Science

Russia revealed Tuesday it postponed its first mission to the moon’s surface in decades as a result of “problems” encountered during tests of the Luna-25 spacecraft. The country’s space agency Roscosmos announced last week that the mission – originally scheduled for October 1 – from the Vostochny Cosmodrome in the Far East had been moved

Artificial intelligence (AI) systems are being developed nowadays to infer people’s intentions and reactions by studying their facial expressions. But a new study says that such conjectures by AI cannot be very reliable. A recent study analysed photos of actors to examine the relation between facial expressions and human emotions. They found that people could

European Space Agency (ESA) has shared on Instagram a series of images of the Earth’s aurora lights. The photos in question capture the stunning phenomenon while it lent hues of red and green to the sky. This occurs when there are disturbances in the magnetosphere of the Earth. These disturbances are caused by the solar

Palaeontologists have found fossilised teeth and jaws of three hitherto unrecognised mammals — Conacodon hettingeri, Miniconus jeanninae, Beornus honeyi — in the Great Divide Basin of Wyoming. The fossils suggest that these mammals were not bigger than a giant rodent or a small-sized cat and thrived during the early Puercan age, within almost 328,000 years

Certain types of marine bacteria in the icy-cold waters off the coast of Labrador, Canada, can help in curbing the effects of offshore oil spills in the arctic and subarctic region, stated a new study. The cold-adapted microbial communities that were studied showed a capability to degrade diesel and crude oil. This was observed under

China’s Zhurong Mars rover is soldiering on after completing its initial program to explore the red planet and search for frozen water that could provide clues as to whether it once supported life. China’s National Space Administration said on its website Friday that Zhurong completed its 90-day program on August 15 and was in excellent technical

NASA agreed on Thursday to temporarily halt work on a $2.9 billion (roughly Rs. 21,587 crores) lunar lander contract awarded to Elon Musk’s SpaceX after rival billionaire businessman Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin sued the U.S government, an agency spokeswoman said. Blue Origin has said its lawsuit, filed in the US Court of Federal Claims last

After half an hour’s windswept journey on foot and by boat through a craggy forested estuary to the school he attends in remote southern Chile, Diego Guerrero can finally access the Internet. His school is located in the hamlet of Sotomo, around 620 miles (1,000 kilometers) south of the capital Santiago in the region of

Elon Musk announced that Tesla is working on a humanoid project and it will present the first prototype “sometime next year.” Unveiling the robot called Tesla Bot at Tesla’s AI Day event, Musk said it is intended to be friendly and will be able to perform “unsafe, repetitive, or boring” tasks. Tesla will leverage its

Whatever you do, Boston Dyanmics’ bipedal robot Atlas can probably do it too, if not better. This is probably what the company was trying to prove when it released a video of the robot pulling off some impressive parkour moves. From jumps, flips, and vaults, the team behind the robot has managed to get the robots

Baldness can be a difficult situation to be in. Many have tried several over-the-counter remedies and failed to get desired results. Thanks to a new research, there could finally be a satisfactory solution to the problem. The research promises to reverse baldness using nanoparticles. The researchers say the primary causes of baldness are oxidative stress

A study of the Ophiuchus star-forming complex has offered new insights into the conditions in which our own solar system was born. The findings of the study were published in the journal Nature Astronomy. A region of active star formation in the constellation Ophiuchus is giving astronomers new insights into the conditions in which our

The asteroid that wiped out dinosaurs hit the Earth near Mexico. Dubbed Chicxulub impactor, the large rocky object had an estimated width of roughly 6 miles (10km). It produced a crater that covers an area of around 90 miles (145km) and the impact is credited with not just the extinction of dinosaurs, but also around

A European Vega rocket lifted off Monday night from French Guiana carrying an Earth observation satellite and four miniature “cubesats”. It was the second launch this year of the Vega, a crucial component of European ambitions to compete with rivals such as Elon Musk’s SpaceX in the booming commercial aerospace market. The rocket blasted off

Blue Origin, the space company owned by Jeff Bezos, is suing the US government over its decision to award a massive Moon exploration contract to its competitor SpaceX, it said in a statement Monday. The company has filed a suit with the US Court of Federal Claims “in an attempt to remedy the flaws” in

Two spacecraft flew past Venus recently in a rare double flyby that captured unique imagery and data. This data is now being analysed, but scientists at the European Space Agency (ESA) have been able to translate some of it into sounds to let people experience how it would feel if a gigantic planet flew next

A team of Indian researchers has developed what appears to be a first-of-a-kind human authentication through teeth for mobile and other hand-held devices. The team says that the app acquires biometric samples using the camera on a mobile handset. The app has specific markers that register the teeth of a human for authentication, similar to

SpaceX founder Elon Musk said on Saturday the first orbital stack of the Starship rocket should be ready for flight in the coming weeks, taking the unorthodox billionaire a step closer to his dream of orbital and then interplanetary travel. SpaceX in May successfully landed its Starship prototype, SN15, a reusable heavy-lift launch vehicle that

Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) suffered a setback while trying to put the GISAT-1 earth observation satellite into orbit, due to a technical anomaly minutes after the rocket carrying the satellite was launched in the early hours on Wednesday. “Performance of first and second stages was normal. However, Cryogenic Upper Stage ignition did not happen

A recent picture by NASA can leave us wondering. The aerial shot shows a vast expanse of Mars surface and is taken by NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter on its 11th flight on the planet. Look close into the photo. Can you see NASA’s Perseverance Rover amidst the seemingly monochrome desert of the Red Planet? It’s

Boeing’s astronaut capsule is grounded for months and possibly even until next year because of a vexing valve problem. Boeing and NASA officials said Friday that the Starliner capsule will be removed from the top of its rocket and returned to its Kennedy Space Center hangar for more extensive repairs. Starliner was poised to blast

Elon Musk’s ambitions around space travel and exploration only seems to be getting bigger and more eclectic with time. Now, the SpaceX CEO is joining hands with a Canada-based startup to make advertising in space a reality. According to reports, the tech billionaire and the startup are working towards putting a billboard into low-Earth orbit.

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos flew out to space and stayed in zero gravity for a few minutes last month. After landing back on Earth, he thanked all Amazon customers for funding it. Little did he know this gesture of gratitude would majorly backfire. Many Amazon customers are now saying that they are against funding the

Boeing’s troubled Starliner spaceship could be set for further delays after the company said Thursday it was working to solve problems with the propulsion system. The spaceship’s latest launch date on August 4 was cancelled over propulsion issues, and it remains unclear when the next test flight will be scheduled. “Over the past couple of

China’s ambitious plans regarding its missions to the Moon are not new. In January 2019, China had already earned the distinction of being the first country to land a probe on the far side of the Moon, that is the section of the natural satellite that faces away from the Earth. Now, after two years,

A group of researchers from South Korea have created a robot that is able to change its colour like a chameleon — known to possess the remarkable ability to adjust the colour of its skin to match the surface it is on and blend with the surroundings. The breakthrough research has paved the way for

Some 65 million years ago, a 10-km-wide asteroid crashed into Earth near what is today Mexico. It triggered a mass extinction. Nearly 75 percent of life — including non-avian dinosaurs and large marine reptiles — was wiped out. But what happened to sharks? The marine predators survived. But, researchers say that their survival and evolution

Elon Musk on Tuesday said his aerospace company SpaceX could help NASA produce spacesuits for its Artemis Moon mission after the US space agency’s Inspector General reported that it was facing significant challenges, making the manned lunar landing impossible in 2024. Among the biggest challenges was the delay in the production of the first two

Boeing said on Monday it was assessing multiple dates this month for the launch of its CST-100 Starliner space capsule to the International Space Station. The company last week postponed the capsule’s much awaited launch after discovering a glitch in its propulsion system valves during pre-launch checks. Boeing said on Monday it fixed problems over the

One of the biggest challenges at the beginning of the novel coronavirus pandemic was ensuring aggressive testing of vast populations in several countries across the world. With time, new testing techniques were developed to ease the process. And since the COVID-19 pandemic is very much still there, a team of engineers at MIT and Harvard