Science & Earth

NASA has moved the Space Launch System to the pad at Kennedy Space Center ahead of Artemis II, a planned 10-day crewed lunar flyby with four astronauts; final tests, including a wet dress rehearsal, and a choice from February–April launch windows remain before liftoff.

Four astronauts will fly around the moon on Artemis II, traveling farther from Earth than any humans to date, and the crew reportedly includes firsts for a woman, a person of color and a Canadian on a lunar mission.

A winter storm warning is in effect for the Cape Fear region through 4 p.m. Sunday, with snowfall estimates ranging from a few inches to more than a foot and officials warning of very cold wind chills.

A US survey of 1,009 adults aged 40–75 who were not up-to-date with colorectal cancer screening found two groups: 39.4% prioritized how the test is performed while 60.6% prioritized test accuracy; simulations showed many respondents preferred a hypothetical blood test and that preference grew as test accuracy improved.

An annotated HiRISE image compares the AI-planned and actual paths of NASA's Perseverance rover for an 807-foot (246-meter) drive on Dec. 10, 2025, the second of two demonstrations of generative AI in route planning.

About 160 manatees gathered at Manatee Lagoon on Jan. 29, the largest group seen there this season, drawn to warm water near a Florida Power & Light plant. A strong cold front is expected to bring colder temperatures over the weekend.

Researchers analyzed 770 polar bears captured in Svalbard from 1995–2019 and found that body condition declined then recovered despite longer ice-free seasons; scientists note the change may rely on alternative land-based foods and warn the long-term outlook is uncertain.

In a Nature paper, DeepMind introduces AlphaGenome, a deep learning model trained on human and mouse genomes that can analyze up to 1 megabase of DNA at once and predict thousands of functional genomic signals.

Researchers at the University of Rochester developed a method that etches the inside of aluminum tubes to make them superhydrophobic and trap air, keeping the tubes afloat even when punctured. The team showed connected tubes can form rafts in lab tests and can capture energy from moving water.

February features several notable night-sky highlights, including an annular (ring-of-fire) solar eclipse and a full 'snow moon' that peaks around 5 p.m. ET on Feb. 1.

The National Weather Service says a significant winter storm will affect the region from Jan. 30 into Jan. 31, bringing snow and very cold temperatures, with watches and warnings in place.

An opinion video says the Trump administration favors a more open, skeptical public debate to try to rebuild trust in vaccines while reaffirming support for core childhood vaccines such as MMR, polio and DPT.

The James Webb Space Telescope detected a galaxy named MoM-z14 with a spectroscopic redshift of 14.44, meaning its light left about 280 million years after the Big Bang. The study reporting the result was first posted as a preprint in May 2025 and was accepted into the Open Journal of Astrophysics in January 2026, with NASA issuing a related statement.

A UCLA study in mice found that aging muscle stem cells accumulate the protein NDRG1, which slows their activation and delays repair but enhances cell survival; blocking NDRG1 restored rapid repair yet reduced long-term stem cell survival.

Doug Parkinson is NASA's Launch Integration and Mission Operations lead for the Space Launch System and oversees the team that monitors the rocket during testing, pre-launch, and launch; he joined Marshall Space Flight Center in 1999 and moved to the SLS program in 2012.

A coastal low may develop off the Carolinas this weekend while Arctic air keeps temperatures below freezing across much of the eastern U.S., and winter storm watches are in place for parts of the Carolinas and Virginia.

Artemis II will fly as an engineering mission to test Orion and related systems, and Artemis III is officially slated to land astronauts on the Moon by 2028 but faces delays because the dedicated lunar lander has not yet been completed.

JWST observations support the idea that some of the universe's earliest supermassive black holes formed by direct collapse of massive gas clouds rather than growing only from smaller stellar remnants.

Washington, D.C., has fallen into single-digit and below-zero temperatures and could see a run of freezing days lasting into early February; the National Weather Service has issued cold-weather advisories and expects more this week.

Whale watching in California offers seasonal sightings from San Diego to the Bay Area, including winter gray whale migrations and summer blue whale feeding; researchers report gray whale numbers have fallen sharply and recent December counts were unusually low.

H&M reports a drop in supplier coal use and says a Vietnamese factory, Bangjie, will reach a carbon intensity score of zero once a new heat pump replaces diesel backup in April.

A study in south-eastern Germany found that applying lynx and wolf scents to sapling plots reduced deer visits and browsing, with lynx scent showing the strongest effect.

Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks reports about 109,000 pounds of Asian carp were removed from the Kansas River between 2022 and 2025, with 2025 the highest year at 36,863 pounds.

A severe ice storm left more than 400,000 customers without power across Mississippi and Tennessee, and utilities say full restoration may take several more days.

Scientists report nearly 100 new animal species from a small quarry in Hunan, China, including soft-bodied fossils dated about 512 million years that lived after the Sinsk mass extinction.

Data from Juno's 2022 flyby and its Microwave Radiometer indicate the outer, rigid layer of Europa's ice shell is about 18 miles (29 km) thick in the surveyed region, and small near-surface scatterers such as cracks and pores were detected.

A stream of fast-moving solar wind from a coronal hole is expected to reach Earth on Jan. 28, and forecasters report possible minor geomagnetic storm activity that could make the northern lights visible after dark in higher-latitude areas.

A Hague court ordered the Dutch government to produce a plan to protect residents of Bonaire from climate impacts and found the government had not taken timely measures. The court also required binding greenhouse gas emissions targets to be set in law within 18 months.

The Scenic Eclipse II became stuck in pack ice in the Ross Sea and contacted the USCGC Polar Star; the icebreaker made multiple passes to break up the ice and free the vessel, and there were no reported injuries.

The article reports NASA's Artemis II will send four astronauts around the moon soon and says Artemis III aims to land astronauts on the lunar surface in 2028, which the piece notes would be ahead of China's projected timeline.