Ceres, the largest object in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, is an “ocean world” with a big reservoir of salty water under its frigid surface, scientists said in findings that raise interest in this dwarf planet as a possible outpost for life. Research published on Monday based on data obtained by NASA’s Dawn
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SpaceX on Tuesday successfully completed a flight of less than a minute of the largest prototype ever tested of the future rocket Starship, which the company hopes to use one day to colonise Mars. “Mars is looking real,” SpaceX founder Elon Musk tweeted in response to a fan. The current Starship prototype is fairly crude:
SpaceX’s crewed capsule isn’t called Dragon for nothing. The two NASA astronauts brought back to Earth on Sunday said they felt they were inside the belly of a beast as it careened into the atmosphere at 17,500 mph. “It came alive,” said mission commander Bob Behnkhen at a virtual press conference held Tuesday in Houston,
More than 20 countries and territories in Europe have launched or plan smartphone apps that seek to break the chain of coronavirus infection by tracking encounters between people and issuing a warning should one of them test positive. Most countries in the region have opted to use Bluetooth short-range radio to monitor close encounters that
Europe’s experiment in using technology to fight coronavirus has achieved some early successes: millions of people have downloaded smartphone tracker apps and hundreds have uploaded the results of positive COVID-19 tests. Yet most European countries so far lack solid evidence that their apps – which identify close contacts via Bluetooth connections with nearby users –
US astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley, who flew to the International Space Station in SpaceX’s new Crew Dragon, splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico on Sunday after a two-month voyage that was NASA’s first crewed mission from home soil in nine years. Behnken and Hurley, tallying 64 days in space, undocked from the
Singapore researchers have developed “electronic skin” capable of recreating a sense of touch, an innovation they hope will allow people with prosthetic limbs to detect objects, as well as feel texture, or even temperature and pain. The device, dubbed ACES, or Asynchronous Coded Electronic Skin, is made up of 100 small sensors and is about
The SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft shoved off from the International Space Station on Saturday with two US astronauts on board, beginning their journey back to Earth despite a storm threatening Florida. NASA footage showed the capsule drifting slowly away from the ISS in the darkness of space, ending a two month stay for the first
The two NASA astronauts who rode to the International Space Station aboard SpaceX’s new Crew Dragon are due to return on Sunday after a nearly four-month voyage that marked NASA’s first crewed mission from home soil in nine years. US astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley, who launched to the space station in May, are
Mars 2020, the spaceship carrying NASA’s new rover Perseverance to the Red Planet, is experiencing technical difficulties and is running on essential systems only, the agency said Thursday. “Data indicate the spacecraft had entered a state known as safe mode, likely because a part of the spacecraft was a little colder than expected while Mars
NASA’s next-generation Mars rover Perseverance blasted off from Florida’s Cape Canaveral on Thursday atop an Atlas 5 rocket on a $2.4 billion (roughly Rs. 17,974 crores) mission to search for traces of potential past life on Earth’s planetary neighbor. The next-generation robotic rover – a car-sized six-wheeled scientific vehicle – also is scheduled to deploy
China’s first Mars probe has beamed back a photo of the Earth and the Moon as it heads toward its destination, the country’s space agency said Tuesday. The image, which shows the two celestial bodies as small crescents in the empty darkness of space, was taken 1.2 million km away from Earth three days after
With eight successful Mars landings, NASA is upping the ante with its newest rover. The spacecraft Perseverance — set for liftoff this week — is NASA’s brawniest and brainiest Martian rover yet. It sports the latest landing tech, plus the most cameras and microphones ever assembled to capture the sights and sounds of Mars. Its
US officials and scientists have begun laying the groundwork for a more secure “virtually unhackable” internet based on quantum computing technology. At a presentation Thursday, Department of Energy (DOE) officials issued a report that lays out a blueprint strategy for the development of a national quantum Internet, using laws of quantum mechanics to transmit information
The U.S. wants to build nuclear power plants that will work on the moon and Mars, and on Friday put out a request for ideas from the private sector on how to do that. The U.S. Department of Energy put out the formal request to build what it calls a fission surface power system that
Robotic-Assisted Surgery (RAS) is a surgical procedure that involves robotic instruments to treat patients with diseases such as colorectal cancer. As opposed to the traditional surgical methods, robotic surgeries are deemed less “painful” with “fewer complications” according to Intuitive India, one of the companies that has been working in this space since 1995. This surgical method
Hopes that the rise in average global temperatures by 2100 might be capped below 2.5-degree Celsius can be all but ruled out if greenhouse gas emissions continue at the current rate, new research reassessing the atmosphere’s sensitivity to carbon dioxide(CO2) suggests. The study, under the Geneva-based World Climate Research Program, offers the first clear progress
China launched a rover to Mars on Thursday, a journey coinciding with a similar US mission as the powers take their rivalry into deep space. The two countries are taking advantage of a period when Earth and Mars are favourably aligned for a short journey, with the US spacecraft due to lift off on July
Researchers from University of Warwick in the UK rediscovered the planet named NGTS-11b using the Next-Generation Transit Survey (NGTS) telescopes in Chile. The planet was originally found in 2018 using data from NASA’s TESS telescope, which scans for a dip in light from the star to identify it as a planet. At the time, due
Scientists have identified 37 volcanic structures on Venus that appear to be recently active – and probably still are today – painting the picture of a geologically dynamic planet and not a dormant world as long thought. The research focused on ring-like structures called coronae, caused by an upwelling of hot rock from deep within
Astrophysicists on Monday published the largest-ever 3D map of the Universe, the result of an analysis of more than four million galaxies and ultra-bright, energy-packed quasars. The efforts of hundreds of scientists from around 30 institutions worldwide have yielded a “complete story of the expansion of the universe”, said Will Percival of the University of
A solar probe built by the European Space Agency and NASA has delivered the closest photos ever taken of the Sun’s surface, revealing a landscape rife with thousands of tiny solar flares that scientists dubbed “campfires” and offering clues about the extreme heat of the outermost part of its atmosphere. “When the first images came
A huge asteroid is making its way toward Earth and it will pass by our planet next week. Dubbed as Asteroid 2020 ND, it is classified as Near-Earth Object (NEO) and Potentially Hazardous Asteroid (PHA) by NASA. It is estimated to be 160 metres or 520 feet in diameter but there is no cause to
Spacewalking astronauts completed their part of a three-year power upgrade to the International Space Station on Thursday, replacing six more outdated batteries with powerful new ones. It was the third spacewalk in as many weeks involving battery work by NASA’s Bob Behnken and Chris Cassidy. Running more than an hour ahead of schedule, they managed
Scientists planning to build one of the world’s largest telescopes on a Hawaii mountain said Wednesday construction won’t begin until at least next year. TMT International Observatory Vice President Gordon Squires told Hawaii News Now that the coronavirus pandemic presents a complicated and unsafe situation for moving ahead. “With the pandemic and other factors that
Holding its own against aerospace giants like pan-European Airbus Space or French-Italian Thales Alenia, German minnow OHB has carved out a space as a national champion in satellite building. Its latest coup was claiming a hefty slice of business from contracts signed in early July by the European Space Agency (ESA) as it builds up
The United Arab Emirates has postponed to July 17 the launch of its mission to Mars due to weather conditions at the launch site in Japan, the UAE government communications office said on Tuesday. The UAE’s Hope Probe was due to set off from Japan’s Tanegashima Space Center at 12:51am UAE time on Wednesday (02:21
Last year, China’s Yutu-2 lunar rover discovered a unique, green-tinged gel-like substance in a crater after the Chang’e 4 mission landed on the far side of the Moon. It set off a series of speculations among experts, who tried to determine what the substance was. Based on gathered data, researchers have now published an analysis
Lucky skywatchers across the world are currently able to see a newly discovered comet, dubbed Comet C/2020 F3 NEOWISE at predawn. This comet NEOWISE will reach its maximum point in the dawn sky on July 11 before disappearing below the horizon. But there’s some good news for skywatchers, especially for the ones living India as
Mars may now be considered a barren, icy desert but did Earth’s nearest neighbour once harbour life? It is a question that has preoccupied scientists for centuries and fired up sci-fi imaginings. Now three space exploration projects are gearing up to launch some of the most ambitious bids yet to find an answer. Scientists believe
Astronomers have captured a red dwarf star called “AD Leonis” that is found to have massive flares — one of them was even 20 times larger than the solar flares emitted by our own Sun. The star is notably just 16 light-years away from Earth. However, it was seen with an extreme large flare, termed
Britain is betting that satellite operator OneWeb will help it boldly go into a post-Brexit era. But it faces formidable challenges to complete a working constellation and rebuild a collapsed venture that has proved a money pit for investors. The British government and Indian telecoms conglomerate Bharti Enterprises said last week they would together put
Supercomputer-driven models simulated in Japan suggested that operating commuter trains with windows open and limiting the number of passengers may help reduce the risk of coronavirus infections, as scientists warn of airborne spread of the virus. In an open letter published on Monday, 239 scientists in 32 countries outlined evidence that they say shows floating
NASA has delayed the launch of its newest Mars rover yet again — to the end of July at the earliest — this time for a rocket issue. If the Perseverance rover isn’t on its way by mid-August, it will have to wait until 2022 when Earth and Mars are back in proper alignment, costing
A rocket from small-satellite launch firm Rocket Lab failed to reach orbit minutes after a successful liftoff from New Zealand on Saturday, the company said, losing its payload of seven small satellites it had intended to carry to space. “An issue was experienced today during Rocket Lab’s launch that caused the loss of the vehicle,”
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on Friday shared a recent image of the mysterious moon of Mars, Phobos, as captured by the Mars Orbiter Mission also known as Mangalyaan. The image was captured on July 1 by the Mars Colour Camera. Taking to Twitter, ISRO shared the image and wrote, “A recent image of
July 4 will mark the third lunar eclipse for 2020. People in certain regions will be able to witness penumbral lunar eclipse, also being referred to as a “buck moon” lunar eclipse. It also coincides with the US Independence Day which is good news for US residents as they are among the people who will
Tesla is building mobile molecule printers to help make the potential COVID-19 vaccine being developed by CureVac in Germany, the electric-car maker’s Chief Executive Officer, Elon Musk, tweeted on Wednesday. CureVac, an unlisted German company, has said it is developing portable, automated mRNA production units that it calls printers and which Musk described as “RNA
Everyone poops. Including astronauts, who have since the early space era found ways to do their business in near-zero gravity — from the Apollo missions when waste management was, in NASA’s words, “a plastic bag which was taped to the buttocks to capture feces,” to the more advanced toilets of the International Space Station that
The European Union will plough more money into rocket launches, satellite communication, and space exploration to preserve its often unsung successes in space and keep up with US and Chinese ambitions, its space chief said on Sunday. Over the past decades, Europe has sought to build independent access to space from US and Russian pioneers
Astronomers have discovered two super-Earths around a star Gilese 887 that is approximately 11 light-years away from our planet. The two exoplanets – a term used for planets outside our solar system – are called Gilese 887b and Gilese 887c, and the scientists claim that they could ‘potentially host life’. For those unaware, super-Earths are
Japan’s COVID-19 contact-tracing app has been downloaded more than 4 million times since its launch a week ago as the government seeks to head off a second wave of infections now that businesses and schools have reopened. Health ministry official Yasuyuki Sahara said while there was no target number for downloads, “we want to make
A team of international astronomers believe that they might have detected light from a black hole merger, for the first time ever. This unprecedented event was noted by scientists at Caltech’ Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) in California after studying gravitational waves and electromagnetic radiation from the collision of two black holes. Although the research is
As face coverings become the norm amid the coronavirus pandemic, Japanese startup Donut Robotics has developed an internet-connected ‘smart mask’ that can transmit messages and translate from Japanese into eight other languages. The white plastic ‘c-mask’ fits over standard face masks and connects via Bluetooth to a smartphone and tablet application that can transcribe speech
Astronomers have a found a new exoplanet hiding in the debris disk of a star. Dubbed as AU Mic b, the exoplanet was found after decades of search, around the red dwarf star, AU Microscopii that is roughly 32 light-years away. This discovery will help scientists understand planetary formation processes including that of our own
France’s much-heralded new phone app for tracking coronavirus cases has only alerted 14 people that they were at risk of infection since its launch three weeks ago, the digital affairs minister said Tuesday. The StopCovid app keeps track of users who have been in close proximity of one another over a two-week period. If any
Fugaku, a Japan-based supercomputer, developed by Fujitsu and Japan’s Riken Research Institute, has been named as the world’s fastest computer in an independent survey. This marks the return of a Japanese supercomputer at the top spot after nine years, beating out its US and Chinese counterparts. It is also the first time that a supercomputer
Billionaire Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic Holdings said on Monday it has signed up with NASA to develop a program to promote private missions to the International Space Station, sending the shares of the company up more than 14 percent. As part of its agreement with the Johnson Space Center, the space tourism company will identify