Science

NASA has announced to award five new missions to Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies Corporation (SpaceX). The US Space agency, in a brief on Thursday, mentioned that the missions will help in the crew transportation services to the International Space Station (ISS) as part of the Commercial Crew Transportation Capability contract. These five crewed missions

The Moon has specific areas that never receive sunlight, regions that are located in areas of ‘permanent shadow’. These dark regions include the sunken floors of impact craters that remain shadowed and are extremely cold. Scientists believe that these sites, devoid of sunlight, might prove to be fruitful if explored — due to the possibility of

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has revealed a fascinating phenomenon after it captured an image of a star located around 5,600 light-years away in detail. The image from the telescope depicts the star surrounded by what researchers suspect are concentric circles of light radiating outward. The star, in the image, is a binary pair of rare stars

NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft, which has been exploring our solar system for more than four decades now, was found to be sending distorted data to the mission controllers on Earth. Now, engineers have managed to determine the cause of the problem and have successfully fixed it. The team encountered the issue last year when the

Combining techniques of nanotechnology and optics, researchers at the Bar-Ilan University in Israel have developed nanometric diamond particles that could be used for medical and cosmetic remedies through the skin. In the paper published in the scientific journal ACS Nano, the researchers also claimed the development of a safe laser-based optical method, which is capable

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is set to make its second attempt to launch its powerful new Moon rocket this Saturday. The uncrewed mission, which is dubbed Artemis 1, will bring the United States closer to returning astronauts to the Moon after five decades. The blast off was earlier planned for Monday morning but

Astronomers have found the oldest visible planetary nebula (PN) inside a 500-million-year-old galactic open cluster (OC). The rare celestial jewel has been discovered inside a cluster called M37 and is believed to be of high astrophysical value. Planetary nebulas (PNe) are glowing shrouds ejected from dying stars that shine with distinct colours and shapes offering

Greenland’s ice sheet is reported so out of balance with the Arctic climate that it can no longer hold on to its current size, a new report claims. Furthermore, it is suggested that the ice sheet is irreversibly committed to reduce by 59,000 square km, which is considerably larger than the area of Denmark, Greenland’s

NASA announced on Monday that its Artemis I SLS-Orion Spacecraft launch has been halted due to an issue with one of the rocket’s engines. Minutes after the spacecraft was scheduled to blast off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida earlier today, the US space agency explained that the launch of Artemis I — NASA’s first step towards

Demonstrating that a cloud of atoms can be used as a receiver to pick up video transmission, researchers have developed an atomic television. The television uses atom clouds and lasers to carry video signal that meets the traditional resolution standard. Atom-based communication systems are believed to be smaller and can tolerate more noise than conventional

An astronaut aboard the International Space Station (ISS) recently shared an “intriguing” daylight sight of a bright dot in the middle of a desert on Earth. “A bright dot in the Negev desert…so unusual to see human-made lights in day passes!” European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti tweeted while sharing three photos showing a

Fifty-three years after the historic Apollo mission, NASA is all set to send astronauts to the Moon once again with the launch of its Artemis I on August 29. The combined SLS-Orion spacecraft will take off from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral to send an uncrewed capsule around the Moon and back to

A method to mould matter into complex shapes that involves the usage of “twisted” light has been devised by a team of researchers, at the University of Strathclyde. The new technique builds on the temperature-sensitive property of atoms. When atoms are cooled till, or close to, the absolute zero temperatures (-273 degrees Celsius), they stop

NASA’s Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) telescope has discovered more water on the Moon’s surface. The fresh findings of water have been made in the Southern Hemisphere of the Moon. The research was led by Casey Honniball, a postdoctoral fellow at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. The team have discovered water in the Moretus

The James Webb Space Telescope has, for the first time, detected evidence of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of a planet outside the solar system. The evidence has been spotted on the exoplanet WASP-39 b, which was discovered in 2011. Located some 700 light-years from Earth, WASP-39 b is a hot gas giant planet that

The rising temperatures of the planet and its adverse effects on life on Earth have triggered actions globally to slow down or reverse climate change. The Paris Agreement, an international treaty on climate change, has set the goal to limit global warming below 2 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial levels. However, a new study suggests

Baidu has unveiled its first quantum computer called Qianshi. It is said to feature a 10-quantum-bit processor. The Chinese company also said that it has developed a 36-quantum-bit SoC as well. Qianshi is ready to be made available to external users as well, a report suggests. Quantum computing is said to be a form of

Astronomers working on US space agency NASA’s Lucy mission may have spotted an undiscovered mini-moon orbiting an asteroid in the solar system. The mission is headed to study the Trojans — two groups of asteroids that orbit the Sun and are located on each side of Jupiter. While on its way to the space rocks,

Two astrophotographers have recently revealed an intricately detailed picture of the Moon after working on the project for two years. The image was created by stitching together more than 2,00,000 photos of the Moon over a two-year period. Most commonly, the Moon is seen as a large grey celestial body in the night sky. The new

NASA is preparing for Artemis I, the launch of its Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, along with the Orion spacecraft for astronauts, which is set to blast off on August 29. The US space agency is readying to test its flight system that is designed to send astronauts back to the Moon, decades after it completed its Apollo