Science

Shiny satellites and space junk orbiting Earth may have increased the brightness of the night sky by more than 10 percent above the natural light levels, a new study has found, and further stated that these objects in the sky could also pose a threat to our viewing of the universe. The research, published in

A few days ago, a couple in Las Vegas hired a team of workers to construct a pool in their backyard. Just when the team started digging, the couple — Matthew Perkins and his wife — joked among themselves that maybe they would find a dinosaur for them and it would pay for the pool.

A SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule carrying four astronauts back to Earth splashed down off Florida early Sunday in NASA’s first nighttime ocean landing in more than 50 years. The crew reported they were feeling well after their arrival back on Earth following a nearly six-month mission aboard the International Space Station, NASA said. The capsule

NASA’s Mars Ingenuity helicopter missed its fourth scheduled flight on Thursday, with the space agency blaming a software glitch and vowing to try again the next day. “The helicopter is safe and in good health,” said a statement, adding the rotorcraft had failed to transition to “flight mode.”  The team plans to attempt the flight

The neem tree growing outside my house is a shape-shifter. Every year, without fail, in the cool dry winter its leaves become tired and yellow-brown, and sometimes fall off completely. Just as the weather turns a bit warmer, heralding the summer, the neem miraculously becomes green again. Then the shy white flowers emerge, hiding in

US space agency NASA has told Elon Musk’s SpaceX to halt work under a contract it won to develop a lunar spacecraft, pending the outcome of challenges by rival bidders at the US Government Accountability Office, the agency said on Friday. NASA’s decision means SpaceX has to stop any work specifically related to the Moon

After proving powered, controlled flight is possible on the Red Planet, NASA’s Mars Ingenuity helicopter has new orders: scout ahead of the Perseverance rover to assist in its search for past signs of microbial life. The next phase extends the rotocraft’s mission beyond the original month-long technology demonstration. Now, the goal is to assess how

NASA Hubble Space Telescope is giving astronomers a rare look at a Jupiter-sized, still-forming planet. NASA shared an image of the exoplanet — a planet outside the Solar System — on the official social media pages of Hubble telescope. Called PDS 70b, the exoplanet can be seen feeding off material surrounding a young star. The

Scientists say they have been able to resolve a long-standing controversy about an extinct horned crocodile that lived among humans in Madagascar, an island country in the Indian Ocean, saying this particular crocodile, Voay Robustus, was closely related to the modern-day “true” crocodiles but on a separate branch of the crocodile family tree. Based on

The International Space Station (ISS), on Thursday, shared a collection of photographs, featuring the ‘Super Moon’. This celestial event occurs when the Moon is at its closest point to the Earth and at the same time is full. As a result, the Moon looks larger and brighter than other days. Also known as the ‘Pink

Tvasta Manufacturing Solutions, a start-up founded by alumni of IIT Madras, has made what it says is India’s first 3D-printed house. The team printed the structure using a specialty concrete that it had developed to print large-scale 3D structures in short periods. They say the mix is based on ordinary portland cement, which has a

The world is still experimenting with and in awe of Deep Nostalgia, an AI-powered technique from online family tree service MyHeritage, which adds facial animations to still portrait photographs. Almost daily, we come across small clips on the Internet in which the said technology has been used to animate still pictures, making a character smile,

Astrophotography enthusiast Andrew McCarthy shared a three-slide post showing the transit of the International Space Station (ISS) against the Moon caught in a sunbeam that is going viral. The post will delight space and astronomy enthusiasts as it shows a truly amazing sight as the ISS crosses the Moon, lit up in amazing detail. The

The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) said on Tuesday it had voted to approve a SpaceX plan to deploy some Starlink satellites at a lower earth orbit than planned as part of its push to offer space-based broadband internet. Elon Musk’s SpaceX had asked the FCC for approval to fly 2,824 satellites at a lower orbit

NASA has made a new discovery through its Chandra X-ray Observatory that could turn out to be a major step towards pinpointing exactly how some giant stars explode. The space agency said that its scientists have found fragments of titanium blasting out of a famous supernova — an extremely bright super explosion of a star.

Blue Origin, the space rocket company backed by billionaire Jeff Bezos, is formally challenging the $2.9-billion (roughly Rs. 21,650 crore) Moon lander contract awarded by NASA to rival Elon Musk’s SpaceX. Blue Origin said on Monday it had filed a protest with the federal Government Accountability Office, accusing NASA of moving the goalposts for contract

NASA’s mini helicopter Ingenuity on Sunday successfully completed its third flight on Mars, moving farther and faster than ever before, with a peak speed of 6.6 feet per second. After two initial flights during which the craft hovered above the Red Planet’s surface, the helicopter on this third flight covered 64 feet (50 metres) of

The Indian Space Research Organisation will launch a data relay satellite that will help maintain contact with the Gagangyaan mission throughout after the launch, sources said. The satellite will be launched before the final leg of the Gaganyaan mission, which will send astronauts to the Lower Earth Orbit (LEO). The first leg - the unmanned mission

A new species of a plant-eating dinosaur has been discovered in the world’s driest desert in Chile. The Arackar Licanantay belongs to the gigantic titanosaur dinosaur family tree, according to an infographic shared by news agency AFP on Twitter. The term Arackar Licanantay means “Atacama bones” in the Kunza language. Though the Atacama Desert is

A four-astronaut team arrived at the International Space Station on Saturday aboard the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule Endeavour, NASA said, after becoming the first crew ever to be propelled into orbit by a rocket booster recycled from a previous spaceflight The Endeavour capsule, also making its second flight, was launched into space on Friday atop

To celebrate the 31st anniversary of the launching of Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers from NASA aimed the observatory at one of the brightest stars seen in our galaxy on Friday. Called AG Carinae, it is located approximately 20,000 light-years away. It’s not just a luminous dot in the sky, but a glowing gas-and-dust nebula waging

NASA has logged another extraterrestrial first on its latest mission to Mars: converting carbon dioxide from the Martian atmosphere into pure, breathable oxygen, the US space agency said on Wednesday. The unprecedented extraction of oxygen, literally out of thin air on Mars, was achieved Tuesday by an experimental device aboard Perseverance, a six-wheeled science rover that

A Russian Soyuz spacecraft carrying a US astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts blasted off from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Wednesday and successfully reached orbit, live footage broadcast by Russia’s space agency Roscosmos showed. The crew members travelling to the International Space Station (ISS) are Kate Rubins, a NASA microbiologist who in 2016 became

NASA and Elon Musk’s commercial rocket company SpaceX launched a new four-astronaut team on a flight to the International Space Station early on Friday, the first crew ever propelled toward orbit by a rocket booster recycled from a previous spaceflight. The company’s Crew Dragon capsule, Endeavour, soared into the darkened pre-dawn sky atop a SpaceX

A crewed SpaceX mission to the International Space Station has been postponed by a day due to weather concerns downrange of the launch site, NASA said Wednesday. Liftoff had been scheduled for Thursday but because of unfavourable conditions along the Atlantic coast, it will now be set for 5:49 am (3:19pm IST)) Friday. “For crewed

Elon Musk’s career path is of course well known, with him being the one of the richest people on the planet as well as the CEO of SpaceX and Tesla. But while we may know where he studied and worked, the places he was rejected by remain a little more mysterious. But thanks to a

Barney is a bit different from your usual Swiss bartender. He is fully automated, mixes dozens of cocktails, and even makes terrible jokes. Developer F & P Robotics says it is seeing rising interest in “The Barney Bar” and hopes it will be a hit among hotels, bars, and shopping centres looking to reduce human

If you are someone who loves sky-gazing, reading about outer space, researching about celestial bodies, or scouring the Internet to extract images or videos of galaxies, then a new Instagram post by the NASA will leave you awestruck and smiling. Shared on the official Instagram handle of NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, the post has an

Russia’s space agency said Tuesday it hoped to launch its own orbital station in 2025 as Moscow considers withdrawing from the International Space Station programme to go it alone. Roscosmos chief Dmitry Rogozin said work had begun on the fist module of a new station, after officials warned that Russia was considering pulling out of

NASA Mars helicopter Ingenuity became the first aircraft in history to make a controlled flight on another planet on Monday, April 19. To celebrate the achievement, Google has created an exciting new animation on its homepage. If you run a Google search for ‘Ingenuity NASA’, a small and animated version of ‘Ingenuity’, orange in colour,