Science on IT News

Earth Might Survive the Sun's Death After All, New Model Suggests

Wed, 08 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0800

For decades, astronomers have argued about whether Earth will be swallowed when the sun dies. Around 5 billion years from now, our star will exhaust its hydrogen fuel and swell into a red giant large enough to engulf Mercury and Venus. Most models have assumed Earth follows the same fate.

A study published this June in Astronomy & Astrophysics says otherwise.

Inside China's 8,000-Meter Window to the Cretaceous: The Deepest Continental Science Borehole on Earth

Wed, 08 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0800

There’s a hole in northeastern China that goes deeper into the continent than any science borehole in history. It’s not for oil or gas. It’s for reading the planet’s memory.

The Songke-2 well, drilled into the heart of the Songliao Basin in Heilongjiang Province, punches through more than eight kilometers of rock that accumulated over 100 million years. Every meter of that sedimentary column represents roughly 10,000 years of Earth’s history. The team behind it pulled out over 8,000 meters of continuous rock core — a feat no other continental scientific drilling project has matched.

A Potentially Habitable Planet Just 25 Light-Years Away

Sat, 04 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0800

There are about 300,000 stars within 100 light-years of Earth. Most of them are probably hiding planets. The hard part is finding the ones that might actually support life.

Chinese Scientists Discover Mysterious Double-Flash X-Ray Source That Defies Explanation

Tue, 23 Jun 2026 23:28:00 +0800

Astronomers using China’s Einstein Probe satellite have uncovered a deeply puzzling X-ray transient source that refuses to fit into any known category of cosmic explosion. Designated EP240305a, the source exhibits a distinctive double-flash pattern and jet-like afterglow strongly reminiscent of a gamma-ray burst — yet, crucially, no gamma rays were ever detected. The findings, published June 13 in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, have sparked intense interest across the international astronomy community and may point to an entirely new class of high-energy transient.