice grains into space from an ocean hidden beneath its icy crust — meaning a spacecraft can sample material from an alien sea without ever landing.
Human Behaviour
I spent years assuming my personality was fixed — then I learned what neuroplasticity actually means and realised I had been maintaining myself like a finished product instead of a living system
Science
In 1908, something exploded in the sky over Siberia with hundreds of times the energy of the Hiroshima bomb, flattening more than 2,000 square kilometres of forest. When scientists finally reached the site years later, they found no crater at all
Human Behaviour
The modern 8-hour workday is usually traced to Robert Owen, a Welsh industrialist and social reformer, who in 1817 popularized the formula: ‘eight hours’ labour, eight hours’ recreation, eight hours’ rest.’ Does this split still make sense in 2026?
Science
The human genome contains traces of ancient viruses that infected our ancestors millions of years ago — and some of those viral leftovers were later repurposed into genes that help make human pregnancy possible
Human Behaviour
Anthropologist Marshall Sahlins called early hunter-gatherer societies "the original affluent society" — not because they had more than us, but because they wanted less than they had, and worked the minimum required to meet what they wanted
Psychology
Sam Altman asked what problem people most hope AI will solve — and the answer that keeps coming up isn't cancer or climate change
Constellations
Apollo 12 was struck by lightning twice less than a minute after launch, and the mission kept going only because a flight controller recognised an obscure telemetry failure pattern and told the crew to flip a switch almost nobody else in the room understood
Constellations
JPL's management contract is suddenly up for grabs for the first time since the 1930s, and NASA's own language shows why this is more than a routine procurement fight
Constellations