July 2026

Scientists have long relied on chemical traces locked inside ancient rocks to piece together the story of early life. Fossils from the deepest reaches of Earth’s history are rare, often fragmentary and difficult to interpret. Isotopes, by contrast, can survive for billions of years. Among the most informative are those linked to nitrogen, an element…

Innovation often begins with solving problems that others consider impossible. For Dr Robert Sola Okojie, a Nigerian-born engineer and inventor, that pursuit has led to a career spanning more than two decades at Nasa and groundbreaking contributions to space technology. After 21 years at Nasa and securing 21 US patents, he was inducted into the…

From hundreds of kilometres above Earth, a national celebration looked very different. While crowds gathered across the United States for the country’s 250th anniversary, astronauts aboard the International Space Station watched the evening lights spread across the planet below. On July 4, as fireworks filled the skies over Los Angeles, the display became part of…

Far beyond Pluto, where sunlight is faint and temperatures remain extremely low, countless icy bodies drift through the outer reaches of the Solar System. These distant objects, known as trans-Neptunian objects, have long been viewed as frozen relics left over from the Solar System’s formation. Most are thought to be too small to hold onto…

Most years, skywatchers have to wait patiently for different celestial events to arrive one at a time. An eclipse might dominate one month, while a meteor shower steals attention weeks later. This August, however, the calendar has produced a rare overlap. On 12 August 2026, a solar eclipse will unfold across parts of the Northern…

As humans dream of venturing to other planets and creating a virtual world with the help of AI, the hand that was holding tight with the past seems to be losing its grip. In the race to develop the future, the rich depths of the past are getting lost. Those that define our origins, reveal…