Tag Archives: Science

Birds and reptiles may not resemble humans in many ways, but they cry similar tears. The composition of human tears is well known, but until now, there was very little research into the composition and structures of tears in reptiles, birds, and other mammals. That lack of research could be …

The dwarf planet Ceres — long believed to be a barren space rock — is an ocean world with reservoirs of seawater beneath its surface, the results of a major exploration mission showed Monday. Ceres is the largest object in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter and has its …

The latest successful rocket test by SpaceX could mean we’ll see humans on Mars in the next decade, funded by private entrepreneurs such as Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos. But will they take charge of the newly conquered Red Planet too? On a clear night, there’s nothing better than gazing …

That’s one quick drop for man; one giant splash for mankind. The safe return of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon is not on the scale of the moon landings, of course, but it could certainly be a step towards space travel successes of similarly soaring heights. The capsule left Earth some two …

A $2.7 billion NASA rover, Perseverance, is scheduled to launch from Florida’s Cape Canaveral at 7:50 a.m. Thursday atop an Atlas V rocket. If all goes well, the rover will land Feb. 18 on Mars on a mission to search for signs of ancient Martian life. “Sitting atop that rocket …

The world’s biggest nuclear fusion project has entered its five-year assembly phase. After this is finished, the facility will be able to start generating the super-hot “plasma” required for fusion power. The £18.2bn (€20bn; $23.5bn) facility has been under construction in Saint-Paul-lez-Durance, southern France. Advocates say fusion could be a …

On April 17, President Trump was asked by a misinformed reporter why the U.S. supported the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China, which had been accused, without evidence, of engineering and possibly releasing COVID-19. The president responded that he was aware of it and would “end that grant very quickly,” …

China launched a Mars probe on Thursday, aiming to complete orbiting, landing and roving in one mission, and taking the first step in its planetary exploration of the solar system. A Long March-5 rocket, China’s largest launch vehicle, carrying the spacecraft with a mass of about 5 tonnes, soared into …

For the first time ever, astronomers have directly imaged multiple planets orbiting a sun-like star. The European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile photographed two giant planets circling a very young analogue of our own sun that lies about 300 light-years from Earth, a new study reports. “This …

Astrophysicists on Monday published the largest-ever 3D map of the Universe, the result of an analysis of more than four million galaxies and ultra-bright, energy-packed quasars. The efforts of hundreds of scientists from around 30 institutions worldwide have yielded a “complete story of the expansion of the universe”, said Will …

NASA has confirmed that there has been no change to the existing 12-star signs following social media rumors that another zodiac sign, Ophiuchus, had been added, the Independent reported. The rumor of a new zodiac sign has resurfaced several times on social media in the past few years. NASA initially …

A Japanese rocket carrying the first Arab mission to Mars will blast into space on Monday, after being delayed by bad weather, the launch company said Friday. The lift-off of the United Arab Emirates’ “Hope” probe, originally planned for Wednesday, is now set for 6:58 am Monday (21:58 GMT Sunday) …

The liftoff of the United Arab Emirates’ Mars orbiter was postponed until Friday due to bad weather at the Japanese launch site. The orbiter named Amal, or Hope, is the Arab world’s first interplanetary mission. The launch was scheduled for Wednesday from the Tanegashima Space Center in southern Japan, but …

A German-Russian space telescope has just acquired a breakthrough map of the sky that traces the heavens in X-rays. The image records a lot of the violent action in the cosmos – instances where matter is being accelerated, heated and shredded. Feasting black holes, exploding stars, and searingly hot gas. …

Researchers in Florida say they believe they have shown that the new coronavirus has mutated in a way that makes it more easily infect human cells. They say more research is needed to show whether the change has altered the course of the pandemic, but at least one researcher not …

Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, is moving away from its planet a hundred times faster than previously established, according to a new study. The giant moon isn’t alone in this behavior; other moons among the 150 known moons in our solar system are also slowly distancing themselves from the planets they …

We have created “a perfect storm” for diseases from wildlife to spill over into humans and spread quickly around the world, scientists warn. Human encroachment on the natural world speeds up that process. This outlook comes from global health experts who study how and where new diseases emerge. As part …

It is just the latest in a series of spectacular failures of prototypes of the Starship heavy-lift rocket. The Starship was being used in ground tests at the company’s South Texas test facilities, as part of an attempt to rush the large metal rocket into flight. The explosion occurred hours …

The following is a brief roundup of the latest scientific studies on the novel coronavirus and efforts to find treatments and vaccines for COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus. An antibody that “neutralizes” the novel coronavirus Researchers said they have produced a monoclonal antibody that can “neutralize” the new …

The Pentagon has released three declassified videos taken by US Navy pilots that appear to show unidentified flying objects (UFO). The black and white videos were recorded during training flights – one in November 2004 and two in January 2015 – and later leaked to the public, the Department of …