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August 21, 2026

Neil Challis Humans Love Having Pets. Seems Like Some Other Primates Do, Too. We aren’t the only animals that like to take care of other species. A new study finds that the roots of keeping a pet may stretch deep into our primate past. Read more

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Katalyst Space Technologies NASA’s Attempt to Save Its Falling Telescope Has Failed NASA’s Swift Observatory, which studies some of the most powerful explosions in the universe, will soon burn up in the atmosphere. By Kenneth Chang

Next week’s news today

A poster on a wall at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California lists the distances that off-Earth vehicles have driven.

It includes handwritten stickers updating the numbers for Curiosity and Perseverance, the NASA rovers currently trundling on Mars.

Perseverance is currently sitting at 44.98 kilometers, just under 28 miles, or 0.18 kilometers — about 590 feet — from the record that NASA’s Opportunity rover set during its explorations from 2004 to 2018.

Perseverance is conducting some scientific measurements at a location called Idubi, but it should set the record when it is back on the move late next week or possibly early the following week.

NASA/JPL

TODAY IN SCIENCE HISTORY

Celia Talbot Tobin for The New York Times A Total Solar Eclipse Left the United States in Awe Seven Years Ago The “Great American Eclipse” swept from Oregon to South Carolina on Aug. 21, 2017. It was the first total eclipse visible in the continental United States since 1979. Take a look at what it looked like then …

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