- January 17, 2026
First treaty to protect the high seas comes into force
A trawler in the Southern Ocean Shutterstock A treaty that will protect areas of the largely lawless high seas from
China has applied to launch 200,000 satellites, but what are they for?
It’s getting busy in Earth orbit Maciej Frolow/Getty Images China has applied to launch nearly 200,000 satellites into Earth orbit,
Sinking trees in Arctic Ocean could remove 1 billion tonnes of CO2
Trees floating towards the Arctic Ocean Carl Christoph Stadie/The Alfred Wegener Institute Cutting down swathes of boreal forest and sinking
City-sized iceberg has turned into a giant swimming pool
Satellite view of iceberg A23a in the Southern Ocean, showing meltwater on its surface NASA Meltwater on a city‑sized iceberg
El Niño was linked to famines in Europe in the early modern period
El Niño events led to crop failures in some parts of Europe and raised grain prices elsewhere Public Domain The
Gargantuan black hole may be a remnant from the dawn of the universe
Primordial black holes are hypothesised to have formed shortly after the big bang Shutterstock/Mohd. Afuza An unusually massive black hole
Physicists stirred up controversy with scientific cooking tips in 2025
A smooth cacio e pepe pasta sauce can be hard to achieve Brent Hofacker/Alamy Scientists’ new recipes for a classic
Mathematicians spent 2025 exploring the edge of mathematics
When numbers get large, things get weird Jezper / Alamy In 2025, the edges of mathematics came a little more
More than 100 moons were discovered in our own solar system in 2025
Uranus’s new moon, S/2025 U1, was spotted using the James Webb Space Telescope NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI/M. El Moutamid (SwRI)/M. Hedman (University of
Putting data centres in space isn’t going to happen any time soon
Starcloud wants to build a data centre satellite that is 4 kilometres by 4 kilometres Starcloud Could AI’s insatiable thirst