Almost all the stars that will ever exist have already been born, and they have been around long enough for life to evolve on planets that orbit them

Photographer Enrico Sacchetti captures the power and potential of ITER, an international nuclear fusion experiment currently under construction in southern France

An ordinary-looking valley has a secret – each of its neighbours is 20 years removed in time. Scott Alexander Howard's debut is heartfelt and deeply enjoyable, says Emily H. Wilson

A century ago, Albert Einstein suggested that the universe might contain ripples in space-time, known as gravitational waves – but then he changed his mind

Experiments in a wind tunnel have revealed why the sling action bowling technique made famous by Sri Lankan cricketer Lasith Malinga is so effective at hoodwinking whoever is batting

Physicists have demonstrated a bizarre cooling effect by setting up a detector to record the absence of photons in a laser experiment

In an experiment simulating what happens deep in the interiors of planets, scientists have found that liquid can be compressed into ice crystals – even at extremely high temperatures

Could the universe's missing matter be hiding in a "dark" extra dimension? We now have simple ways to test this outlandish idea - and the existence of extra dimensions more generally

Researchers used a collection of charged atoms to create a quantum superposition of an exotic type of defect

The symbols and mathematical operations used in the laws of physics follow a pattern that could reveal something fundamental about the universe

Physicists finally know whether black holes destroy the information contained in infalling matter. The problem is that the answer hasn’t lit the way to a new understanding of space-time

Marie Curie redefined the role of women in science by training a generation of “lab daughters” to have stellar careers, shows Dava Sobel's detailed and intimate new biography, The Elements of Marie Curie

Simulations suggest that when a quantum battery shares a quantum state with the device it is powering, the device can gain more charge than was stored in the battery to begin with

Light can be directed and steered around bends using a method similar to the way clouds scatter photons, which could lead to advances in medical imaging, cooling systems and even nuclear reactors

The Impossible Man by Patchen Barss salutes Roger Penrose's groundbreaking work in physics and mathematics while challenging the idea that a genius should be exempt from ordinary obligations

Tiny pieces of stone found in a rock formation in Western Australia may be the oldest evidence of a meteorite impact on Earth, dating back nearly 3.5 billion years

A well in Nebraska is the first in the world to have been drilled in search of naturally occurring geologic hydrogen, but tests to determine how much of the gas it might supply are on hold because of a broken pump

The second series of this show about Earth 66 million years ago is a joy to watch - but it inspires more than it informs. A little more science would have been nice

An oil company in China has started drilling a hole that would be the deepest in the country and among the deepest in the world

Pressure on the San Andreas fault from a now-dried lake could have been sufficient to trigger past major earthquakes in California. The lake’s disappearance could explain why there have been no such quakes for nearly 300 years

Chris Packham's new BBC series, Earth, looks at significant moments in Earth's history, including anthropogenic climate change and biodiversity loss, "It's not a sixth mass extinction event that we're precipitating," he says, "it's a mass extermination event"

A better picture of the hidden landscape beneath the frozen surface of Antarctica could help us understand how the ice will respond to climate change

Two strange, high-density blobs buried more than a kilometre underground may have come from the ancient world Theia, which is thought to have slammed into Earth to create the moon

Lake Maracaibo in Venezuela, the largest lake in South America, has been captured in detail by the European Space Agency's Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission

Once seen as miraculous, these days ice is no longer extraordinary. But in a winter season when Antarctic sea ice hit a historic low, it is clear we should cherish it more, says Max Leonard

When most people are asked to name a river, they often reach for the Amazon or Nile, but these aren’t the only remarkable rivers out there. Here are 10 more from around the world – and solar system

A drilling project in the Taklamakan desert is aiming to reach more than 11,000 metres below Earth’s surface as China explores the deep earth for resources

Several enormous craters left by explosions have been spotted in Siberia over the past 15 years, and a new explanation links them to hot gas – and climate change

Lightning strikes during volcanic eruptions could have provided nitrogen in a form that was needed by early life forms

An ocean research vessel has just discovered four underwater mountains, the tallest almost 3 kilometres high, that might be hotspots of deep-sea life

Microbes that rapidly convert CO2 to rock could lock away the greenhouse gas in deep underground storage sites, such as depleted oil and gas reservoirs

Global warming means many of the world’s ancient rivers of ice will be gone within decades, threatening ecosystems that rely on their meltwater, a looming crisis that photographer Edward Burtynsky highlights in his work

Mysterious green sunsets were reported after the massive eruption of Krakatoa in 1883 – now simulations show how they were created and just how rare they are

A proposal to define the Anthropocene, a geologic epoch defined by human activity, has been rejected – surprising even scientists who consulted the voting group

The Luna structure, a 1.8-kilometre-wide depression in north-west India, may have been caused by the largest meteorite to strike Earth in the past 50,000 years

Last year’s marine heatwaves saw an unprecedented decline in the growth of phytoplankton and algae, which many animals in the oceans depend on for food

For decades, planetary scientists have been trying to understand the origins of two colossal geological anomalies inside our planet. New insights suggest they could be leftovers from a cosmic collision

A proposal to define the Anthropocene as a geological epoch was rejected this March, but humanity's impact on Earth is real, whether formalised or not, says Jan Zalasiewicz

In an ongoing swarm of earthquakes that began hitting Japan in 2020, the shifting weight of surface water may have spurred the shaking

This year could bring up to 25 named tropical storms in the Atlantic Ocean due to a shift to La Niña conditions, says the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

Smoke from wildfires burning in Canada and Mexico is already worsening air quality in the US, but some signs suggest clearer skies than last year

Taylor Roades's images of a river in north-west Alaska that has turned orange because of global warming have won the New Scientist Editors Award at the Earth Photo competition

The dynamics of how plants and animals change Earth is central to this last book in a trilogy by Other Minds author and "scuba-diving philosopher" Peter Godfrey-Smith

A scientific drilling ship has burrowed further into Earth’s mantle than ever before, obtaining new clues about the processes that feed oceanic volcanoes and the possible origins of life

This claustrophobia-inducing image is taken from photographer Martin Broen's new book Light in the Underworld, a collection of shots from the Yucatán’s cenotes, or sinkholes

A ring of asteroid debris could have orbited Earth for tens of millions of years, and perhaps even have altered the planet's climate

A sprawling research program aims to improve hurricane forecasts by collecting data at the chaotic interface of ocean and atmosphere

Rapid erosion caused by a geological act of “piracy” tens of thousands of years ago may have raised Earth’s crust and elevated Mount Everest by as much as 50 metres

El Niño and La Niña cycles driven by ocean temperatures in the Pacific can influence weather in the North Atlantic 12 months later – a finding that could improve long-range forecasts

Endurance sank beneath the ice during Ernest Shackleton’s legendary Antarctic expedition. More than a hundred years later, researchers document their own saga of how they found the vessel