From: Space.Com By Samantha Mathewson Edited by: Amal Udawatta An illustration of a near-Earth asteroid like the 1998 SH2, which turned out to be a comet. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech) A near-Earth object that astronomers believed was an asteroid for nearly three decades has been unmasked as a faint, active comet, revealing a case of cosmic mistaken identity that could help improve planetary defense. The object, known since its discovery in 1998 as 1998 SH2, appeared to be an ordinary asteroid . It follows a 4.5-year orbit around the sun and showed no obvious signs of cometary activity, such as the glowing coma or tail produced when sunlight vaporizes surface ice. However, during a close pass about 2 million miles (3 million kilometers) from Earth in August 2025, researchers using NASA's Deep Space Network planetary radar system noticed something unexpected: The object wasn't where orbital predictions said it should be, according to a s...
From :- BBC World News By :- Victoria Gill Science correspondent Edited by :- Amal Udawatta Junior Amboko The monkey, known locally as "Likweli", has distinctive pinkish-orange lips A monkey that has striking pinkish-orange lips and a black face - and lives in the forests of the Democratic Republic of Congo - has been confirmed as a new species to science. The black-furred primate was spotted and photographed hidden away in the high tree canopy of dense tropical forests in Lomami National Park, in the central east of the country. Conservationists working there first reported seeing this unusual-looking animal back in 2008. But they captured just one blurry photograph. After another sighting 10 years later, an international team set out to find and study the monkey and revealed that it was a previously unknown species. This is only the fifth African monkey species to be discovered in the last 75 years. Junior Amboko, a PhD student at Florida Atlantic Unive...