Science

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

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

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

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

Israel’s Brain. Space, a four-year-old startup that studies data on brain activity, is set to put its gear to test on astronauts in space next week during a SpaceX shuttle flight to the International Space Station (ISS). Three astronauts on the planned private space-flight firm Axiom Space’s mission to the ISS will use a special

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

NASA will run a live broadcast of the return to Earth of American astronaut Mark Vande Hei after a record-breaking 355-day mission aboard the International Space Station (ISS). Along with Vande Hei, two Russian cosmonauts — Anton Shkaplerov and Pyotr Dubrov — will also touch down in Kazakhstan aboard a Soyuz MS-19 capsule on March

Researchers have detected a mysterious set of waves coming out of the Sun that, inexplicably, appears to travel three times faster than earlier predicted. The researchers think these waves could help them understand the interiors of the Sun, which is usually not observed even by space-based telescopes. Described as a “true mystery”, these waves were

NASA plans to use multiple private spacecraft to land astronauts on the Moon under its ambitious Artemis project. Initially, it had picked only the Elon Musk-owned SpaceX but it seems the US space agency has been rethinking its strategy. The agency, this week, announced that it wanted to support the development of a second privately

A new study has suggested that ‘space lettuce’ can help astronauts maintain strong bone health during long trips. The study, carried out by researchers from the University of California, Davis, saw the creation of an experimental strain of lettuce that they say can help those staying in space for long durations to maintain good bone health.

NASA said a gigantic asteroid is set to make a close approach to Earth this week. Scientists have determined the size of the space rock — called 2013 BO76 — to be around 200-450 metres wide, and it will be travelling at a staggering speed of 50,000kmph. Although NASA has classified the asteroid as “potentially

NASA’s Juno mission made its 39th close flyby of Jupiter recently and captured an incredible image of the planet’s southern hemisphere. However, a closer look at the image also revealed two more heavenly bodies nearby — Jupiter’s moons Io and Europa. Juno made the close fly in mid-January this year but NASA released the image

Weeks after Moscow forced the 11th-hour cancellation of a rocket launch for British satellite venture OneWeb from Russia’s Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, the company said on Monday it has contracted with Elon Musk’s SpaceX to send its satellites into orbit. Terms of the deal with California-based SpaceX, a direct competitor of OneWeb in the burgeoning broadband

Blue Origin engineer Gary Lai will replace “Saturday Night Live” comic Pete Davidson in the space tourism company’s latest flight, it said on Monday. Davidson had pulled out after the flight, originally meant to launch this week, was postponed to March 29 to run some more pre-flight tests on one of the vehicle’s subsystems. The

NASA has shared a stunning image of a “cosmic flower in bloom” on Instagram. The photograph showed a heavenly entity resembling a flower in the Ring Nebula, which is located about 2,000 light-years away from us, in the constellation Lyra. The image, which showed a halo around the planetary nebula appearing like floral petals, was

In a major milestone for astronomy, NASA has confirmed the existence of a massive 5,000 planets beyond our own solar system. Not so long ago, we only knew a handful of planets that revolved around our Sun, but the quest to know the world beyond always continued. NASA has now added a fresh batch of

Scientists have detected a mysterious radio signal emanating from our galaxy, Milky Way, that has left them baffled. They say the signal is so rare that only one other of its kind has ever been identified. They feel the signal could be coming out of a white dwarf pulsar. A pulsar is a rotating neutron

NASA has shared an image of what astronomers say is the first observation of a giant debris cloud formed by a massive collision of celestial bodies. Astronomers observed the cloud as it passed in front of its star and briefly blocked its light. Astronomers have long found evidence of collision among celestial bodies. But those

SpaceX successfully launched its Falcon 9 rocket for a record-breaking 12th time on Saturday (March 19), and then returned to Earth for yet another successful touchdown. The Falcon 9 was launched into low-Earth orbit from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 12:24am ET on March 19 (9:54am IST), carrying 53 of SpaceX’s Starlink Internet

Russia will start work on its own Mars mission given that the European Space Agency (ESA) has suspended a joint project in the wake of the Ukraine invasion, Interfax news agency quoted a top official as saying on Friday. The ESA announced on Thursday that it would be impossible to continue cooperating with Russia on