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Science news this week: Astronomers close in on comet 3I/ATLAS's origins, a strange gravity anomaly discovered off Africa and AI designs brand-new viruses
Oct. 11, 2025: Our weekly roundup of the latest science in the news, as well as a few fascinating articles to keep you entertained over the weekend.
In this week's science news, we reported on the origins of comet 3I/ATLAS, a gravity anomaly that spanned the length of Africa, AI designing brand-new viruses, and the billions of damages caused by climate disasters in 2025.
(Image credit: Andriy Onufriyenko via Getty Images(left)/International Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/Shadow the Scientist (right))
This week's science news was bursting with mind-blowing astronomical observations, led by new discoveries about the origins of the comet 3I/ATLAS.
The comet, an interstellar interloper from far beyond our solar system, was first spotted in late June. Now, scientists are finally closing in on its age and where it came from. They discovered it likely originated in the far corners of our galaxy and could even be a relic from its earliest beginnings — making it potentially billions of years older than the sun.
The strange anomaly's signal and the jerk lasted for about two years, but it was 18 years before they were discovered inside data collected by satellites studying Earth's gravitational field.
Scientists believe the cause was a previously unknown geological process somewhere near Earth's core, likely the result of a rapid redistribution of mass in our planet's deep mantle. Yet more research is needed before scientists can understand these hidden processes and their broader impacts.
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The site of L'anse aux Meadows, on the northern tip of Newfoundland, dates back about 1,000 years, around 500 years before Columbus arrived in the Americas. And the Native Americans were in the Western Hemisphere long before that.
(Image credit: Russ Heinl via Shutterstock)
Christopher Columbus was far from the first person to encounter America — in fact, when it comes to popularly-attributed discoverers of the Western Hemisphere, he was among the last.
So who discovered it? Answering that question this week took us on a 23,000 year journey into humanity's prehistoric past, from Native Americans to Vikings and Polynesian seafarers, long before Europeans arrived on the continent.
As scientists design new viruses using AI, experts are investigating whether current biosecurity measures can hold up to this potential new threat.
(Image credit: Andriy Onufriyenko via Getty Images)
In more alarming news, we covered scientists developing an AI that built completely brand-new viruses. The viruses are bacteriophages, meaning they attack bacteria, not humans. The researchers took care to ensure their models couldn't design pathogens capable of infecting people, animals or plants.
But if you're still left with the lingering feeling that this is a preamble to an apocalyptic movie, there's a risk it could be. The scientists who made the discovery tout it as having the potential to destroy antibiotic-resistant superbugs. But research elsewhere has found a number of holes and workarounds for AI models (or malevolent human actors using them) to create potentially catastrophic diseases.
Thankfully, current limitations means this threat isn't immediate, but humanity's adhoc approach to AI regulation means it could happen sooner than we think.
The first half of 2025 logged the most damaging extreme weather events in the U.S. on record.
(Image credit: NOAA; Justin Sullivan via Getty Images; NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Wildfires, tornadoes, heatwaves and floods: Climate change is ushering in a new era of natural disasters. In our long read this week, we investigated the economic costs of extreme weather — with more than $100 billion in damages by June of 2025 alone — along with why scientists see the trend worsening.
Something for the weekend
If you're looking for something a little longer to read over the weekend, here are some of the best book excerpts, opinions and science crosswords published this week.
Now is your chance to fly over a maze-like canyon on the Red Planet in a stunning new video.
(Image credit: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin & NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS)
Ever wanted to soar over an alien planet's surface? A new animation released by the ESA of Mars this week lets you do just that. Based on data from the Mars Express spacecraft, the new video takes viewers on a stunning flight over the desiccated Red Planet — from its channels carved by ancient waterways, over eroded islands, and up to a spectacular view of a gigantic asteroid impact crater.
Ben Turner is a U.K. based writer and editor at Live Science. He covers physics and astronomy, tech and climate change. He graduated from University College London with a degree in particle physics before training as a journalist. When he's not writing, Ben enjoys reading literature, playing the guitar and embarrassing himself with chess.
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