Scientists at a leading laboratory in the United States are using a cutting-edge form of X-ray to scan inside an Egyptian mummy that has never been unwrapped since its excavation a century ago. This is the first time that such a high intensity synchrotron X-ray will have been used on a mummy, with the aim …

An “exceptional” 530-million-year-old fossil contains what could be the oldest eye ever discovered, according to scientists. The remains of the extinct sea creature include an early form of the eye seen in many of today’s animals, including crabs, bees and dragonflies. Scientists made the find while looking at the well-preserved trilobite fossil. These ancestors of …

Scientists just found a very huge, very young supermassive black hole. As far as we know, it shouldn’t be able to exist, and it just might re-write our understanding of the early universe. It is the most distant black hole ever seen by scientists. And it is so far away that we are seeing something …

Palaeontologists have found a dinosaur with a highly unusual array of features, including flippers, sickle-shaped “killer claws” and a swan-like neck. Halszkaraptor escuilliei, a relative of the infamous Velociraptor, is thought to have been a semi-aquatic predator that used its flipper-like forelimbs to manoeuvre in the water like a penguin. The discovery is the first …

A little-known planet beyond the solar system could be a scaled-up version of Earth, according to new research. Experts found that the distant exoplanet, known as K2-18b, is likely a ‘super Earth’ made up of rock, just like our own planet. K2-18b orbits within its star’s habitable zone, making it an ideal candidate to hold …