Science & Tech news · 1 November 2026
NASA's Swift Space Telescope to Burn Up After Failed Rescue
NASA's Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, launched in 2004 and far outlasting its two-year design life, is set to burn up in Earth's atmosphere within days after a failed effort to save it.
Vera Rubin Observatory Spots Potential New Dwarf Planet Beyond Pluto
The Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile has detected a vast, slow-moving object dubbed 2026 ED138, estimated at up to 1,500 km wide and orbiting far beyond Pluto — possibly the biggest solar-system discovery in 19 years.
ESA's Hera Spacecraft Days Away from Asteroid Didymos Arrival
ESA's Hera spacecraft, the follow-up mission to NASA's 2022 DART asteroid impact, is days away from arriving at the Didymos binary asteroid system to survey the aftermath of humanity's first planetary-defence test.
Atoms Dropped on China's Tiangong Station Confirm Einstein's Gravity Theory
Scientists used two clouds of rubidium atoms with different masses aboard China's Tiangong space station to confirm — with quantum precision — that all objects fall at identical rates, a cornerstone of Einstein's general relativity.
A Forgotten 'Ghost Particle' May Explain Why the Universe Exists
Physicists propose that a long-overlooked type of sterile neutrino, decaying slowly after the Big Bang, tipped the cosmic balance toward matter over antimatter — potentially explaining why anything exists at all.