Key details

• Price: $399.99/£349.99
• Model number: #10356
• Number of pieces: 3600
• Dimensions: H: 11″ (27cm), W: 19″ (48cm), D: 24″ (60cm)
• Recommended age: 18+

Move over, Star Wars, and get out of here, Marvel, because there is finally an official Star Trek Lego set… and what a set. The first Star Trek Lego set was always going to be some variation of the USS Enterprise, but as a massive The Next Generation stan, I’m glad that it was my beloved: the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-D.

With an 18+ recommended age rating and a hefty 3600-piece count, it’s certainly not for the faint of heart. That’s fine, though, because I have to imagine that just about everyone who wants one of these things is someone who watched the original show back in the day. Who knows, though, maybe Paramount+ is bringing in the next generation of Next Generation fans?

It’s also a hefty $400 — a price point that will make you yearn for the moneyless society of the show. So, was it worth the wait, and is it worth the money? Let’s head into the review at warp seven and find out.

Today’s best Lego Star Trek USS Enterprise deals

Lego U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-D: Build

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Some of the Lego pieces included in the new U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-D set.(Image credit: Ian Stokes / Future)Some of the Lego pieces included in the new U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-D set.(Image credit: Ian Stokes / Future)The new Lego U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-D set starting to take shape.(Image credit: Ian Stokes / Future)Lego pieces and booklet instructions for the new U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-D set.(Image credit: Ian Stokes / Future)

• Body constructed with two mirrored halves
• 3600 pieces
• Some easy-to-apply stickers and printed pieces

The Lego Star Trek: U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-D is made from 3600 pieces, split across 30 different bags and two instruction books. The first book covers the ship’s main body and the flight stand, while the second book is devoted to the saucer section.

To make it so, the build starts with the main body and wings that hold the nacelles (aka the ship’s warp engines). You actually construct the body from two mirror halves, which are then attached using several long cross-axle pieces (the long plus-shaped bars). I was especially impressed with how the designers crafted the main deflector array — that blue oval on the front of the ship that’s always firing off tractor beams and tachyon pulses — which is made from two, custom-printed cockpit windscreen pieces that you invert, creating the concave shape of the array.

With the body constructed, it’s time for a quick detour to assemble the flight stand, as the fixed position it offers makes attaching the engines much easier.

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A look at the new Lego U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-D set in the building process.(Image credit: Ian Stokes / Future)A look at the new Lego U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-D set in the building process.(Image credit: Ian Stokes / Future)A look at the new Lego U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-D set in the building process.(Image credit: Ian Stokes / Future)A look at the new Lego U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-D set in the building process.(Image credit: Ian Stokes / Future)

Speaking of which, you’ll move on to building the nacelles themselves, which make good use of blue and red transparent pieces to recreate the iconic look of the ship’s glowing engines. Once assembled, the nacelles slot into place nicely, and by this point, you’ve got a working ship… as long as you don’t mind commanding your daft-looking ship from the battle bridge.

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The back half of the build is a lot more technical, as you’re building a larger circular disc out of square and rectangular Lego pieces. This feat is achieved by first constructing a central frame, similar to the spokes of a wheel, and then attaching it to the main body. I ran into an issue here, as I discovered I’d made a mistake in section 1 that only reared its ugly head here. A single piece was rotated 90 degrees in the wrong direction, and it stopped the saucer from slotting in. Fortunately, I was able to repair it without disassembling the entire thing, but my heart did stop for a second when I discovered my mistake.

Once the frame is in place, you then attach the top panels, which use angled pieces and hinge attachments, slotting together into a damn impressive approximation of a circle.

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The new Lego U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-D set is coming along nicely in the building process.(Image credit: Ian Stokes / Future)The new Lego U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-D set is coming along nicely in the building process.(Image credit: Ian Stokes / Future)

Things get trickier from here, though, as the final stretch has you repeating this process on the underside of the ship. The instruction book seems to imagine that you’ve got infinite room to work underneath the ship while doing this, but in practice, it’s quite tricky. I gave up in the end and just flipped the whole thing over, which felt very sketchy, and I ended up knocking a few random pieces off during the operation.

Despite my brief (and self-inflicted) cardiac episode, I had a fantastic time building the Enterprise. The nine minifigures are scattered throughout the build, providing a nice palette cleanser as you work through this sizeable build. They’re all simple to construct as you’d expect, though Riker’s trombone is an impressive — and rickety — piece of engineering.

Some mirror sections effectively call for you to build the same thing twice, but the fact that it’s mirrored — and not identical — keeps you on your toes. There are some special printed pieces, along with some stickers scattered throughout the build, but they’re all easy enough to apply.

Lego U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-D: Design

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The new Lego U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-D set is a seriously impressive display piece.(Image credit: Ian Stokes / Future)The new Lego U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-D set is a seriously impressive display piece.(Image credit: Ian Stokes / Future)The new Lego U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-D set is a seriously impressive display piece.(Image credit: Ian Stokes / Future)The new Lego U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-D set is a seriously impressive display piece.(Image credit: Ian Stokes / Future)

• Great display model
• Comprehensive collection of minifigures
• Can be a little fragile to handle when completed

I’ve been waiting a very long time for a Lego Star Trek set, and I’m thrilled to say the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-D was worth the wait. The design team has perfectly replicated the iconic starship in exquisite detail — no small feat given its awkward size and shape. I was skeptical of how the circular saucer section would look when built out of flat-edge pieces, but it looks stunning.

Some easter eggs are hiding around the ship that fans will appreciate, including the dedication plaque that emblazons the back wall of the Enterprise’s bridge (complete with a hilarious typo). Sadly, this set isn’t big enough to have a minifig scale bridge hidden inside it, so the plaque lives in a hidden compartment instead.

Speaking of minifigures, the collection included here is comprehensive, with almost all of your favorite characters from the show (bad luck to the Tasha Yar and Chief O’Brien stans out there). They all look wonderful, each with their own unique accessories ranging from Worf’s phaser through to Riker’s ridiculous trombone.

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A closer look at the new Lego U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-D set.(Image credit: Ian Stokes / Future)A closer look at the new Lego U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-D set.(Image credit: Ian Stokes / Future)A closer look at the new Lego U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-D set.(Image credit: Ian Stokes / Future)The display plaque from the new Lego U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-D.(Image credit: Ian Stokes / Future)

There are some unique Lego pieces used here, too, including Worf’s “hair” and Guinan’s flamboyant headpiece. There is a platform to store the minifigs on, and a printed display piece with cool facts and figures about the Enterprise on it, too.

Another neat touch is the “pin” that locks the saucer section in place, which is cleverly disguised as a shuttlecraft approaching the shuttlebay. It’s a cute piece of design, though the detachable saucer section itself is — much like in the show — a gimmick that you’ll rarely use.

The model is too fragile to handle (since completing it, I knocked a piece off while showing it off on webcam and can not for the life of me find where it came from). Beyond that, there is no display stand to hold the saucer section on its own, so unless you’re recreating the end of Star Trek: Generations, it’s not worth detaching.

Should you buy the Lego U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-D?

The new Lego U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-D is an awesome set and we would recommend it for serious Star Trek and Lego fans. (Image credit: Ian Stokes / Future)

If you’re a Star Trek fan and a Lego collector, of course, you should buy this set. And by the looks of it, a lot of you already did because the Lego U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-D sold almost immediately out on launch day. If you missed the first wave, don’t worry, because we’re sure it’ll be back in stock at warp speed.

The Enterprise is a brilliant set to build and a gorgeous display piece when it’s done. It’s expensive, as you’d expect from a 3,600-piece Lego set, but I think it’s well worth the price of admission for Trekkies. Your wallet’s shields never stood a chance.

Other Lego sets to consider

As we said in the intro, the Lego U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-D is the first and only Star Trek Lego set out there for now (unless you count the Type-15 Shuttlepod that came with the pre-order), so we don’t have any other Trekkie sets to recommend to you.

If you’re agnostic in the Trek vs Wars divide, there are plenty of amazing Star Wars Lego sets to consider, though. My personal favorite is the Venator-Class Republic Attack Cruiser, an enormous 5,374-piece monster that dwarfs even the Enterprise.

If the $649.99/£559.99 price tag on that set has triggered a red alert from your bank, there are some cheaper sets we love too; namely, the Mos Espa Podrace Diorama and the adorable Grogu with Hover Pram, both of which can be had for under $100.

Today’s best Lego Star Trek USS Enterprise deals

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Every week, Space.com delivers the latest discoveries, launches, and cosmic curiosities from across the universe. From groundbreaking research aboard the International Space Station to dazzling new images from the James Webb Space Telescope, the stories are as vast and varied as space itself. But how closely have you been paying attention?

To celebrate the thrill of space exploration and the joy of learning, we’ve created a special crossword puzzle built entirely from this week’s top Space.com stories. It’s a fun, brain-tickling way to revisit the highlights, whether you’re a casual stargazer or a die-hard astrophysics fan.

Expect clues that span planetary science, rocket launches, stargazing, and entertainment tied to the stars. If you read about it on Space.com last week, it might just show up in this puzzle. And if you didn’t? Well, now’s your chance to catch up while flexing your trivia muscles.

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So channel your inner astronaut, and dive into this week’s interstellar quiz. The answers are out there, you just have to connect the clues.

Try it out below and see how well you do!

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Images of faces generated by artificial intelligence (AI) are so realistic that even “super recognizers” — an elite group with exceptionally strong facial processing abilities — are no better than chance at detecting fake faces.

People with typical recognition capabilities are worse than chance: more often than not, they think AI-generated faces are real.

That’s according to research published Nov. 12 in the journal Royal Society Open Science. However, the study also found that receiving just five minutes of training on common AI rendering errors greatly improves individuals’ ability to spot the fakes.

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“I think it was encouraging that our kind of quite short training procedure increased performance in both groups quite a lot,” lead study author Katie Gray, an associate professor in psychology at the University of Reading in the U.K., told Live Science.

Surprisingly, the training increased accuracy by similar amounts in super recognizers and typical recognizers, Gray said. Because super recognizers are better at spotting fake faces at baseline, this suggests that they are relying on another set of clues, not simply rendering errors, to identify fake faces.

Gray hopes that scientists will be able to harness super recognizers’ enhanced detection skills to better spot AI-generated images in the future.

“To best detect synthetic faces, it may be possible to use AI detection algorithms with a human-in-the-loop approach — where that human is a trained SR [super recognizer],” the authors wrote in the study.

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Detecting deepfakes

In recent years, there has been an onslaught of AI-generated images online. Deepfake faces are created using a two-stage AI algorithm called generative adversarial networks. First, a fake image is generated based on real-world images, and the resulting image is then scrutinized by a discriminator that determines whether it is real or fake. With iteration, the fake images become realistic enough to get past the discriminator.

As a result, researchers are now trying to design training regiments that can improve individuals’ abilities to detect AI faces. These trainings point out common rendering errors in AI-generated faces, such as the face having a middle tooth, an odd-looking hairline or unnatural-looking skin texture. They also highlight that fake faces tend to be more proportional than real ones.

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In theory, so-called super recognizers should be better at spotting fakes than the average person. These super recognizers are individuals who excel in facial perception and recognition tasks, in which they might be shown two photographs of unfamiliar individuals and asked to identify if they are the same person or not. But to date, few studies have examined super recognizers’ abilities to detect fake faces, and whether training can improve their performance.

To fill this gap, Gray and her team ran a series of online experiments comparing the performance of a group of super recognizers to typical recognizers. The super recognizers were recruited from the Greenwich Face and Voice Recognition Laboratory volunteer database; they had performed in the top 2% of individuals in tasks where they were shown unfamiliar faces and had to remember them.

In the first experiment, an image of a face appeared onscreen and was either real or computer-generated. Participants had 10 seconds to decide if the face was real or not. Super recognizers performed no better than if they had randomly guessed, spotting only 41% of AI faces. Typical recognizers correctly identified only about 30% of fakes.

Each cohort also differed in how often they thought real faces were fake. This occurred in 39% of cases for super recognizers and in around 46% for typical recognizers.

The next experiment was identical, but included a new set of participants who received a five-minute training session in which they were shown examples of errors in AI-generated faces. They were then tested on 10 faces and provided with real-time feedback on their accuracy at detecting fakes. The final stage of the training involved a recap of rendering errors to look out for. The participants then repeated the original task from the first experiment.

Training greatly improved detection accuracy, with super recognizers spotting 64% of fake faces and typical recognizers noticing 51%. The rate that each group inaccurately called real faces fake was about the same as the first experiment, with super recognizers and typical recognizers rating real faces as “not real” in 37% and 49% of cases, respectively.

Trained participants tended to take longer to scrutinize the images than the untrained participants had — typical recognizers slowed by about 1.9 seconds and super recognizers did by 1.2 seconds. Gray said this is a key message to anyone who is trying to determine if a face they see is real or fake: slow down and really inspect the features.

It is worth noting, however, that the test was conducted immediately after participants completed the training, so it is unclear how long the effect lasts.

“The training cannot be considered a lasting, effective intervention, since it was not re-tested,” Meike Ramon, a professor of applied data science and expert in face processing at the Bern University of Applied Sciences in Switzerland, wrote in a review of the study conducted before it went to print.

And since separate participants were used in the two experiments, we cannot be sure how much training improves an individual’s detection skills, Ramon added. That would require testing the same set of people twice, before and after training.

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This article was originally published at The Conversation. The publication contributed the article to Space.com’s Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

China routinely sends astronauts to and from its space station Tiangong. A crew capsule is about to undock from the station and return to Earth, but there’s nothing routine about its journey home.

The Shenzhou-20 capsule will carry no crew, because one of its windows has been struck by space debris. Astronauts noticed an apparent crack on November 5, during pre-return checks.

A tiny crack in a spacecraft window triggered China’s first-ever emergency launch to Tiangong space station. A CCTV article reveals what happened over 20 intense days, and why a piece of space debris smaller than 1 mm forced the emergency response. https://t.co/w8BqnhkH6MDecember 1, 2025

Experts have been warning about the threat posed by space debris for years. The ever-growing number of space programmes by states and private entities is now contributing to an increasingly congested environment in orbit.

The European Space Agency estimates that there are more than 15,100 tonnes of material in space that has been launched from Earth. There are 1.2 million debris objects between 1cm and 10cm, and 140 million debris objects between 1mm and 1cm.

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In low orbit they will be travelling around 7.6 km/s (roughly 17,000 miles per hour), damaging anything they hit. This is how a piece less than 1mm in size was able to penetrate the thick glass of Shenzhou-20’s capsule.

Given the mounting number of objects in orbit, this is likely to be a more regular occurrence. It’s costly in terms of damage to equipment, and increasingly a threat to life. When a piece of debris hits another object in space, it can also create more space debris, adding to the problem.

A number of countries are able to track what’s in space, but given that these may include classified satellites, there is a reluctance by states to share details. China’s space programme is overseen by its military, in line with a view that space is inherently linked to national security. This only adds to the geopolitical tensions between states around the use of space.

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Treaties and responsibilities

The outer space treaty from 1967 sought to outline how space should be governed. But it is outdated and does not account for the increased presence of debris or the proliferation of private space launches. Nor does it address responsibilities when it comes to the sustainable use of space.

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As the year 2025 winds down and we pop the cork on a fresh 2026, it’s a time-honored tradition to reflect back on the past 12 months to consider what Hollywood had to offer. In this era of diminished theatrical releases and streaming’s continued rise to power and influence, these sci-fi hits showed us that Tinseltown has still got it where it counts.

Honorable Mention: Avatar: Fire & Ash

(Image credit: Disney)

James Cameron’s “Avatar: Fire and Ash” just came out, but at the time of writing, we haven’t had the opportunity to watch it and form a real opinion yet.

So, we’ll have to leave out anything taking place on the planet Pandora for now, though we’re sure it will be a breathtaking sensation that will top the charts and wow global viewers.

Among the many honorees, superhero movies made a respectable showing as DC Studios rolled out “Superman” and Marvel Studios made a retro splash with “The Fantastic Four: First Steps.”

Some awkward missteps didn’t make the cut, including the interesting but occasionally irritating “Mickey 17,” Disney’s animated astro-flick, “Elio,” and the head-scratching aberration of Ice Cube’s Prime Video debacle, “War of the Worlds.” And as for “The Astronaut”, all we can say is WTF.

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But for every thorn we’ve mentioned, there’s a blossoming rose. They may not all be at the top of the box office bean counters’ ledger sheet, but these twelve movies offered artistry and imagination that delivered exceptional audience experiences in a variety of cinematic forms.

Let’s dive right into Space’s best sci-fi movies of 2025. ranked.

12. Tron: Ares

Tron: Ares | Official Trailer – YouTube

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Cast: Jared Leto, Greta Lee, Evan Peters, Jodie Turner-Smith | Director: Joachim Rønning | Watch on: Disney+

We had to have one sacrificial lamb to anchor this list, and “Tron: Ares” more than qualifies for that role to kick us off.

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Released in a strange mid-October launch period and carrying with it the legacy of a 43-year-old sci-fi franchise whose last installment, “Tron: Legacy,” landed back in 2010, “Tron: Ares” was a financial burden on Disney and appeared dead-on-arrival.

It could be that the execution of the film failed to ignite audience interest in a tale of the digital realm intruding on our real world, or maybe that no one wanted to see an AI Jared Leto. Regardless, director Joachim Rønning’s $220 million neon pic is still a spectacular visual feast with a killer Nine Inch Nails score.

11. The Electric State

The Electric State | Official Trailer | Netflix – YouTube

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Cast: Millie Bobby Brown, Chris Pratt, Ke Huy Quan, Jason Alexander | Director: Anthony Russo, Joe Russo | Watch on: Netflix

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Produced for a stratospheric $320 million and starring Chris Pratt and Millie Bobby Brown, this Netflix blockbuster was directed by The Russo Brothers of the “Avengers: Infinity War” and “Avengers: Endgame” fame. “The Electric State” takes its source material from a surreal graphic novel of the same name by acclaimed Swedish illustrator Simon Stalenhag.

Years after a catastrophic robot rebellion, which humanity won, two lost souls traverse a broken American wasteland with a robot named Cosmo to try and find the consciousness behind this lost droid.

The visual effects by Industrial Light & Magic are cutting-edge, and they should be for the money! Woody Harrelson’s robotic Mr. Peanut is a showstopper, and while the movie seems disjointed at times, just consider it a fun cartoonish romp, and you’ll have a good time..

10. The Gorge

The Gorge — Official Trailer | Apple TV – YouTube

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Cast: Miles Teller, Anya Taylor-Joy, Sigourney Weaver | Director: Scott Derrickson | Watch on: Apple TV+

This sci-fi horror feature from Apple TV slots into our roundup because of its pure entertainment value and captivating performances from Miles Teller and Anya Taylor-Joy.

This should have been given a full theatrical release, but we don’t make those decisions and can only gently complain about them. The handsome pair of actors play sniper specialists from enemy countries who must each take a long shift on opposite sides of a massive trench where some unnatural monsters apparently lurk below.

While guarding this mysterious gorge, these good-looking sharpshooters inevitably fall in love and join forces to contain the marauding creatures. Director Scott Derrickson (“Doctor Strange”) delivers a good old-fashioned action fright flick that is both charming and rewarding on a particular level that doesn’t demand much heavy lifting.

9. Lilo & Stitch

Lilo & Stitch | Official Trailer | In Theaters May 23 – YouTube

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Cast: Sydney Elizebeth Agudong, Billy Magnussen, Hannah Waddingham, Chris Sanders | Director: Dean Fleischer Camp | Watch on: Disney+

One of the most massive hits of 2025, pulling in over $1 billion and only recently surpassed by “Zootopia 2” as the top box office performer of the year, “Lilo & Stitch” is a delightful live-action sci-fi adventure adapted from the beloved 2002 Disney animated feature.

This makeover movie stays pretty true to the original and revolves around Lilo (Maia Kealoha), a six-year-old, hula-loving Hawaiian surfer girl who adopts a furry blue alien creature named Stitch, who was created as a biological weapon. Agents from the United Galactic Federation soon arrive to retrieve their test subject, and some wacky island mischief ensues.

Director Dean Fleischer Camp keeps things cute and charming, and the result is a successful remake that also stands on its own. Actor Chris Sanders also adds to the finished product by reprising his role voicing Stitch!

8. Bugonia

BUGONIA – Official Trailer [HD] – Only in Theaters October 24 – YouTube

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Cast: Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, Aidan Delbis, Stavros Halkias | Director: Yorgos Lanthimos | Watch on: Peacock

The Human Resistance kidnaps a corporate hotshot played by Emma Stone, believing she’s an extraterrestrial residing on Earth and masquerading as a powerful Big Pharma CEO.

The pair of beekeeping conspiracy nuts played by Jesse Plemons and Aidan Delbis are insistent that she’s alien royalty from the Andromeda galaxy and try to prevent her from contacting her mothership. What follows is an engrossing battle of wits that leads to some shocking revelations about the fractured reality of humanity.

Director Yorgos Lanthimos offers viewers a quirky, delirious descent into the troubled minds of conspiracy theorists and makes you question the real truth, no matter how outlandish it might seem.

7. Lost in Starlight

Lost in Starlight – Official Trailer (English Dub) – YouTube

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Cast: Kim Tae-ri, Hong Kyung, Sharon Kwon, Ahn Young-mi | Director: Han Ji-won | Watch on: Netflix

The second animated feature on this compilation, Lost in Starlight is a touching romantic sci-fi fable from Korea that might have been unfairly overlooked if not for it debuting on Netflix.

South Korean director Han Ji-Won presents an uplifting cosmic story of star-crossed lovers that is a refreshing diversion deserving of the added attention for the holidays and beyond. This engaging tale of the scientist astronaut Nan-young and a struggling musician named Jay becomes a heart-wrenching drama when Nan-young joins a mission to Mars, and their long-distance bond is tested.

The film also delivers a catchy soundtrack of original K-pop songs courtesy of CIFIKA, Meego, John Park, Wave to Earth’s Kim Daniel, and many more.

6. Superman

Superman | Official Trailer | DC – YouTube

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Cast: David Corenswet, Rachel Brosnahan, Nicholas Hoult, Edi Gathegi | Director: James Gunn | Watch on: HBO Max

As one of the most-anticipated installments of the summer, director James Gunn delivers a perfectly respectable superhero blockbuster that introduced the world to a very Henry Cavill-looking David Corenswet as the Man of Steel. And you know what? We dig it.

Stuffed to the breaking point with an inspired cast and a brighter message of hope, “Superman” sports many of the hallmarks we’ve come to love in Gunn’s “Guardians of the Galaxy” movies. At times, there are simply too many characters flitting about the production, and it often lacks the edge of Zack Snyder’s “Man of Steel.”

Nevertheless, there’s a lot to love here, especially Edi Gathegi’s Mister Terrific, Rachel Brosnahan’s Lois Lane, Anthony Carrigan’s Metamorpho, and, of course, the super-pup Krypto.

5. 28 Years Later

28 YEARS LATER – Official Trailer (HD) – YouTube

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Cast: Jodie Comer, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Jack O’Connell, Alfie Williams | Director: Danny Boyle | Watch on: Netflix

Zombies are back, baby (well, sort of!) and just as ferocious as ever when director Danny Boyle and screenwriter Alex Garland returned to the franchise they created back in 2002 with “28 Days Later.”

An underrated sequel, “28 Weeks Later,” followed in 2007, but the sci-fi horror property lay fallow until the creative duo brought it back to life. The plot unfurls 30 years after the Rage Virus spread through England as a boy and his dad travel from the safe harbor of their remote island for a perilous hunting mission.

Starring Jodie Comer, Alfie Williams, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, and Ralph Fiennes, 28 Years Later opens the gates for a whole new trilogy and its dash of British folk horror paired with the evolutionary existence of a new “Alpha” breed of the infected. The trailer alone, with its vintage 1915 recital of Rudyard Kipling’s “Boots” poem, is simply chilling!

4. Predator: Killer of Killers/Predator: Badlands

Predator: Killer of Killers | Official Trailer | Hulu – YouTube

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Predator: Badlands | Official Trailer – YouTube

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Cast: (Killer of Killers) Lindsay LaVanchy, Louis Ozawa, Rick Gonzalez/ (Badlands) Elle Fanning, Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi, Reuben de Jong | Director: Dan Trachtenberg | Watch on: Hulu

For this pick, we’re giving you a combo pack of pure Predator goodness from director Dan Trachtenberg that provides two great Predator projects that taste great together.

Hulu’s animated anthology, “Killer of Killers,” gives fans more of the savage intensity and bloodlust that the classic sci-fi franchise has traditionally been known for. “Badlands” is a different creature altogether and operates as a slightly humorous buddy pic with a runt Yautja warrior being tested on a hunting expedition on a dangerous planet and a chatty Weyland-Yutani android tagging along on its back due to its limb loss.

Together, these titles provide a good dose of the new Predator property as imagined by the Disney braintrust at 20th Century Studios… for better and perhaps for worse, depending on your preference.

3. Ash

ASH | Official Trailer | Shudder | RLJE – YouTube

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Cast: Eiza González, Aaron Paul, Iko Uwais, Kate Elliott | Director: Flying Lotus | Watch on: Shudder

With its evolving Lovecraftian sci-fi nightmares, this phantasmagoric indie entry directed by filmmaker and hip-hop artist Flying Lotus is a must-watch for any serious genre fan.

Set on a hostile exoplanet where an alien species has already staked a terraforming claim, it’s a stylish horror tale of a doomed rescue mission that often defies traditional linear narratives.

The striking color-splashed visuals alone are worthy of a serious viewing, and Fly-Lo’s retro synthwave score sets the dreamy mood perfectly. It carries an infectious grindhouse appeal and dark video game-inspired scares that lingers with you long after the end credits roll!

2. The Fantastic Four: First Steps

The Fantastic Four: First Steps | Final Trailer | Only in Theaters July 25 – YouTube

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Cast: Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Joseph Quinn | Director: Matt Shakman | Watch on: Disney+

With “The Fantastic Four: First Steps”, we have finally broken the decades-old curse of Marvel’s First Family having terrible movies.

Director Matt Shakman and a spirited cast inhabit a colorful, retro-futuristic New York City of the 1960s, as Mr. Fantastic, the Invisible Woman, The Thing, and The Human Torch combat the planet-munching entity called Galactus and his shimmery herald, the Silver Surfer.

Beautifully balanced with humor and heart, this Fantastic Four might not have lit up the box office or incited critics to gush over its many merits, but it’s a solid step in the right direction as Marvel Studios regroups on its way to next year’s “Avengers: Doomsday” with Robert Downey as the diabolical Marvel Comics villain, Victor von Doom.

1. Frankenstein

Frankenstein | Guillermo del Toro | Official Trailer | Netflix – YouTube

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Cast: Oscar Isaac, Jacob Elordi, Mia Goth, Christoph Waltz | Director: Guillermo del Toro | Watch on: Netflix

While some sci-fi fans might balk at the inclusion of director Guillermo del Toro’s “Frankenstein” on this diverse parade of winners, the subject matter and source material do fall squarely into a broad definition of the science fiction genre.

Isaac Asimov once explained it as being related to Humankind and its relationship to speculative technology and alternative science. Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel fuses Gothic horror with unholy scientific experiments, and in del Toro’s hands, the graphic details of Oscar Isaac’s mad creation are on full display.

The elegant sets and lavish costume designs are stunning, as is Jacob Elordi’s multi-faceted performance as the intelligent wretch stitched together from corpses. It’s a haunting epic, both romantic and tragic, with enough atmosphere and artistic touches to satisfy the most discriminating of tastes.

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It has been a whirlwind year for space science, to say the least.

The Trump administration only entered office at the beginning of this year, but has already shaken up the world of academic research and the structure of major science organizations such as NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. An interstellar comet strayed into our solar system and scientists have been rushing to study this sample from beyond ever since (even during a government shutdown).

Satellites are crowding Earth orbit, the northern lights are suddenly visible to people who would never normally expect to see them, and we even went through one of the shortest days in history. We saw black holes devouring stars in new ways, witnessed experts fight over whether an exoplanet called K2-18b is actually exhibiting signs of life right before NASA’s Perseverance rover found a possible biosignature of its own, and waited patiently for a new observatory to drop its first images — and that barely scratches the surface of it.

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But I was curious about something. With so many massive cosmic stories competing for attention, which ones resonated the most? What space questions were people Googling? What sounded too good to miss?

To find out, I dug into our metrics and searched for the 12 most read stories of 2025. Here’s what I found.

12. China reached out to NASA to avoid a potential satellite collision in 1st-of-its-kind space cooperation

Space debris continues to be a growing problem for space exploration. (Image credit: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center)

Possible satellite accidents and surprising international space cooperation kick off this list; At number 12, is a story that perhaps offered a glimpse of a more collaborative future in orbit that can drown out our Kessler Syndrome worries.

This year, officials with the Chinese National Space Agency did something unexpected: They reached out to NASA after detecting a potential satellite traffic collision, suggesting NASA hold its satellite still while they figure out a maneuver. While NASA has sent such alerts to China before, the reverse hadn’t happened until now.

Breaking space news, the latest updates on rocket launches, skywatching events and more!

On one hand, there’s something to be said here about how many satellites are traversing Earth orbit (so many that space traffic control is moving toward normalcy!) and, on the other, it shows China’s space capabilities may have leveled up once more. Detecting and tracking potential collisions requires sophisticated space situational awareness, something long dominated by the U.S.

Read the full article here.

11. Big lake in Quebec suddenly disappears, satellite finds

Lac Rouge suddenly disappeared in Quebec. (Image credit: NASA Earth Observatory/images by Wanmei Liang, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey.)

The headline of this Space Photo of the Day from August is certainly worth a double-take, so I’m not terribly shocked it’s on this list.

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The short explanation for what happened here is that the land surrounding a lake in Quebec collapsed inward on itself, causing the lake’s water to drain suddenly and triggering landslides with little to no warning. Families with the Cree First Nation of Waswanipi, an Indigenous community in Quebec, were devastated by the loss of their traditional hunting, fishing and campgrounds.

Read the full article here.

10. James Webb Space Telescope takes 1st look at interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS with unexpected results

The James Webb Space Telescope turned its eye on interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS, resulting in these images. (Image credit: NASA/James Webb Space Telescope)

Of course comet 3I/ATLAS had to make this list. It’s one of the most fascinating cosmic serendipities to happen in recent memory.

Comets are very cool in and of themselves, but what’s special about 3I/ATLAS is that it came from beyond our solar system — hence, its “interstellar” title – and it’s only the third confirmed object to enter our corner of the cosmos from elsewhere. Scientists are trying to learn as much as possible about this so-called “invader” before it leaves forever, and in this article, you can see data about the comet captured by the James Webb Space Telescope — a highly revered, infrared-light-catching instrument that launched on Christmas Day in 2021.

Read the full article here.

9. Earth will spin faster today to create 2nd-shortest day in history

The second shortest Earth day occurred this summer. (Image credit: joecicak/Getty Images)

The second shortest day on record took place this year on July 22, but it was only 1.34 milliseconds shorter. The record didn’t last long; it was broken again on Aug. 5.

What causes these variations? Well, Earth’s rotation isn’t perfectly constant because of variables like the gravitational pull of the moon on our planet, masses on our planet itself shifting (like its liquid core) and seasonal changes. And even though we can’t actually feel the difference in rotation, it’s maybe nice to know that forces beyond the context of our reality are shifting and aligning to keep our clocks ticking and our journey through the universe a healthy cruise.

Read the full article here.

8. Failed Soviet Venus lander Kosmos 482 crashes to Earth after 53 years in orbit

A streak against the dark sky shows Kosmos 482 landing back on Earth (Image credit: Gianluca Masi/The Virtual Telescope Project)

It was a bittersweet moment on May 10 this year, when a Soviet-era spacecraft, Kosmos 482, plunged back to Earth after more than five decades in orbit.

Kosmos 482’s destiny was to ride the tides around Venus, but because of a failure during launch, the spacecraft never made it past our planet’s orbit. And for the last five decades, it had remained in limbo there, unable to continue its journey or return home, until gravity closed the chapter.

At last, it’s home.

Read the full article here.

7. Russian ‘Noah’s Ark’ satellite carrying 75 mice and 1,500 flies lands back on Earth

The landing spot of Russia’s Bion-M No. 2 descent module, on the steppes of the Orenburg region.  (Image credit: Roscosmos/Ivan Timoshenko)

Speaking of in-orbit objects that returned home, so did a spherical Russian spacecraft carrying 75 mice, 1,500 flies, microorganisms and plant seeds spent 30 days in orbit, exposing its living cargo to cosmic radiation and microgravity before returning to Earth.

While 10 mice died and some flies didn’t survive, most of the animals came back alive, giving scientists valuable insight into how living organisms cope with spaceflight.

Read the full article here.

6. Cosmonaut removed from SpaceX’s Crew 12 mission for violating national security rules: report

In early December, an investigative report from Russian news site The Insider revealed that cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev was removed from SpaceX’s Crew 12 mission after allegedly leaking confidential SpaceX documentation and photos.

This mission, scheduled to launch to the International Space Station as early as February, now lists cosmonaut Andrei Fedyayev as Artemyev’s replacement on the four-person crew.

Read the full article here.

Cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev was removed from the SpaceX Crew 12 mission. (Image credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls)

5. Scientists analyze 76 million radio telescope images, find Starlink satellite interference ‘where no signals are supposed to be present’

An astronomical image marred by trails caused by satellites of SpaceX’s Starlink megaconstellation.  (Image credit: Victoria Girgis/Lowell Observatory)

And on the note of SpaceX, the rise of satellite megaconstellations spearheaded by Elon Musk’s company continues to make headlines for the negative impact it has on astronomy observations. Though other satellites are contributors to the issue of signal interference in night sky images — notably AST SpaceMobile’s Bluewalker 3 — SpaceX’s Starlink internet satellites are quite the polluters in this domain. There are over 10,000 deployed satellites, with more on the way.

This article is one of several that investigate how bad the Starlink effect is on astronomy, and how much worse it could get. A new study from this month, for instance, suggests satellite constellations like Starlink could obscure most space telescope observations by the late 2030s.

Read the full article here.

4. What time is Sept. 7 blood moon total lunar eclipse?

The total lunar eclipse happened on Sept. 7-8, 2025. (Image credit: Created in Canva Pro by Daisy Dobrijevic)

Number four on this list represents several blood moon stories from this year, as humanity’s desire to view our lunar friend became quite clear to me while we searched through our most-read stories.

The blood moon, for context, happened because a total lunar eclipse was visible across Asia and Europe overnight from Sept. 7 through Sept. 8. The moon’s deep red hue appeared as it passed through Earth’s shadow, with the exact shade shaped by conditions in Earth’s atmosphere — a process explained in detail through an accompanying infographic.

It’s also hard to forget how much the 2024 total solar eclipse captivated the world; it would seem space traffic is just as mesmerizing as space traffic control to us.

Read the full article here.

3. NASA’s Perseverance rover hits the Mars rock gold mine: ‘It has been all we had hoped for and more’

One of the navigation cameras on NASA’s Perseverance captured the rover’s tracks coming from an area called “Witch Hazel Hill,” on May 13, 2025, the 1,503rd Martian day, or sol, of the mission. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

The Perseverance rover had some major wins this year while scouring the Martian surface for clues about the history of the Red Planet. One of them is the absolute bounty of peculiar rocks it found at a spot near Jezero Crater called “Witch Hazel Hill.”

While exploring the region, the rover uncovered intriguing specimens, including once-molten rocks and, for the first time, material from the crater rim itself. One particularly prized sample, dubbed Silver Mountain, captivated scientists with its unusual textures — and will likely remain a highlight of the mission for years to come.

Read the full article here.

2. Northern lights may be visible in these 23 US States June 1

The northern lights put on a spectacular display in 2025. (Image credit: Noppawat Tom Charoensinphon via Getty Images)

Similar to the deal with the blood moon conglomerate, this article represents all the northern lights stories that were running off the charts this year.

The current solar cycle has been kind enough to allow humans across the world to see the northern lights right in their backyards, even if they don’t live in the frigid polar areas of our globe. And after getting a taste of what it’s like to see these surreal light shows, it appears to have become a chase for many.

What’ll happen when a solar cycle doesn’t treat us this well in the future? Hello darkness my old friend?

Read the full article here.

1. Trump’s signing of ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’ includes $85 million to move space shuttle Discovery from Smithsonian to Texas

The future of Space Shuttle Discovery is questionable. (Image credit: Space.com/Chris Daniels)

Welcome to our number one most-read story this year: A rundown of how the Trump administration’s “Big Beautiful Bill” allocated money to move the iconic space shuttle Discovery (currently located at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington D.C.) to Space Center Houston, the official visitor center for NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Texas.

This idea has been met with much disdain from experts, in part because it would entail sort of chipping up Discovery into different pieces. Not to mention, it’d be pretty hard to complete the task — and the money involved could theoretically be used for other stuff.

It’s fitting to have this story at our top spot because of how science has been flipped upside down this year due to changes implemented by the Trump administration. Several of Space.com’s stories in 2025 have been dedicated to peeling back the layers of how the administration — since taking office at the start of this year — has led to mass layoffs of scientists, language changes on scientific websites, an increase in quiet censorship and arguably illegal moves from major organizations like NASA.

Considering the amount of dramatic news we see on this list alone, both directly and indirectly, it will be interesting to see what our 2026 “most read stories” list will look like.

Read the full article here.

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Each week, Live Science highlights an intriguing case report from the medical literature, where we explore unusual symptoms, rarely seen diagnoses and out-of-the-box treatments. Through this “Diagnostic Dilemma” series, we describe how doctors work to ultimately discover the cause of a patient’s ailment. In complex cases, this diagnostic process can be quite arduous. That’s part of why doctors share case reports: to help other medical professionals who might be facing the same puzzle.

Here are 12 of our most intriguing Diagnostic Dilemmas from the past year. (If descriptions of medical symptoms and procedures make you squeamish, proceed with caution.)

1. Boy spoke foreign language after surgery

A Dutch teenager got knee surgery to treat a soccer injury, and upon waking up from anesthesia, he spoke only English — a language he’d previously spoken only in language classes at school. He kept insisting he was in the U.S., did not recognize his parents, and could not speak or understand spoken Dutch, his native language. Exams turned up no neurological abnormalities, and the doctors didn’t initiate any specific treatment to address the language issue. Within 18 hours of surgery, the boy could understand some Dutch but not speak it without struggling. But then suddenly, he could both understand and speak it as normal. The doctors described the event as a strange case of “foreign language syndrome.”

A teenager reported to a hospital with abdominal pain, and examinations soon revealed that she was nine months pregnant and that she was having contractions. When doctors examined the patient’s reproductive tract, they found that she lacked a vaginal opening — a rare condition called distal vaginal atresia. Because of this, the medical team had to deliver the baby — a healthy, 6.2-pound (2.8 kilograms) boy — via cesarean section. The teenager had been seen at the same hospital about nine months prior, when an ex stabbed her after finding her fellating a new boyfriend. The wounds she incurred during the stabbing likely allowed sperm to escape her digestive tract and make their way to her reproductive tract, resulting in an unlikely pregnancy, her doctors theorized.

A man was brought to a hospital by boat and helicopter after incurring an injury while fishing. He’d caught a white marlin (Kajikia albida) — a large fish with a long, pointy “bill” — and when he leaned over the edge of his boat to release his hook from the fish, it jumped up and struck him. At the hospital, doctors found a fragment of the fish’s bill lodged in the man’s throat, spinal canal and base of his skull. With an emergency surgery and antibiotics to prevent infections, the man survived the encounter without any long-term symptoms.

A woman with osteoarthritis of the knee began getting acupuncture regularly when her pain medications started causing bad stomach issues. But her knees then became very sore, and she went to a hospital to be examined. X-rays revealed areas of her joints and shinbones where the bone tissue had thickened and spurs had formed. Additionally, hundreds of tiny flecks could be seen around both knee joints. It turned out that the woman’s acupuncturists had left golden threads inside her knees on purpose as part of her treatment. In other cases, these threads have caused cysts and tissue damage, which can happen when they migrate through the body.

A man in Michigan went to an ER with swollen eyelids and an itchy rash, and he noted that he’d also been experiencing cramps, nausea, abdominal pain and vomiting over the preceding days. When doctors examined the patient, they uncovered signs of anaphylaxis, a severe allergic reaction, and his condition quickly progressed to shock. The medical team successfully stabilized the patient, but a few days later, his condition worsened again. At that point, the doctors spotted a pattern: The symptoms arose when the man ate red meat. An allergy to meat, a condition called alpha-gal syndrome, can be triggered by the bite of certain tick species. It turned out that the man was an avid deer hunter who likely encountered an adult tick or tick larvae while hunting, his doctors concluded.

A woman had her chromosomes checked following a pregnancy loss to see if there might have been an underlying genetic reason for the miscarriage. The test revealed that, at least in the woman’s blood, her chromosomal profile (or karyotype) was 46,XY — the typical karyotype among males. Further tests revealed that across the rest of her tissues, her karyotype was 46,XX, the typical chromosomal profile of a female. The woman had a fraternal twin, so in this case of “chimerism,” the doctors concluded that the XY chromosomes likely came from her brother in the womb but somehow assimilated them only into her blood cells. The doctors suspected the “veins and arteries of the two children became intertwined in the umbilical cord” at some point. The woman had no overt symptoms tied to carrying these chromosomes in her blood and later went on to carry a pregnancy that resulted in the birth of a baby boy.

A woman visited an emergency room with a headache, severe cramps and muscle pain, as well as an elevated pulse, breathing rate and blood pressure. She told doctors she’d attempted to get high by injecting a ground-up black widow spider (Latrodectus) into her veins in a suspension of distilled water. The doctors suspected the injected dose of black-widow venom was likely much higher than one would get from a bite, and its effects may have been exacerbated by the patient’s allergic reaction to proteins in the venom. After the patient had been treated for several days in an intensive care unit, her symptoms resolved and she was discharged.

A woman developed hives, swelling under her skin and trouble breathing after having sex with her partner. While receiving treatment at a hospital, she reported having a known allergy to Brazil nuts. She said that her partner ate them a few hours prior to sex but that he’d taken a bath and washed his hands thoroughly before intercourse. When the doctors conducted a skin-prick allergy test, using samples of the partner’s semen, before and after he ate Brazil nuts, they found that the allergy triggers could indeed pass through the semen and set off the woman’s allergy.

Following a cancer treatment, a man developed a red rash that started out near the anus and then spread rapidly to the trunk and limbs. The rash, which looked like wavy lines all over the patient’s body, appeared to migrate, with the lines starting out in one spot and later moving across the skin. A stool test revealed Strongyloides stercoralis, a parasite that can cause an infection called strongyloidiasis in humans. These worms were migrating under the man’s skin, and the infection likely arose because the patient’s immune system was stunted by glucocorticoids used in his cancer treatment.

A rare autoimmune disorder injured a man’s corneas and extensively impeded his sight. To restore vision in one eye, doctors attempted an osteo-odonto-keratoprosthesis, or “tooth-in-eye surgery.” The procedure involves removing one of the patient’s teeth and implanting it in their eye socket, where it serves as a platform for a transparent, plastic lens. The lens stands in for the injured cornea and enables light to enter the eye. The man’s successful procedure was the first of its kind in Canada.

A man went to a hospital because he was experiencing weakness and vomiting. There, tests revealed that his kidneys were failing and the calcium in his blood was too high. Physical exams and scans revealed abnormalities in his upper-arm and chest muscles — namely, areas of superdense calcification. It turned out that the man had previously gotten injections of silicone-like, oil-based substances to “plump” up the look of his muscles. In this case, the injections triggered a persistent foreign-body reaction, resulting in extensive scarring and calcification of the muscle that leached calcium into the bloodstream.

A lab worker came down with an infection that, despite medical treatment, ended up being fatal. His doctors were informed that the patient had worked with a weakened strain of Yersinia pestis, the bacterium that causes the plague. This weakened form of the germ was thought to be noninfectious, but nonetheless, the man contracted it. Further tests revealed that the man had unusually high levels of iron in his blood. One way the plague bacteria had been weakened was that its key gene for absorbing iron had been removed — but the man’s blood, which was chock-full of iron, may have enabled the germ to overcome this weakness and establish a deadly infection.

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The sun is the biggest object in the solar system; at about 865,000 miles (1.4 million kilometers) across, it’s more than 100 times wider than Earth. Despite being enormous, our star is often called a “dwarf.” So is the sun really a dwarf star?

Technically, the sun is a G-type main-sequence star — specifically, a G2V star. The “V” indicates that it is a dwarf, Tony Wong, a professor of astronomy at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, told Live Science.

Dwarf stars got their name when Danish astronomer Ejnar Hertzsprung noticed that the reddest stars he observed were either much brighter or much fainter than the sun. He called the brighter ones “giants” and the dimmer ones “dwarfs,” according to Michael Richmond, a professor of physics and astronomy at the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York. The sun is currently more similar in size and brightness to smaller, dimmer stars called red dwarfs than to giant stars, so the sun and its brethren also became classified as dwarf stars.

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“G” is astronomer code for yellow — that is, stars of a temperature range of around 9,260 to 10,340 degrees Fahrenheit (5,125 to 5,725 degrees Celsius), Lucas Guliano, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, told Live Science.

Wong noted that G2 means it’s somewhat hotter than a typical G-type star. “They range from G0 to G9 in order of decreasing temperature,” he said. At its surface, the sun is about 9,980 F (5,525 C), Guliano added.

Calling the sun yellow is a bit of a misnomer, however, as the sun’s visible output is greatest in the green wavelengths, Guliano explained. But the sun emits all visible colors, so “the actual color of sunlight is white,” Wong said.

(On Earth, the sun appears yellow because of the way molecules in the atmosphere can scatter the different colors that make up the sun’s white light, according to Stanford University’s Solar Center. This is the same reason the sky appears blue.)

G-type stars also range from G0 to G9 in order of decreasing size, Guliano said. Wong explained that class G stars “range in size from somewhere around 90% the mass of the sun up to around 110% the mass of the sun.”

The sun is what astronomers call a main-sequence star, a class that includes most stars. Nuclear reactions within these stars fuse hydrogen to become helium, unleashing extraordinary amounts of energy. Among the main-sequence stars, the color is determined by the star’s mass.

“The sun is yellow, but less-massive main sequence stars are orange or red, and more massive main sequence stars are blue,” Carles Badenes, a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Pittsburgh, told Live Science.

The sun is slowly changing as it ages. “It has gotten about 10% larger since it started on the main sequence, and it will get much larger,” Wong said. Even as it grows, however, the sun will still be considered a dwarf until its last stage of life.

In about 5 billion years, the sun will run out of hydrogen fuel and begin to swell to become a red giant, leaving its dwarf days behind. “It will engulf the orbit of Venus, and maybe Earth as well,” Badenes said, “and its surface temperature will get colder, making it red in color.”

Sun quiz: How well do you know our home star?

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QUICK FACTS

Milestone: Dian Fossey found murdered

Date: Dec. 27, 1985

Where: Karisoke Research Center in Rwanda

Who: The murderer remains unknown

In late December 1985, a worker opened the door to a remote cabin in the Virunga Mountains of Rwanda and encountered a horrific scene: Gorilla researcher Dian Fossey, whose aggressive approach to conservation had pitted her against the local community, had been hacked to death with a machete, and her cabin had been ransacked.

Fossey had been working with an endangered gorilla population in Rwanda’s Volcanoes National Park since the late 1960s. Along with Jane Goodall and Biruté Galdikas, she was one of the three “trimates” chosen by Louis Leakey to study primates in their natural habitat.

“I knew that animals try to stay out of your way. If you go quietly near them, they come to accept your presence. That’s what I did with gorillas. I just went near them day after day, which was fairly easy because they form cohesive social groups. Soon, I knew them as individuals, both their faces and their behavior, and I just sat and watched them,” Schaller said in a 2006 interview.

Fossey operated on this same principle of patient, unobtrusive observation. Still, the gorillas initially fled from her, and she spent hours tracking and trailing them across the misty forest.

Dian Fossey in 1983, the year her book “Gorillas in the Mist” came out. Fossey’s aggressive tactics to protect the gorillas did not earn her good will with the locals. (Image credit: Peter Breining/San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)

After a year, they stopped fleeing at her presence and started beating their chests and vocalizing. It was a bluff meant to scare her off, but it was still far from their ordinary, natural behavior, she said in a 1973 lecture. After two years, she received two young gorillas, Coco and Pucker; rehabilitated them; and learned about gorilla young by observing them.

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“I came to know the gorillas’ need for love and affection, and the young gorillas’ need for constant play,” she said.

It would take three years before the gorillas came to accept her presence and reveal more naturalistic behavior, she said in the lecture.

During her decades in Virunga, Fossey described and learned to mimic the vocalizations of gorillas, including the “belch vocalization” that signifies contentment. She also elucidated their tight-knit family structures, courtship and mating rituals, as well as documented the occasional murder of infant gorillas by rival males.

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Although she would eventually earn her doctorate in zoology from the University of Cambridge, Fossey spent her first years studying the gorillas with no formal training. Perhaps because of her initial lack of training, she formed close bonds with individual animals and tended to ascribe more humanlike motivations and descriptions to their actions than is typically accepted in formal zoology. She often described gorillas as more altruistic than humans.

“You take these fine, regal animals,” she told an interviewer, as reported by The New York Times. ”How many fathers have the same sense of paternity? How many human mothers are more caring? The family structure is unbelievably strong.”

She formed a particularly close bond with a gorilla she nicknamed Digit — so named for his damaged finger — who did not have playmates his age. Digit was killed by poachers in 1977.

The last years of Fossey’s life were increasingly focused on conserving the gorillas’ dwindling habitat and combating poachers. She used confrontational methods, such as burning snares, wearing masks to scare poachers, and spray-painting cattle to prevent herders from bringing them into the national park, according to the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund.

She also shot over the heads of tourists to scare them away and told her graduate students to carry guns, according to The Washington Post.

Given that many of the people living on the fringes of the park lived in poverty and resorted to expansion and herding to survive, this did not earn her good will with many of the locals.

Fossey’s murder was never solved. Many think poachers were responsible for the killing, but other theories have been floated as well.

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Exotic, dark astrophysical objects may be hiding in interstellar space, and a new proposal outlines how to find them: stare really, really hard.

We don’t know what dark matter is, even though we strongly suspect it exists. We see circumstantial evidence for it everywhere, from the rotation rates of galaxies to the growth of the largest structures in the cosmos. For decades, cosmologists have thought dark matter is some sort of exotic particle that was previously unknown to the Standard Model of particle physics. This strange particle would not interact with light, or really much of anything else, except through its gravitational influence.

But searches for these dark matter particles have come up empty so far, driving theorists to get more creative with their ideas.

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It could be that dark matter isn’t made of zillions of tiny particles flying through the universe. Instead, it could be composed of bunched-up collections of much larger objects. In particular, the researchers behind a new study, published in November 2025 in the open access server arXiv, investigated two kinds of exotic objects.

The first is known as a boson star. In this model, dark matter is made of an ultra-ultra-ultra light particle — potentially millions of times lighter than neutrinos, the lightest known particles. They would be so light that their quantum nature would make them appear more like waves at galactic scales than like individual particles. But these waves would sometimes bunch up and collect on themselves, pulling together with their own gravity, without collapsing.

Another possibility is called Q-balls. In this model, dark matter isn’t a particle at all but rather a quantum field that soaks all of space and time. Due to a special property of this field, it could occasionally pinch off, creating gigantic, stable, lump-like balls that wander the cosmos like a floating piece of flour in gravy that hasn’t been mixed well.

Both boson stars and Q-balls, which live under the more general heading of exotic astrophysical dark objects (EADOs), are difficult to detect. They’re large — roughly star-size — but they do not emit light of their own, making them nearly invisible in our scans of the cosmos.

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But astronomers have discovered a way that EADOs can betray their presence: microlensing. If a Q-ball or boson star were to pass between us and a distant star, the strong gravity of the EADO would cause the light from the star to act as a gravitational lens. From our perspective, it would make the star appear to suddenly jump into position and then quickly return to normal.

So all we’d have to do is stare at a whole bunch of stars for a really long time and hope we get lucky. Thankfully, we have just the instrument for the job. The Gaia space telescope’s mission was to do just that: stare at a whole bunch of stars for a really long time.

The astronomers behind the study propose a campaign using Gaia data to search for Q-balls and boson stars by looking for their unique, “smoking gun” signal of sudden jumps in stellar positions. Depending on how many are out there, Gaia may have observed up to several thousand EADOs.

But if they’re not out there, then this same campaign would produce stringent limits on Q-balls’ and boson stars’ contributions to the overall dark matter picture. No matter what, staring into the dark would teach us something.

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This article was originally published at The Conversation. The publication contributed the article to Space.com’s Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

If you look across space with a telescope, you’ll see countless galaxies, most of which host large central black holes, billions of stars and their attendant planets. The universe teems with huge, spectacular objects, and it might seem like these massive objects should hold most of the universe’s matter.

But the Big Bang theory predicts that about 5% of the universe’s contents should be atoms made of protons, neutrons and electrons. Most of those atoms cannot be found in stars and galaxies – a discrepancy that has puzzled astronomers.

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If not in visible stars and galaxies, the most likely hiding place for the matter is in the dark space between galaxies. While space is often referred to as a vacuum, it isn’t completely empty. Individual particles and atoms are dispersed throughout the space between stars and galaxies, forming a dark, filamentary network called the “cosmic web.”

Throughout my career as an astronomer, I’ve studied this cosmic web, and I know how difficult it is to account for the matter spread throughout space.

In a study published in June 2025, a team of scientists used a unique radio technique to complete the census of normal matter in the universe.

The census of normal matter

The most obvious place to look for normal matter is in the form of stars. Gravity gathers stars together into galaxies, and astronomers can count galaxies throughout the observable universe.

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The census comes to several hundred billion galaxies, each made of several hundred billion stars. The numbers are uncertain because many stars lurk outside of galaxies. That’s an estimated 1023 stars in the universe, or hundreds of times more than the number of sand grains on all of Earth’s beaches. There are an estimated 1082 atoms in the universe.

However, this prodigious number falls far short of accounting for all the matter predicted by the Big Bang. Careful accounting indicates that stars contain only 0.5% of the matter in the universe. Ten times more atoms are presumably floating freely in space. Just 0.03% of the matter is elements other than hydrogen and helium, including carbon and all the building blocks of life.

The cosmic web is an underpinning structure to our universe. (Image credit: RubinObs/NOIRLab/SLAC/NSF/DOE/AURA/J. Pinto, CC BY 4.0)

Looking between galaxies

The intergalactic medium – the space between galaxies – is near-total vacuum, with a density of one atom per cubic meter, or one atom every 35 cubic feet. That’s less than a billionth of a billionth of the density of air on Earth. Even at this very low density, this diffuse medium adds up to a lot of matter, given the enormous, 92-billion-light-year diameter of the universe.

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The intergalactic medium is very hot, with a temperature of millions of degrees. That makes it difficult to observe except with X-ray telescopes, since very hot gas radiates out through the universe at very short X-ray wavelengths. X-ray telescopes have limited sensitivity because they are smaller than most optical telescopes.

Astronomers recently used a new tool to solve this missing matter problem. Fast radio bursts are intense blasts of radio waves that can put out as much energy in a millisecond as the Sun puts out in three days. First discovered in 2007, scientists found that the bursts are caused by compact stellar remnants in distant galaxies. Their energy peters out as the bursts travel through space, and by the time that energy reaches the Earth, it is a thousand times weaker than a mobile phone signal would be if emitted on the moon, then detected on Earth.

Research from early 2025 suggests the source of the bursts is the highly magnetic region around an ultra-compact neutron star. Neutron stars are incredibly dense remnants of massive stars that have collapsed under their own gravity after a supernova explosion. The particular type of neutron star that emits radio bursts is called a magnetar, with a magnetic field a thousand trillion times stronger than the Earth’s.

Even though astronomers don’t fully understand fast radio bursts, they can use them to probe the spaces between galaxies. As the bursts travel through space, interactions with electrons in the hot intergalactic gas preferentially slow down longer wavelengths. The radio signal is spread out, analogous to the way a prism turns sunlight into a rainbow. Astronomers use the amount of spreading to calculate how much gas the burst has passed through on its way to Earth.

Puzzle solved

In the new study, published in June 2025, a team of astronomers from Caltech and the Harvard Center for Astrophysics studied 69 fast radio bursts using an array of 110 radio telescopes in California. The team found that 76% of the universe’s normal matter lies in the space between galaxies, with another 15% in galaxy halos – the area surrounding the visible stars in a galaxy – and the remaining 9% in stars and cold gas within galaxies.

The complete accounting of normal matter in the universe provides a strong affirmation of the Big Bang theory. The theory predicts the abundance of normal matter formed in the first few minutes of the universe, so by recovering the predicted 5%, the theory passes a critical test.

Several thousand fast radio bursts have already been observed, and an upcoming array of radio telescopes will likely increase the discovery rate to 10,000 per year. Such a large sample will let fast radio bursts become powerful tools for cosmology. Cosmology is the study of the size, shape and evolution of the universe. Radio bursts could go beyond counting atoms to mapping the three-dimensional structure of the cosmic web.

A pie chart showing the universe’s matter-energy budget (Image credit: Robert Lea (created with Canva))

Pie chart of the universe

Scientists may now have the complete picture of where normal matter is distributed, but most of the universe is still made up of stuff they don’t fully understand.

The most abundant ingredients in the universe are dark matter and dark energy, both of which are poorly understood. Dark energy is causing the accelerating expansion of the universe, and dark matter is the invisible glue that holds galaxies and the universe together.

Dark matter is probably a previously unstudied type of fundamental particle that is not part of the standard model of particle physics. Physicists haven’t been able to detect this novel particle yet, but we know it exists because, according to general relativity, mass bends light, and far more gravitational lensing is seen than can be explained by visible matter. With gravitational lensing, a cluster of galaxies bends and magnifies light in a way that’s analogous to an optical lens. Dark matter outweighs conventional matter by more than a factor of five.

One mystery may be solved, but a larger mystery remains. While dark matter is still enigmatic, we now know a lot about the normal atoms making up us as humans, and the world around us.

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Two young spinosaurids hunt a juvenile Phuwiangosaurus in Cretaceous Thailand. A large adult spinosaurid (not the newly unveiled Sam Ran spinosaurid) rests in the background beside a body of water, while two feathered Kinnareemimus are depicted by the trees on the right. (Image credit: Kmonvich Lawan)

Around 125 million years ago, a dinosaur longer than a pickup truck stalked rivers to gobble up fish in what is now Thailand.

The remains of the roughly 25-foot-long (7 to 8 meters) dinosaur, which include parts of its spine, pelvis and tail, represent one of the most complete spinosaurid specimens ever found in Asia, according to researchers.

Spinosaurids were a family of bipedal predators with elongated snouts, crocodile-like teeth and, in many species, sails on their backs. Researchers believe that the Thai specimen, first discovered in 2004, belonged to the Spinosaurinae subfamily, which included the longest-known carnivorous dinosaur genus, Spinosaurus — a potential swimming predator from North Africa that grew up to around 50 feet (15 m) long.

“This discovery from Thailand helps us better understand what spinosaurines looked like and how they evolved in Asia,” Adun Samathi, an assistant professor at the Walai Rukhavej Botanical Research Institute and Mahasarakham University in Thailand, told Live Science in an email. “[The fossils] also show that dinosaur diversity in Southeast Asia was richer than previously known and expand our understanding of how these unusual fish-eating predators were spread around the world.”

Samathi presented the spinosaurid findings Nov. 12 at the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology 2025 annual meeting in Birmingham, England. The findings haven’t been peer-reviewed, as Samathi and his colleagues still have to submit them to a journal.

The researchers don’t have an official name for the dinosaur. However, they’ve nicknamed it the Sam Ran spinosaurid, as it was found in the Sam Ran locality (area) of the Khok Kruat rock formation in northeastern Thailand, according to Samathi, who studied the spinosaurid as part of his doctoral thesis. (Samathi is one of several students and researchers to study the specimen since its discovery.)

Here’s my project, a spinosaurid from the Early Cretaceous Khok Kruat Formation of Thailand or “Sam Ran spinosaurid”. #spinosauridae #spinosaurus #paleontology pic.twitter.com/qtn8mHK6pHApril 13, 2022

The team quickly identified the dinosaur as a spinosaurid because it has several of the group’s characteristic features, including long neck vertebrae and tall spines on its back vertebrae. However, the species also had features that distinguished it from known spinosaurid species, including shorter spines than Spinosaurus and more paddle-like spines than Ichthyovenator from Loas, which borders Thailand.

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The team suspects that the Sam Ran spinosaurid was more closely related to Spinosaurus from North Africa than Ichthyovenator from Laos. However, there’s a lot of uncertainty surrounding the evolution of Asian spinosaurids, as well as spinosaurids in general, and the researchers’ findings are only preliminary at this stage.

The Sam Ran spinosaurid died beside a shallow river before some of its remains were fossilized. Samathi doesn’t think that this spinosaurid could swim, but it seemed to be using the river ecosystem, which was teeming with life when the dinosaur perished relatively early in the Cretaceous period (145 million to 66 million years ago).

“The new spinosaur lived (or at least [was] found) in a river system with gently flowing water and occasional floods, within a dry to semi-arid landscape,” Samathi said. “The site has yielded a variety of animals, including freshwater sharks, bony fish, turtles, crocodiles, and dinosaurs such as a sauropod and an iguanodontian.”

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If you have multiple streaming subscriptions and you want to access all content in one place, you’ll want the best streaming device available, but what is that?

A streaming device is something, usually a box or a stick, that connects to your TV (usually via HDMI) and displays apps that are installed through Wi-Fi connectivity, once you’re connected.

Here, we’ve put four of the top options on the market head-to-head to determine which is the best streaming device for you. If you’re someone who has subscriptions to several of the best streaming services, or you’re someone who doesn’t buy DVDs and Blu-Rays anymore, having access to all your accounts in one place can be really helpful, and knowing which is the best device for that is certainly helpful.

We compare and contrast the Amazon Fire TV Stick, Roku Ultra, Apple TV and Google TV Streamer for their viewing quality, audio, price and design to determine which is the top option for you. So, for key specs, overviews and analysis on the best streaming devices on the market, keep reading.

Visual Quality

In order to get the most out of your streaming device, you’ll need a device (i.e. a TV/laptop etc) that can support the visual quality the streaming device offers. These days, the best streaming devices all support 4K viewing, although some support it better than others.

If you do have a TV, or another device that supports 4K viewing, you’ll be pleased to hear that the Amazon Fire TV Stick, Roku Ultra, Apple TV and Google TV Streamer all offer 4K visuals. The Apple TV device offers the best picture with its 4K HDR ability, which means it offers 4K viewing, with improved contrast and brightness.

The Roku Ultra offers 4K UHD as a maximum resolution, whereas the Google TV Streamer offers a genuine 4K resolution and the Fire TV stick can play 4K HDR at 60FPS. All of this means you get high-quality visuals from each, but the Apple TV device is technically ahead, marginally, of the others.

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The Amazon Fire TV stick can play 4K HDR at 60FPS.(Image credit: Amazon)The Roku Ultra offers 4K UHD as a maximum resolution.(Image credit: Roku)

The extra detail of 4K UHD compared to standard 4K viewing is subtle, but it is the difference between a 3,840 x 2160 and a 4,096 x 2160 resolution. Typically, to the average viewer, this won’t make any noticeable difference, but there are more pixels and a slightly finer picture produced in 4K viewing as opposed to 4K UHD.

Swipe to scroll horizontallyVideo Resolution

Amazon Fire TV Stick

4K HDR up to 60FPS

Roku Ultra

4K UHD

Apple TV 4K

4K HDR

Google TV Streamer

4K

Audio Quality

It’s all well and good viewing something with clear visual quality, but your experience will be ruined if the sound is terrible, so the audio quality is almost, if not just as, important as the visual quality.

Again, the Apple TV streaming device is marginally ahead of the rest, thanks to its Dolby Atmos Spatial Audio feature. Spatial Audio means you get a 3D audio atmosphere, so the audio sounds like it’s coming from different, specific points.

All the other streaming devices in this article offer regular Dolby Atmos audio quality. That’s still an outstanding feature. It’s much better than standard audio, and it means that the audio comes across with more depth and height, leading to a more impressive audio experience. The difference is that the Apple TV’s Dolby Atmos Spatial Audio offers a slightly more immersive audio experience.

Power and Available Apps

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The Apple TV 4K is the premium option.(Image credit: Apple)The Google TV Streamer is a close second.(Image credit: Amazon)

Unsurprisingly, as the Apple TV 4K is the premium option in this clash of the best streaming devices, it has the best tech internally to keep it running smoothly. It features 4GB of RAM and an A 15 bionic chip to help it load apps quicker and run faster than previous generations. You can also get up to 128GB of storage, so you can download and use more than enough apps to satisfy your streaming needs.

The Google TV Streamer is a close second with 4GB of RAM, and a quad-core processor. The reason this comes a close second to the Apple TV 4K is due to its storage size; at just 32GB, it’s enough to use some apps, but not nearly as much as you get in the Apple model. Still, it performs well and costs less.

The Amazon Fire TV Stick marks a drop in processing power as it has a quad-core processor, but only 2GB of RAM and only up to 16GB of internal storage. Now, this is enough to get by, and get by sufficiently, but it’s clear that it doesn’t have the same firepower as the competition.

Swipe to scroll horizontallyInternal Power and specs

Apple TV 4K

4GB RAM, A 15 bionic chip, up to 128GB storage

Google TV Streamer

4GB RAM, quad-core processor, 32GB storage

Amazon Fire TV Stick

2GB Ram, up to 16GB internal storage

Roku Ultra

2GB RAM, ARM Cortex 55 CPU

Then we have the Roku Ultra, not bad by any stretch of the imagination, but with 2GB of RAM and an ARM Cortex A 55 CPU, it has all you need to perform well, without boasting the same firepower as the Google or the Apple models.

In terms of the apps available on each device, there are no notable absentees. All of the above have all major streaming services available to access, with the exception of some regional options in some cases. That’s a huge part of what makes these four stand out; you’re truly able to access the streaming services you would want to access, all in one place.

Price

When it comes to actually having to pay for everything you’ve read above, which costs a premium and which is great value?

Well, perhaps unsurprisingly, the premium model, the Apple TV 4K, costs the most. With options costing up to $149, it’s comfortably the most expensive on this list. But considering it’s also the best overall, maybe it isn’t as steep as expected, depending on how much you are willing to spend on a streaming device.

Price Comparison

• Apple TV 4K: Up to $149
• Roku Ultra: $100, regularly on offer
• Google TV Streamer: $100, sometimes on offer
• Amazon Fire TV Stick: Up to $65, regularly on offer

The value option here is undoubtedly the Amazon Fire TV Stick. There are different options available, ranging from the $35 mark to $60. It’s important to remember that these are regularly on sale if you’re buying from Amazon, so you probably won’t have to pay full price.

In between these, we find the Roku Ultra, which will set you back around $100, but is regularly on sale and it’s the same for the Google TV Streamer. Again, we have seen it on sale occasionally.

Verdict

Now that we’ve pitted four of the best streaming devices against each other, we can’t sit on the fence and say they’re all good; it’s down to what you want. While different people will have different preferences, we think the Apple TV 4K is the best streaming device out there.

Its internal storage, power and processor allow for a top streaming experience. Its visuals, audio and loading capabilities put it a little ahead of the competition. However, it is comfortably the most expensive option out there.

If you’re looking for value, or something that’s going to do everything you need and want with a friendly price tag, the Amazon Fire TV Stick is the option you want to pick. Of course, if you don’t want a stick and you want an actual box, the Roku Ultra is a great choice as it’s regularly on sale for a price that competes with the Fire TV Stick. And, if you’re an Android user, or you see a great offer, the Google TV Streamer becomes a top choice. But, overall, the Apple TV 4K reigns supreme here.

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The interiors of Uranus and Neptune may be rockier than scientists previously thought, a new computational model suggests — challenging the idea that the planets should be called “ice giants.”

The new study, published Dec. 10 in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics, may also help to explain the planets’ puzzling magnetic fields.

Uranus and Neptune are relatively large planets at the edge of the solar system; Neptune is the most distant planet, orbiting at 2.8 billion miles (4.5 billion kilometers) from the sun, on average. The extremely cold temperatures at these distances cause gases such as hydrogen, helium and water to condense into compressed ice slurries that form the planets’ cores. As such, these planets have become known as ice giants.

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“The ice giant classification is oversimplified as Uranus and Neptune are still poorly understood,” lead study author Luca Morf, a doctoral student at the University of Zurich, said in a statement.

Morf and his supervisor, Ravit Helled, developed a new hybrid model in an attempt to better understand the interior of these cold planets. Models based on physics alone rely heavily on assumptions made by the modeler, while observational models can be too simplistic, Morf explained. “We combined both approaches to get interior models that are both unbiased and physically consistent,” he said.

The pair started by considering how the density of each planet’s core could vary with distance from the center of the planets and then adjusted the model to account for the planets’ gravities. From this, they inferred the temperature and composition of the core and generated a new density profile. The team inputted the new density parameters back into the model and iterated this process until the model core fully matched current observational data.

Voyager 2 took this snaphost of Neptune in 1989. Data on Uranus and Neptune taken during Voyager’s flybys are still some of the best we have. (Image credit: NASA / Voyager 2)

This method generated eight total possible cores for both Uranus and Neptune, three of which had high rock-to-water ratios. This shows that the interiors of Uranus and Neptune are not limited to ice, as previously thought, the researchers said.

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All of the modeled cores had convective regions where pure water exists in its ionic phase. This is where extreme temperatures and pressures cause water molecules to break apart into charged protons (H+) and hydroxide ions (OH-). The team thinks such layers may be the source of the planets’ multiple magnetic fields, which cause Uranus and Neptune to have more than two poles. The model also suggests that Uranus’ magnetic field is generated closer to its center than Neptune’s is.

“One of the main issues is that physicists still barely understand how materials behave under the exotic conditions of [high] pressure and temperature found at the heart of a planet [and] this could impact our results,” Morf said. The team aims to improve their model by including other molecules, like methane and ammonia, which also may be found in the cores.

“Both Uranus and Neptune could be rock giants or ice giants depending on the model assumptions,” Helled said. She noted that much of our understanding of these planets may be incomplete, as it’s based largely on data collected by the Voyager 2 space probe in the 1980s.

“Current data is insufficient to distinguish the two, and we therefore need dedicated missions to Uranus and Neptune that can reveal their true nature,” Helled added

The team hopes the model may act as an unbiased tool for any new data from future space missions to these planets.

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The record-breaking 252mph winds of Hurricane Melissa that devastated Caribbean islands at the end of October were made five times more likely by the climate crisis. Scorching wildfire weather in Spain and Portugal during the summer was made 40 times more likely, while June’s heatwave in England was made 100 times more likely.

Attribution science has made one thing clear: global heating is behind today’s extreme weather. That greenhouse gas emissions warmed the planet was understood. What can now be shown is that this warming produces record heatwaves and more violent storms with increasing frequency.

What we can do to minimise, or at least reduce, the risks to life from such events – as well as more gradual changes – is what climate adaptation experts think about all the time. The alarming consensus is that we are not doing anywhere near enough. The result is paid for in lives: floods and cyclonic storms across Thailand, Sri Lanka and Indonesia left hundreds dead at the end of November.

The president of Cop30 in Brazil, André Corrêa do Lago, called for the UN climate change conference to be a “Cop of adaptation”. But the governments of the most vulnerable countries went home from Belém angry about an outcome that saw the projected size of the annual adaptation budget triple to $120bn, but with the deadline pushed back to 2035 and no clear mechanism to make rich countries pay up.

Even that total falls short of the $300bn in climate finance overall that was agreed at Cop29 in 2024. The risk is that without international support, heavily indebted countries such as Jamaica become trapped, with resources that ought to be directed towards green energy and future-proofing being spent instead on coping with disasters.

But the need for preparation is not limited to low-lying countries and those most affected by extreme heat and violent storms. This imbalance in climate programmes can be seen all over the world. Last month, a group of UK scientists organised what they called a “national emergency briefing” in London in an effort to alert people to the scale of the climate crisis threat – and alarming underpreparedness.

Everyday injustice

In the global context, the politics of adaptation are clear. Poorer countries, including the small island states whose existence is threatened by sea-level rises, have consistently argued that the rich nations whose historical and current emissions are responsible for climate heating must support them to adapt to the crisis, as well as to transition away from fossil fuels. Rightwing, nationalist governments in the west are extremely hostile to this idea – and to aid spending more broadly – even if their most vociferous objections are reserved for the phaseout of fossil fuels and net zero.

But within wealthy countries, adaptation can appear more as a technocratic challenge than a political one. Policies regarding flood risks or increased resilience to high temperatures are not usually top priorities for voters – except when there is a disaster such as the floods in eastern Spain that led to the resignation of Carlos Mazón, president of Valencia, in November. While the grossly mismanaged water industry is a live political issue in England and Wales, big questions about natural resources and the resilience of infrastructure sit outside the daily cut and thrust, with responsibility delegated to arm’s-length agencies and rarely touched on by party leaders.

A recent report from the UK’s Glacier Trust and Climate Majority Project argued that charities and politicians should seek to change this, and promote an “action-oriented public understanding of climate risk”. All must recognise that adaptation cannot simply be left to market forces because the economics of climate risk make private finance retreat just as danger rises.

The long, low-profit investments needed to defend communities from flood, fire and heat are not attractive to private lenders. It is the state that must build seawalls or insure subsistence farmers when the risk becomes too great. Leah Aronowsky, a historian of science at Columbia University, says that climate risk is everyday injustice made worse – and she is right to argue that how we adapt is a political battle.

What adaptation should look like

One reason that adaptation receives so little attention is the sheer urgency of cutting emissions. In the context of warnings that the 1.5C target in the Paris agreement could move out of reach, mitigation – reducing or removing emissions – is the top priority.

Discussing preparations for global heating can feel like a distraction or even an admission of defeat. But while it makes sense for climate campaigners to maintain the strongest possible pressure for emissions cuts, there ought to be scope to get ready for a hotter, more unstable climate as well. Under the terms of the UK’s Climate Change Act, the government is legally obliged to do so, and to regularly review its preparations.

The UK’s Climate Change Committee will soon outline what a truly “well-adapted” country should look like: flood defences that can withstand the storms to come, transport links built for a harsher climate, food and supply chains resilient to global shocks, and coastal communities protected rather than abandoned. Experts also want to ensure that the 1.5m homes that the government has pledged to build in England alone are fit for the future. In an era of polarised attacks on net zero, such projects could help rebuild a shared belief in responsible care for the land.

For the rich world, adaptation is prudent. For the poor world, it is survival. The latest UN report is unequivocal: developing countries will need more than $310bn annually by 2035, yet received just $26bn in 2023. Catastrophic floods in Asia and worsening droughts in Africa this year point to the growing need to accelerate climate adaptation.

Under the Paris agreement, nationally determined contributions (NDCs) – country plans to tackle global heating – are meant to cover both emissions reduction and adaptation to climate impacts.

But NDCs end up focusing mostly on cutting greenhouse gases and establishing decarbonisation pathways. That needs to change. National adaptation plans, which came out of Cop16, need to be foregrounded. These put adaptation centre stage – and demand real plans, real finance, real justice. They ask the question that really matters now: how do vulnerable nations survive a warming world that emissions cuts alone can’t stop?

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