Science

NASA’s massive new rocket began its first journey to a launchpad on Thursday ahead of a battery of tests that will clear it to blast off to the Moon this summer. It left the Kennedy Space Center’s Vehicle Assembly Building around 5:47pm ET (21:47 GMT) and began an 11-hour journey on a crawler-transporter to the

Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space tourism service has postponed until March 29 a flight initially set for next week, while Saturday Night Live comic Pete Davidson will not be a passenger on the launch, the company said on Thursday. The company, in a brief notice first posted on Twitter, gave no immediate explanation for the

Eugene Parker, a pioneering American astrophysicist whose mathematical prediction that charged particles streamed from stars in a solar wind was met with disbelief before he was ultimately vindicated, has died aged 94, NASA said on Wednesday. Parker was hailed as a visionary who laid the groundwork for the field of heliophysics, the science of understanding the

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has been aligned to produce the first unified image of a single star, reaching a critical milestone in its journey to unravel the mysteries of the world far beyond our reach. Most traditional telescopes have a single primary mirror that collects light from distant stars. But Webb has 18 hexagonal

An Indian-American astronaut and one of his colleagues have conducted a spacewalk to work on the International Space Station (ISS), whose services have been extended till 2030. Raja Chari, the commander of the SpaceX crew currently docked at the ISS, and flight engineer Kayla Barron walked out of the safety of the space station’s airlock

NASA is set to roll out its Space Launch System (SLS), which will take humans to the Moon, Mars, and beyond, into the public view for the first time on Thursday. The system has been under development for over a decade and is beset by delays and mounting costs. However, the agency hopes once it

NASA has insisted tensions linked to the war in Ukraine had no impact on International Space Station operations or the planned return of an American astronaut aboard a Russian capsule later this month. Mark Vande Hei is due to fly to the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan aboard a Russian Soyuz capsule with cosmonauts Pyotr Dubrov

If something is close to our view, we tend to lose perspective. To have a clear picture, we need to create distance between ourselves and the view. Astronomers know the importance of visual separation far better than anyone else since they keep looking at the vastness of the Universe most of the time. But they

On January 7, space scientists in Europe discovered a large asteroid that appeared to be on a collision course with Earth. They calculated that the 230-feet-wide asteroid, named 2022 AE1, was set to hit Earth on July 4, 2023. The time they had to deflect its path was too narrow to actually mount a response,

A team of physicists may have solved the mystery surrounding the matter that is swallowed by black holes. These physicists considered wormholes — theoretical tunnels with two ends at separate points in spacetime — to explain the long-held mystery. Black holes are regions in space through which no matter can pass. The gravity of a

Tesla Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk said on Sunday the US electric carmaker and his rocket company SpaceX are facing significant inflationary pressure in raw materials and logistics. Musk in a tweet also asked about inflation rate outlook and said his companies “are not alone”, retweeting an article saying the Ukraine–Russia conflict sent commodity prices

The European Southern Observatory (ESO) has captured an explosion occurring at the Cartwheel galaxy. The supernova, dubbed as SN2021afdx, has been identified as a Type II supernova. This type of supernova is formed when a large star runs out of the fuel that is required to keep the star from collapsing under its own gravity.

An asteroid, around 3-metre wide, hit the Earth’s atmosphere on March 11, just two hours before it was discovered by a Hungarian astronomer. The object, now designated 2022 EB5, impacted the planet north of Iceland. The 2022 EB5 was only the fifth asteroid to be discovered before it struck the planet. The first four were

A Los Angeles-area startup founded by a veteran spaceflight robotics engineer unveiled on Thursday its full-scale, working prototype for a next-generation lunar rover that is just as fast as NASA’s old “moon buggy” but is designed to do much more. The company, Venturi Astrolab, released photos and video showing its Flexible Logistics and Exploration (FLEX)

North Korea’s latest launches appear aimed at developing and testing technology that can be used both for spy satellites and in a massive intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capable of launching multiple nuclear warheads, analysts said. North Korea deployed a new ICBM system in February 27 and March 5 test-firings, the US and South Korean officials

SpaceX will delay the maiden flight of Starship, the spaceship designed to transport humans to Moon and Mars, as it is switching priorities to cyber defence and overcoming signal jamming, CEO Elon Musk said. The tech billionaire did not say what or who was causing these attacks on SpaceX. But Musk and his SpaceX-operated Starlink