So far, 2026 has seen a flood of successes for volunteers who do NASA science, exemplifying NASA’s commitment to gold-standard science—transparent, reproducible and intrinsically collaborative. The Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 project announced that their project volunteers have now discovered most of the known brown dwarfs, celestial objects that are similar to planets. The Zooniverse platform,
In this Webb image released on Oct. 22, 2026, we see a turbulent cauldron of star formation filled with dense clumps of gas. This region is named N159 and is located 161,000 light-years away in the Large Magellanic Cloud, one of the satellite galaxies orbiting the Milky Way galaxy. This region has a lower metallicity
Last year, we started a tradition. For our second annual roundup of outstanding audio gear, we worked even harder to find more highlights. From October 2025 to October 2026, we sat our ears down in hotel suites and a Honda Fit, toured factory floors and demo rooms with the same criteria as last year: make
While Fat Bear Week has come and gone, there is another group of Alaskan bears currently getting their due. The United States Forest Service team at Tongass National Forest are doling out the Anan Bear Awards to the 39 bears spotted at the Anan Wildlife Observatory in southeastern Alaska. Black bear Goblin at Anan Wildlife
High-end graphics, cinematic plotlines, and challenging boss battles aren’t what made Minecraft one of the most popular video games of all time. After nearly 15 years, millions of people still play it every day because it doesn’t offer any of those features. Instead, Minecraft hinges exploring, building, and experimenting inside a virtually infinite digital universe.
The exoplanet TOI-561 b is fascinating to observe from 280 light-years away—but it’s not a place anyone would want to visit. Not only is it blanketed by an ocean of molten lava, but TOI-561 b is constantly bombarded by destructive radiation from its host star. The planet endures so much stellar energy that astronomers have