Chip off the old moon?

The best discoveries, inventions and surprises

Where did life on Earth begin? That sounds like a relatively straightforward question. Surely life on Earth began… well, on Earth, right? We know this planet had the right conditions for life to arise

Ten years ago, Pluto emerged from the gloom at the Solar System’s ragged edge – and a new world came in from the cold. Five billion kilometres (3 billion miles) from Earth, on 14 July 2015, NASA’s pia

What the scientists are saying… The prince ...

I’m responding to an article by Pete Lawrence in the April 2025 issue, titled ‘Flora crosses the Leo Triplet’ (Big Three, in the Sky Guide), which spurred me to have a look for this minor planet. I al

Scientists distinguish between weight and mass, which may seem pedantic until you see what happens on a world where gravity is radically different to Earth’s