Science

Amazon on Tuesday announced deals for scores of launches to deploy a “constellation” of satellites in low orbit around the Earth to provide internet service to people below. Amazon said that its contracts with Arianespace, Blue Origin and United Launch Alliance (ULA) are the largest commercial procurement of launch vehicles in history. The overall cost

It’s a famous view, but slightly different from what we are accustomed to seeing so far. A stunning photograph of Mount Everest has been shot by astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS). The photo, shared by NASA on Instagram, shows an aerial image of the mountain with many snow-capped peaks, and it looks distinct and

A large metal ring and sphere that villagers in rural western India said fell from the sky over the weekend could be from a Chinese rocket launched into space last year, officials told local media. The metal ring – reportedly two to three metres (6.5-10 feet) in diameter and weighing over 40 kilograms (90 pounds)

Jupiter’s Moon Europa is among a few celestial bodies being probed intensely to know whether it hosts or could host life. Europa, which is slightly smaller than Earth’s moon, has been hiding an ocean beneath its frozen surface. Evidence indicates it could be warm, salty, and rich in life-enabling chemistry. While it is known Europa

The death throes of a red giant star have been seen in unprecedented clarity by astronomers, exhibiting an unusual trait. V Hydrae (or V Hya for short) was a star that ejected six different rings of material. The exact mechanism in which these intriguing “smoke rings” develop is still unknown. V Hya is an asymptotic

From Earth, those taking photographers of space often capture magnificent images of distant galaxies, planets, and moons. Last week, however, astrophotographer Sebastian Voltmer captured something completely different. On March 23, NASA astronaut Raja Chari and Matthias Maurer of the European Space Agency (ESA) spent nearly seven hours outside the International Space Station (ISS), completing various

NASA on Friday began a critical two-day-long test of its giant Space Launch System (SLS) rocket complete with a simulated countdown, as the agency gears up to return humans to the Moon. Known as the “wet dress rehearsal,” it is the final major test before the Artemis I mission this summer: an uncrewed lunar flight

A study of different sounds captured by NASA’s Perseverance rover on Mars has revealed that sound waves behave differently on the Red Planet. The study found that sound travels much more slowly on Mars than it travels on Earth. It also behaved in some unexpected ways that could have consequences in setting up communications platforms

A US astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts left the International Space Station (ISS) together on a Soyuz capsule as they headed back to Earth on Wednesday, despite heightened US-Russian antagonism over the war in Ukraine. The Russian Soyuz capsule carrying NASA’s Mark Vande Hei and his cosmonaut peers Anton Shkaplerov and Pyotr Dubrov successfully undocked from

There has been a considerable amount of support for Ukraine in the US amidst its war with Russia, from countries and companies alike. The latest firm to show solidarity with the European nation is billionaire entrepreneur Jeff Bezos’ commercial space tourism company Blue Origin. Its latest space flight on Thursday featured the Ukrainian national flag.

A batch of dome-shaped ice volcanoes that look unlike anything else known in our solar system and may still be active have been identified on Pluto using data from NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft, showing that this remote frigid world is more dynamic than previously known. Scientists said on Tuesday that these cryovolcanoes — numbering perhaps

Astronomers have discovered the farthest and oldest star ever seen, a dot of light that shined 12.9 billion years ago, or barely 900 million years after the Big Bang that gave birth to the universe. The light from the star must have travelled 12.9 billion light-years to reach the Earth. The newly discovered star appeared

American pop artist Jeff Koons is to send sculptures to the Moon later this year on a spacecraft blasting off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, his gallery said Tuesday. Koons, one of the most celebrated and expensive living artists, is famed for kitsch pieces such as “Ballon Dog” and “Rabbit,” and his work

SpaceX has ended production of new Crew Dragon astronaut capsules, a company executive told Reuters, as Elon Musk’s space transportation company heaps resources on its next-generation spaceship program. Capping the fleet at four Crew Dragons adds more urgency to the development of the astronaut capsule’s eventual successor, Starship, SpaceX’s moon and Mars rocket. Starship’s debut

The European Space Agency’s solar orbiter has taken the highest-resolution image yet of the Sun’s full disk and atmosphere, the corona, during its latest close flyby of our home star. The orbiter was at a distance of just 75 million kilometres – half the distance between Earth’s average orbit and the Sun – on March

The hunt to find signs of ancient life on Mars involves bringing back rock samples from the Red Planet — these are currently being collected by NASA’s Perseverance rover on the 45-km-wide Jezero Crater. The initial plan was to send a sample-return lander (SRL) by 2026 and get back the samples by 2031. But that timeline appears