A DWP employee who has been working in the welfare system for 42 years has shared some key advice for new claims for the likes of PIP and Attendance Allowance

Finance guru Laura Pomfret explained how changes to inheritance tax in the budget may hit people in a way they hadn't realised

The energy bill support has been described as a "crucial lifeline" for certain individuals who are often "overlooked".

Chancellor Rachel Reeves has torpedoed the UK's economic recovery with her tax-and-spend Budget but Ed Miliband is the one who worries me.

October marked the "biggest" sales month for supermarkets in the UK so far despite food price hikes.

Martin Lewis has warned Tesco customers of a piece of small print that could see £18m worth of Clubcard points wasted.

A Labour minister confirmed that the application process for Personal Independence Payment is being 'kept under review'

Benefit increases, new investment opportunities, and several tax changes are due to come into effect in April.

The first generation of stars changed the course of cosmic history. Now, thanks to the James Webb Space Telescope, we have a real chance of spotting them

It is nearly time for one of astronomy's top annual sights – the Perseid meteor shower. This year is a bit special, says Abigail Beall

Find out what we're currently reading in the New Scientist Book Club - and catch up on all the great books we've already explored

To transport our planet across the universe, we would need to bring the whole solar system to sustain life on Earth – on this episode of Dead Planets Society, our hosts contemplate how to shepherd all that baggage on this scenic journey

If we want to terraform the Red Planet to make it better able to host microbial life, tiny rods of iron and aluminium may be the answer

Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft had so many problems during its first crewed launch to the International Space Station that NASA officials aren’t sure whether it will be able to bring its crew back home as planned

On 19 and 20 August, the JUICE mission will make the first ever attempt to get a gravitational boost from both Earth and the moon on its way to Jupiter

Researchers recently found a possible reservoir of liquid water more than 11 kilometres below Mars's surface – the latest in a long series of potential water discoveries on the Red Planet, hinting at its temperate past

Planets that orbit close to their parent stars are blasted with radiation and contorted by gravity – and the exoplanet TOI-6255b might be the most extreme example yet

Space exploration has long been a staple of sci-fi films and TV, yet most play fast and loose with the laws of physics, and scientific fact often couldn't be further from the truth

Lightning strikes near Earth give rise to electromagnetic waves called “whistlers” that can carry energy high enough above our planet to pose a risk to satellites and astronauts

A radio signal detected in 1977, sometimes claimed as evidence for aliens, may have been caused by a laser-like beam of microwave radiation

After 25 years in orbit, the Chandra X-ray Observatory is under threat. We need to protect this monument to human ingenuity, argues Chanda Prescod-Weinstein

Sam Howell tells New Scientist why NASA is so keen to visit Jupiter’s fourth-largest moon, Europa, and how the mission could help us figure out the likelihood of life elsewhere in the cosmos

The books, TV, games and more that New Scientist staff have enjoyed this week

Astronomers have identified patterns within the motion of stars stretching across the Milky Way, hinting at the presence of a vast wave

Radio astronomers teamed up with SpaceX to find a promising solution for helping expensive telescopes avoid interference from thousands of Starlink satellites

Past observations have indicated that the icy moon of Jupiter has a vast subsurface ocean. Launching in October, NASA’s Europa Clipper will go there in search of evidence that it could support life

The James Webb Space Telescope has spotted six strange worlds the size of planets that formed like stars – and the smallest may be building its own miniature solar system

The Polaris Dawn mission will include the first ever civilian spacewalk, and with a new spacesuit and no airlock, it may also be the most dangerous spacewalk ever

A chance to observe the high-speed re-entry of a falling satellite will give researchers important insights on how debris burns up in our atmosphere

NASA is investigating a strange noise coming through the speaker on Boeing’s Starliner capsule, which has been beset with technical issues

Space missions are extremely hard. Things going wrong should be expected, so having a sensible plan B is crucial

A faint glow from all of the galaxies that have ever existed fills the cosmos, and NASA's New Horizons spacecraft has made the best measurement ever of just how faint it is

News of the asteroid 2024 RW1 impacting near the Philippines may have come as a shock this week, but space agencies and astronomers around the world are keeping an eye out to protect us

Greg Eghigian's After the Flying Saucers Came and Luis Elizondo's Imminent both show how our fascination with UFOs goes beyond simple curiosity

Four private astronauts are riding a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule further from Earth than any human since 1972, where they will attempt the first ever civilian spacewalk

Five satellites due to launch this week could be brighter than most stars, and astronomers fear the growth of such constellations could have a catastrophic impact

In between two spacecraft visiting Jupiter’s moon Io, a volcano spreading material over hundreds of kilometres has appeared

A groundbreaking civilian spacewalk saw two astronauts partially exit a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule wearing a brand new design of spacesuit. Every previous spacewalk completed before this was performed by government-trained astronauts.

Using images captured by the European Space Agency’s Mars Express spacecraft, researchers have created a cloud atlas of Mars, to better understand the climate of the Red Planet

The success of the all-civilian spacewalk on SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn mission shows that private space flight is starting to catch up with government space agencies

The long-standing mystery of how supermassive black holes grew so huge so quickly could be solved by decaying dark matter

As the space industry evolves, we need a new set of international regulations to decide who is responsible for safety, the number of satellites in space, and more

See the world's best space images from the Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2024 award

Nearly imperceptible quantum flickers used to limit how precisely we could detect the way space-time ripples, but squeezing the laser light used in detectors overcomes this and doubles the number of gravitational waves we can see

Astronomers listened for radio signals emanating from planets in the TRAPPIST-1 system, but found no evidence of any interplanetary communications

These dazzling images taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope are from the upcoming book Cosmos: Explore the wonders of the universe, which has a foreword by astrophysicist Becky Smethurst

Astronomer Jo Dunkley is planning to use the Simons Observatory to snare evidence for inflation, the theory that the universe expanded at incredible speed after its birth

Astronomers have detected an exoplanet around Barnard’s star, one of the sun’s closest neighbours, but it is too hot for liquid water or life

Cracks running through samples of asteroid Ryugu were probably formed by the repeated thawing and freezing of water inside it, which could have helped asteroids like this carry the building blocks of life to early Earth

A computer simulation suggests that some collisions between exotic, hypothetical stars would make space-time ripple with detectable waves