Science
July 2026
Every article published in July 2026. 860 articles · Back to full archive
Constellations
The Voyager 1 probe, launched in 1977, is now so far from Earth that a radio signal travelling at the speed of light takes over 22 hours to reach it, and it is still sending data back from interstellar space on a power source the size of a car battery
Human Behaviour
A genetic analysis of nearly 700,000 people identified 74 distinct locations in the human genome tied to anxiety, 39 of which had never been linked to the condition before
Science
The debate over how many Earth-like planets exist has a wide range — from one, if the Rare Earth hypothesis is right, to something approaching a hundred quintillion, if Milky Way rates hold across the universe's roughly two trillion galaxies — and both answers are supported by serious researchers
Science
Saturn used to be listed with 83 moons. Then astronomers looked harder, found dozens more, and by 2026 the count had exploded to 285 — so many that Saturn now has nearly three times as many confirmed moons as Jupiter.
Constellations
If you could travel to another star system at almost the speed of light, you might age only a few years on the journey — while the people you left behind could age by generations, or even be gone for centuries.
Science
If microbial life is ever confirmed on Mars, on Europa, or in the plumes of Enceladus, it will be the most consequential discovery in the history of science — not because aliens exist, but because it would mean life is ordinary, and the universe is full of it
Science
NASA tested a nuclear rocket engine dozens of times in the 1960s, proved it could work, then shelved it before it ever flew — and now the same basic idea is being revived because it could make the trip to Mars far shorter than chemical rockets allow.
Science
The footprints left by Apollo astronauts on the lunar surface will remain there, undisturbed, for at least ten million years — there is no wind, no rain, and almost nothing to erase them
Mind & Meaning
Physicist Roger Penrose has spent decades arguing that consciousness isn't something the brain produces, but that explaining it will require physics we haven't yet discovered
Science
The largest known volcano in the solar system is on Mars, and it is so wide that if you stood on its summit, you might not realise you were on a volcano at all — Olympus Mons rises from a base roughly the size of New Mexico, with slopes so gentle they would barely feel like a mountain.
Science
Saturn’s rings may be far younger than the planet itself — Cassini-era estimates have placed their age anywhere from about 10 million to a few hundred million years, meaning the rings we see today may not have existed for most of the age of dinosaurs.
Science
In 1995, astronomers pointed Hubble at a patch of sky so dark it looked empty and held it there for ten days. The image that came back contained roughly 3,000 galaxies — not stars, but galaxies — many holding billions of stars of their own.
Mind & Meaning
Psychologist Erich Fromm argued there are two ways to live, and the difference decides everything — not having more, but being more, whether you cling to what you own or grow into what you are
Space Scopes
We think of astronauts as floating in zero gravity, but the International Space Station is still deep inside Earth’s pull, where gravity is nearly 90% as strong as it is on the ground. What looks like weightlessness is really the station and its crew falling around the planet at about 28,000 kilometres per hour.
Space Scopes