Space science and discovery from Cosmic Herald — planetary science, cosmology, astrobiology, and the search for life beyond Earth.
University of Warwick physicist Sandra Chapman told NAM 2026 that the Sun's fiercest space weather ends not with a whimper but a sudden 'switch-off' - and the sunspots left behind at that moment forecast the next cycle six to seven years early.
Read the story →New sunspot AR4493 fired an M3.4 flare and 17 others in 24 hours as a fast coronal-hole wind stream heads for Earth, setting up a G1 geomagnetic storm and aurora chances July 21-22.
Nickel isotopes in K–Pg boundary clay identify the Chicxulub impactor as a rare CO chondrite — so poor in sulfur, carbon and water that atmospheric debris, not impactor sulfur, likely drove the extinction.
A Science paper reports the first atmosphere detected on a rocky, habitable-zone exoplanet: helium is escaping the super-Earth LHS 1140b. The signal was time-variable — seen in 2024, gone in 2025 — hinting at an active, replenishing atmosphere.
A NASA/JPL-led study in Nature Astronomy has reclassified near-Earth object 1998 SH2 as an active comet — now P/1998 SH2 — after tiny outgassing-driven accelerations and a faint tail gave it away during a 2025 close pass.
Two years to the day after a fireball rattled New York City and a two-pound rock punched through a Hillsborough, NJ roof, scientists report the meteorite preserves sodium-carbonate salts and extraterrestrial amino acids brewed in briny fluids on a 4.5-billion-year-old asteroid.
A NASA-led analysis of over a million solar wind measurements finds the long-assumed "saturation" limit on geomagnetic storm intensity is a statistical artifact, not a real ceiling — meaning the worst space weather could still be ahead of us.
Weeks after an X-class flare sparked aurora across 30 US states, NOAA's July 15 snapshot shows 36 tame sunspots, a mild C3 flare, and just quiet-to-minor storm odds — a reminder that solar weather swings fast.
A new JWST study of the edge-on disk Oph 163131 finds hydrogen gas glowing from vibrational excitation without the rotational heat that normally comes with it, pointing to UV and cosmic rays stirring the far reaches of a planet-forming disk.
From the most distant confirmed galaxy to overmassive black holes, a disputed biosignature, and proof the Hubble tension is real, here are JWST's most significant verified findings, sourced to NASA, ESA, and peer review.
NASA's Exoplanet Archive confirmed Beta Pictoris d in its July 9 update, making Beta Pictoris only the second directly imaged system known to host more than two planets.
A NASA-funded supercomputer study finds the Sun's razor-thin tachocline stays thin because it and the solar magnetic field are locked in a mutual feedback loop, resolving a decades-old puzzle tied to space weather forecasting.
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