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March 24, 2026

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See NASA's GUARDIAN Catch a Tsunami

A new animation breaks down how JPL's AI-supported hazard scout gets the drop on the ocean's biggest waves. Full Story and Animation

Today in Science: A nuclear-powered mission to Mars

TODAY'S NEWS

A white glowing disk surrounding an unseen star, with a zoom showing the newly discovered planet.

An image of the star WISPIT 2 taken by the Very Large Telescope in Chile. . ESO/C. Lawlor, R. F. van Capelleveen et al.

Astronomers have discovered a newly-forming baby solar system around a star called WISPIT 2 some 437 light-years from Earth—it is only the second ever to be confirmed. | 2 min read
Is social media addictive? Here's what the science says. | 4 min read
Why Iran is targeting Qatar's liquefied natural gas (LNG) facilities, and how long it will take the industry to recover. | 3 min read
NASA announced it will launch a nuclear-powered spacecraft to Mars before the end of 2028. It would be the first interplanetary
spacecraft mission powered by nuclear propulsion. | 1 min read
Is 0.999... equal to 1? Mathematicians can't agree. | 4 min read
A new poll finds that just six in 10 Americans trust the federal government's childhood vaccine recommendations, down sharply from a previous survey less than a year ago. | 2 min read
Humans have loved pinot noir for a long time: An analysis of ancient grape seed DNA revealed the earliest known instance of humans in France purposefully cloning plants—including for pinot noir grapes—from the 15th century. | 2 min read

More News

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What's That Smell?

The most popular plant variety at many botanical gardens around the world? You might guess orchids or even succulents. But the real crowd pleaser is a 10-foot tall, phallic-looking plant that absolutely reeks and only blooms every seven years or more. Researchers have been studying the corpse plant (Amorphophallus titanum), which is endemic to the rainforests of western Sumatra, since the late 1800s and found it to be an exceptional example of evolutionary mimicry—it evolved to look and smell like decaying meat in order to attract the flies, beetles and other bugs that feed on carrion.

Why this is interesting: In most cases of evolutionary mimicry, the mimicked feature or behavior is not an exact copy of the original. But the corpse plant has recreated the precise sulfur-based chemicals that emit the putrescence of decaying meat found in actual decaying meat. The rank compound is derived from the breakdown of particular amino acids, the building blocks of proteins. The physical features of the corpse flower and its long protrusion, called a spadix, have ripples, grooves, bumps and discolorations that are strikingly similar to those on the surface of rotting flesh. And inside the spadix, mitochondria produce heat that is released, helping disperse the stench and attract pollinators.

The future: Despite its popularity in captivity, the endangered plant numbers fewer than 1,000 in the wild. Forest clearing for oil palm plantations in Sumatra have significantly cut into its native habitat. And though its smell is strong, even strong stenches don't travel as far if the air is polluted. A recent study determined that polluted air can diminish the fragrance plumes and even change the chemical profile of the scent. In theory, these effects could reduce the number of pollinators that visit these plants in the rainforest.

The Titan Arum flower standing tall in a jungle setting, and a person standing next to it, appearing much smaller.

In 2022 researchers documented a bloom measuring more than 14 feet tall in the rainforest of West Sumatra—one of the largest on record. Adi Prima/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

PUZZLER

Black, white and beige puzzle pieces scattered on a green background

Can you unscramble this puzzle of our July 1956 cover? The image shows one of the colossal statue heads found at the summit of Mount Nemrut in Türkiye, where archaeological expeditions revealed the tomb of Antiochus I, who ruled broad swaths of west Asia in the era after Alexander the Great's death.

More Jigsaw Puzzles

Check out these great time lapse videos of a corpse flower blooming. The first was filmed 10 years ago at the Chicago Botanical Garden when its specimen bloomed over a 24-hour period after being dormant for more than 11 years. The second was posted by the Colorado State University College of Agricultural Sciences, whose corpse flower bloomed after eight years of dormancy. "Dormant" implies that the plant is inactive and shut down through all that time, but in between blooms, the corpse flower is storing starch in its tuber underground, biding its time until it has enough fuel for growth. Life isn't a constant bloom; it's long stretches of quiet living until everything aligns.

Have you seen a corpse flower in person? Tell me how it was by emailing: newsletters@sciam.com. See you tomorrow!

—Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter Editor

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Meet Space Reactor-1 Freedom: NASA's "first nuclear powered interplanetary spacecraft"

NASA announces 'first nuclear powered interplanetary spacecraft' | Watch your favorite sci-fi anywhere with 77% off NordVPN | Early spring deals for stargazing gear

Created for ceo.studentlike.spuniv@blogger.com | Web Version

March 24, 2026

Taking you out of this world, every day

The Launchpad

NASA announces 'first nuclear powered interplanetary spacecraft'

a small helicopter drops from a box hanging below a parachute in a red sky

(AeroVironment)

It's Tuesday space fans, and NASA has announced some significant changes to its planned Artemis moon exploration campaign.

The agency says it will pause its plans for a Gateway lunar space station and instead focus first on establishing a moon base. In order to do that, NASA will "increase the tempo of lunar activity, sending rovers, instruments, and technology demonstrations" over the coming years to help build out the necessary infrastructure.

In other news, NASA has also announced it will aim to launch the Space Reactor-1 Freedom, the "first nuclear powered interplanetary spacecraft," in 2028 and send a fleet of tiny "Skyfall" helicopters to Mars.

Space deal of the day

Watch your favorite sci-fi anywhere with 77% off NordVPN

(Future/NordVPN)

With up to $513 off, a $50 Amazon voucher and four months free, you can watch sci-fi streaming shows and movies like 'Monarch: Legacy of monsters' securely while traveling.

Full Story: Space (3/23)

Early spring deals for stargazing gear

(Harry Bennett / Future)

Do you want to get a better look at the universe around you? We've spotted these early deals on our best binoculars, cameras and telescopes, so you don't have to blow your budget for mind-blowing views.

Skywatching

Rare daytime fireball may have dropped meteorites on Texas

a map of an urban area with a yellow rectangle overlaid on it

(NASA, Google Earth, © JakeFromStateFarm)

NASA has released a "strewn field" map of where meteorites may have fallen after a rare daytime fireball explosively disintegrated in the skies over Houston on Saturday (March 21) evening.

Science & Astronomy

Are mysterious 'Little Red Dots' actually baby galaxies?

(NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Dale Kocevski (Colby College)/ Robert Lea (created with Canva))

One of the most intriguing, and dare I say, enigmatic populations to pop up in the James Webb Space Telescope's groundbreaking observations are the Little Red Dots. These aren't just any old cosmic curiosities; they're very distant objects in the universe whose light has been stretched to longer, redder wavelengths due to the universe's expansion, meaning we're seeing them as they appeared in the early universe. But what ARE they, really?

Technology

What if the next great astronomer isn't human?

(Yuichiro Chino/Getty Images)

So we've all heard a lot about AI. You might be using some form of it right now every day. But how could AI change how astronomy works? Astrophysicist Paul Sutter weighs in on how we're just scratching the surface of what the innovative collaboration between human astronomers and AI can unlock.

Entertainment

'Project Hail Mary': The book vs. movie

Ballantine Books & Amazon MGM

Andy Weir's epic sci-fi book "Project Hail Mary" has made one giant leap onto big screens as a feature film starring Ryan Gosling, but how faithful is the movie to the book? Here's 10 things we spotted.

Today in Space

On this day in 1961: Mercury-Redstone BD rocket launches test flight

a black-and-white rocket launches above a plume of fire

(NASA)

For our space history moment today, we're going back to 1961 and the dawn of the Space Age. On March 24, 1961, NASA's Mercury Redstone rocket launched on its last uncrewed flight before it started sending astronauts into space, but the mission wasn't something originally planned. See how it happened here.