Science

NASA has shared the image that got carved out on the lunar surface and in the history of space exploration when Neil Armstrong put his left foot on the surface of the Moon on July 20, 1969 — the first human footprint there. “What was only one small step 52 years ago, has inspired a

Jeff Bezos created history on Tuesday when he successfully travelled to the edge of space and returned in the spacecraft developed by his company, Blue Origin. Over two decades after Bezos established the space company, he was accompanied by a crew of three others in the New Shepard spacecraft on his maiden journey to space.

Every single time NASA shares a picture of space on Twitter or Instagram and explains what it is about, many in the comments section ask how these photographs were taken, whether the colours are real, and, most importantly, they enquire about the cameras that the Hubble Telescope is equipped with. The space agency, in its

American billionaire businessman Jeff Bezos said on Monday he is excited and curious but not very nervous on the eve of taking part in his company Blue Origin’s inaugural suborbital flight alongside the oldest and youngest people ever bound for space. The world’s richest person and three crewmates are due to fly from a desert

Jeff Bezos is all set to blast off aboard his aerospace company Blue Origin’s New Shepard launch vehicle for a suborbital flight today (July 20). The space flight will comprise a history-making all-civilian crew. The launch of the 11-minute journey to space is planned from a desert site in West Texas, US. If all goes

Space is a repository of planets, galaxies, and umpteen stars. And agencies such as NASA and European Space Agency (ESA) have, from time to time, brought to us some breathtaking visuals, in a way acting as a bridge between humans and the universe. On Saturday, NASA shared a fascinating view of what is referred to

The Hubble Space Telescope should be back in action soon, following a tricky, remote repair job by NASA. The orbiting observatory went dark in mid-June, with all astronomical viewing halted. NASA initially suspected a 1980s-era computer as the source of the problem. But after the backup payload computer also failed, flight controllers at Maryland’s Goddard

An 18-year-old physics student whose father heads an investment management firm is set to take the place of a person who put up $28 million (roughly Rs. 210 crores) in an auction to take part in the inaugural space tourism flight for billionaire Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin company. Blue Origin said on Thursday Oliver Daemen

Jeff Bezos may have been beaten to space by rival Richard Branson, but the billionaire American businessman is poised to make history next week aboard what would be the world’s first unpiloted suborbital flight with an all-civilian crew. Bezos, the former CEO of Amazon, is due to be part of a four-person crew for a

Ever dreamt of flying to space? If yes, then you can at least try your luck to turn your dream into a reality by submitting your entry into Virgin Galactic’s charity contest that can land you two free tickets to space on one of the first Virgin Galactic commercial space flights. So far, we have

Scientists have identified a new dinosaur genus following the analysis of a fossilised jawbone discovered over two decades ago in the Portell locality of Spain’s Castellón province. The styracosternan hadrosaurid dinosaur, scientists say, was likely six to eight metres long, a herbivore, and closely related to species found in modern-day China and Niger. The study

Virgin Galactic acknowledged on Tuesday that billionaire founder Richard Branson never rode a bicycle to the launch site of his space flight on Sunday, as depicted in a highly publicised video included in the company’s webcast of the event. The video clip showed Branson riding his bike toward New Mexico’s state-owned Spaceport America near the town

NASA has released an intriguing image that appears like a potato, but it is not. The image, captured by the most powerful camera ever sent to another planet, is of Phobos, the largest of Mars’ two raggedy moons. The other moon of the Red Planet is called Deimos. In an Instagram post, the space agency

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said on Monday it approved a Blue Origin license to carry humans on the New Shepard launch system into space. Former Amazon Chief Executive Jeff Bezos is set to fly to the edge of space on Blue Origin’s maiden crewed voyage on July 20. Blue Origin is authorised to carry

Indigenous peoples patrolling the Peruvian Amazon equipped with smartphones and satellite data were able to drastically reduce illegal deforestation, according to the results of an experiment published Monday. The study, which appeared in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), showed that recognising indigenous people’s rights to their territory can be a powerful

NASA administrator Bill Nelson has lauded billionaire Richard Branson, the founder of Virgin Galactic, who along with five other crew members soared to the edge of the space aboard the VSS Unity spacecraft on Sunday. Nelson, a former astronaut who went to space in 1986, said that it was hard to believe back then that

Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson are competing fiercely to outwit each other and capture the huge commercial space tourism market. And their fellow billionaire Elon Musk appears to be siding with the British entrepreneur and his Virgin Galactic venture. Musk, the SpaceX CEO who aims to colonise Mars someday and make humans a multi-planetary species, seems to have

British billionaire Richard Branson on Sunday soared more than 50 miles above the New Mexico desert aboard his Virgin Galactic rocket plane and safely returned in the vehicle’s first fully crewed test flight to space, a symbolic milestone for a venture he started 17 years ago. Branson, one of six Virgin Galactic employees strapped in

Virgin Galactic is set to send its billionaire founder Richard Branson, along with a crew of five others, aboard VSS Unity to the edge of space today, July 11. Virgin Galactic’s VSS Unity SpaceShipTwo vehicle will lift off from Spaceport America near Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, US. Now, the question many have been asking

NASA will launch its Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover, or VIPER, in 2023 to get a closer view of the Moon’s South Pole and evaluate the concentration of water as well as other potential resources on its surface. The space agency is undertaking the mission to understand if it is possible for human life to

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is getting back into launch activity fully at Sriharikota spaceport with the planned orbiting of geo imaging satellite GISAT-1 on board GSLV-F10 rocket on August 12. It’s going to be only the second launch of the Bengaluru-headquartered space agency in the COVID-19-hit 2021.  ISRO successfully launched PSLV-C51 mission on

NASA on a regular basis shares pictures on its social media handles of missions currently underway. But occasionally, it takes us down the memory lane too. On Thursday, July 8, the American space agency shared images of a mission from a decade ago on its Twitter and Instagram handles. It was on this day back

Decades after burnishing his reputation as a wealthy daredevil mogul in a series of boating and hot-air balloon expeditions, Richard Branson is poised to promote his burgeoning astro-tourism venture by launching himself to the final frontier. Branson’s Virgin Galactic is due on Sunday to send the company’s passenger rocket plane, the VSS Unity, on its first

Singapore researchers have developed a smart foam material that allows robots to sense nearby objects, and repairs itself when damaged, just like human skin. Artificially innervated foam, or AiFoam, is a highly elastic polymer created by mixing fluoropolymer with a compound that lowers surface tension. This allows the spongy material to fuse easily into one

As Virgin Galactic finalises plans for founder Richard Branson to join five others on a test flight to the edge of space on July 11, the British billionaire said his wife may be nervous about the launch but he himself wasn’t the least bit afraid. “I’ve been looking forward to this for 17 years,” Branson

Three billionaire entrepreneurs – Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and Richard Branson – are each vying to usher in a new era of private commercial space travel. Here is how their rival ventures compare in the race to open up space travel. Tickets Bezos, Branson, and Musk have been investing billions of dollars in their space

A new study of exoplanets — planets beyond our solar system — has revealed that none of them, despite previously thought to be habitable, may have the right Earth-like conditions needed to sustain life. The researchers focussed on understanding the conditions required for oxygen-based photosynthesis that allows complex biospheres found on Earth to flourish. Even

A team of astronomers has discovered a huge cloud of hot, faintly glowing gas in space that is bigger than the Milky Way galaxy. They said that the cosmic gas cloud, the first of its kind, may have stripped from a galaxy. What they found most surprising was that the cloud has remained clumped together

NASA astrophysicists have used computer simulation to demonstrate that tsunami-like structures may form on a large scale, deep into space when gas escapes the gravitational pull of a supermassive black hole. Not just that, researchers added that these supermassive black holes are capable of hosting the largest Tsunami-like structures in the universe.  On Sunday, in an

Sirisha Bandla, an Indian-origin astronaut, will be taking care of the researcher experience on the Unity22 mission, when a Virgin Galactic test flight travels to the edge of space on July 11. Andhra Pradesh-born Bandla will be one of the six space travellers aboard ”VSS Unity” of Virgin Galactic, scheduled to take off to space