Science

NASA is sending Snoopy, the iconic and adorable character from Peanuts, to the Moon aboard its first Artemis mission early next year. Snoopy became the world’s first beagle to land on the lunar surface in the Peanuts comic strips by the late Charles M. Schulz in 1969. More than 60 years later, it is again

The European Space Agency (ESA) and Russia’s Roscosmos plan to launch their joint Mars rover mission in 2022. It was earlier planned to take off in 2020, but got delayed for several reasons. The main cause behind the delay is that the journey from Earth to Mars is only attempted when the planets are favourably

NASA took to Instagram to share an image that showed the remnants of a supernova, a large explosion that takes place at the end of a star’s life cycle. And, it is indeed remarkable. NASA said the event was created by the death (explosion) of a white dwarf star. A white dwarf is usually stable.

One of the most worrying questions that weigh on the minds of scientists, astronomers as well as the general public is whether the Earth is threatened by a potential asteroid collision? Despite being addressed by the scientific community, this question crops up time and again. Now, a NASA scientist has tried to put all speculation

Space research is one of the major fields of exploration today. Discoveries and speculations backed by technological advancements are opening up new vistas for human life. Amidst these endeavours, a lot of effort is being put to find the best way to produce oxygen on the Moon. Scientists seem to have found a solution to

Four astronauts, three from NASA and one from the European Space Agency, arrived at the International Space Station on Thursday and docked their SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule with the orbiting laboratory to begin a six-month science mission. The rendezvous came about 21 hours after the team and its capsule were launched atop a SpaceX Falcon

NASA’s Perseverance Mars Rover said it has seen something “no one has ever seen.” In an update via Twitter, Perseverance said it scratched the Martian surface with a tool attached to its robotic arm while wandering around the Jezero Crater in search of evidence of interest to scientists. When it looked underneath the rock it

NASA scientists have found evidence for a new transiting circumbinary planet. The term refers to any planet which orbits around two different stars. The evidence was received using an unprecedented technique. Researchers used NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) to discover this unique planet. With the use of TESS and its predecessor Kepler space telescope

NASA and private rocket company SpaceX launched four astronauts into orbit late on Wednesday en route to the International Space Station, including a veteran spacewalker and two younger crewmates chosen to join NASA’s future lunar missions. The SpaceX-built launch vehicle, consisting of a Crew Dragon capsule perched atop a two-stage Falcon 9 rocket, climbed into

NASA on Tuesday delayed putting astronauts back on the moon until 2025 at the earliest, missing the deadline set by the Trump administration. The space agency had been aiming for 2024 for the first moon landing by astronauts in a half-century. In announcing the delay, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said Congress did not provide enough

NASA’s Ingenuity Mars helicopter has soared through the Red Planet’s skies for the 15th time. The chopper, which arrived on Mars attached to the belly of the Perseverance rover, landed within the targeted zone on the Martian surface, said NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), which manages the Ingenuity mission. Initially, when NASA was making the

Virgin Galactic has sold around 100 tickets since flying its founder Richard Branson to space last summer, with commercial services expected to begin by the end of 2022, the company said in its financial results Monday. The current price of the fare is $450,000 (roughly Rs. 3.32 crores) per seat, well above the $200,000-$250,000 (roughly

Heinz has produced a ketchup that is becoming popular for more than just its flavour. Made from tomatoes grown in Mars-like conditions, the Marz Edition ketchup reignites the memories of Matt Damon working hard to grow potatoes in his 2015 movie The Martian. A team of 14 astrobiologists worked for months to achieve a similar

NASA has shared an image of a nebula captured by its Hubble Space Telescope that looks like a deep tunnel in space. The nebula is formed by a dying star, named HD 44179, which has been shedding its outer layers for about 14,000 years. The star is similar to the Sun, but it is dying

A SpaceX capsule carrying four astronauts back to Earth after a busy six months on the International Space Station landed Monday off the coast of Florida, a NASA live broadcast showed. Slowed by the Earth’s atmosphere, as well as four huge parachutes, the Dragon capsule was able to withstand the dizzying descent thanks to its

NASA has shared an awe-inspiring image of yet another beautiful nebula in the Milky Way galaxy. Their latest Instagram post shows a dreamy visual of the Cat’s Paw Nebula. The deep field image of the nebula was captured by the American space agency’s Spitzer Space Telescope. The visual shows a thicket of stars peeking through

NASA’s four-member SpaceX Crew-2 mission is targeting a return to Earth on Monday, November 8. The splashdown is expected to be off the coast of Florida, USA. The Crew Dragon spacecraft, named Endeavour, was earlier scheduled to undock from the International Space Station (ISS) on November 7. However, mission teams delayed the return due to

Joint mission between NASA and the US Geological Survey (USGS), Landsat 9, launched on September 27, has collected its first light images of Earth. According to a press release by NASA, all the images, acquired on October 31 provide a preview of how the mission will help people manage vital natural resources and understand the

Many of us who enjoy nature, wildlife or just being outdoors have one thing in common – we all love the sensorial experiences that the outdoors provides. Like the sight of the flowing river, the touch of cool breeze in the mountains, the smell of the forest, calls/ songs of the birds to name a

NASA is gearing up for the launch of its first planetary defence test, which will involve a spacecraft intentionally crashing into an asteroid to impact its trajectory. The US agency has filled the spacecraft with fuel, performed some final tests, and is running rehearsals for the final mission. Named Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), the

Astronomers and amatuer skywatchers will get to see the longest lunar eclipse of this century this month. In two weeks from now, on November 19 (Kartik Purnima), Earth will pass between the Sun and Moon, creating a shadow on the Moon’s surface. The near-total lunar eclipse will peak just after 1:30pm IST, when the Earth

The European Space Agency (ESA) has shared a stunning wide image of one of the biggest impact basins in the Solar System, located on Mars. Hellas, with a diameter of 1,430 miles (2,300km) and a depth of over 4.3 miles (7km), is believed to have formed between 3.8 billion and 4.1 billion years ago after

American author Frank Herbert described a fictitious world in the 1960s in his epic sci-fi book series Dune, which has now been turned into a movie of the same name. The book, which took the author six years to complete, is set in a distant future on Arrakis, a desert planet. Herbert’s depiction of Arrakis

Astronomers from India have observed an X-ray binary system in space, known as GRS 1915+105, using the AstroSat, the first dedicated Indian astronomy mission. At a distance of some 28,000 light-years away from the Earth, this system is a superluminal low-mass X-ray binary (LMXB). It was first detected in August 1992. But AstroSat observations confirmed

A federal judge on Thursday rejected a lawsuit by Jeff Bezos’ space company Blue Origin against the US government over NASA’s decision to award a $2.9 billion (roughly Rs. 21,559 crore) lunar lander contract to rival billionaire Elon Musk’s SpaceX. Judge Richard Hertling of the US Court of Federal Claims in Washington granted the government’s

NASA’s International Space Station (ISS) saw its first harvest of crops on October 29. The agency shared a photo on Twitter and mentioned that the station’s first harvest was chilli peppers. This harvest was a part of an ISS experiment, called Plant Habitat-04 study. Astronaut Megan McArthur, who is stationed at the ISS, posted another

Boston Dynamics and IBM have joined forces to deploy the popular — but controversial — robot dogs at the US National Grid sites for autonomous inspection. The Boston Dynamics robot, named Spot, will be integrated with artificial intelligence (AI) and other required features developed by IBM Research. The new robot will be initially deployed at the electric and gas utility sites in

Agnikul Cosmos, an Indian space tech startup looking to take advantage of the massive space travel opportunity of the next decade, has been grabbing headlines in the recent times. From signing deals with Alaska Aerospace Corporation in the US, to signing an MoU with ISRO for accessing its infrastructure and technical expertise, Agnikul Cosmos has made giant leaps

The European Space Agency (ESA) has announced a new mission where human-made emissions of greenhouse gases will be tracked from space. ESA, in collaboration with the European Union’s (EU) Earth-monitoring programme Copernicus, announced this mission during the UN Climate Change Conference COP26 in Glasgow on November 2. It will incorporate a constellation of satellites called

NASA has signed a pact with National Geographic to help tell the story of Artemis II, the mission which will return US astronauts to the Moon after decades. The first Artemis mission, likely to be launched in February, will be an uncrewed test mission. Artemis II flight will carry astronauts around the Moon and back