Science

If an earthquake strikes in the not too distant future and survivors are trapped under tonnes of rubble, the first responders to locate them could be swarms of cyborg cockroaches. That’s a potential application of a recent breakthrough by Japanese researchers who demonstrated the ability to mount “backpacks” of solar cells and electronics on the

NASA said Wednesday it had successfully trialed the fuelling process for its new rocket, after technical issues a few weeks ago halted two attempts to get the behemoth off the ground and headed towards the Moon. “All of the objectives that we set out to do we were able to accomplish today,” said Charlie Blackwell-Thompson,

Specks of dust retrieved by a Japanese space probe from an asteroid some 300 million kilometres from Earth have revealed a surprising component: a drop of water, scientists said Friday. The discovery offers new support for the theory that life on Earth was seeded from outer space. The findings are in the latest research to

The European Space Agency announced a team of seven astronauts on Wednesday to train for NASA’s Artemis mission to the moon — but only one will have the chance to become the first European to walk on the lunar surface. The candidates — France’s Thomas Pesquet, Britain’s Tim Peake, Germany’s Alexander Gerst and Matthias Maurer, Italy’s

Astronomers said Thursday they have spotted a hot bubble of gas spinning clockwise around the black hole at the centre of our galaxy at “mind blowing” speeds. The detection of the bubble, which only survived for a few hours, is hoped to provide insight into how these invisible, insatiable, galactic monsters work. The supermassive black

The James Webb Space Telescope has captured its first image of Neptune, revealing the clearest view of the distant planet’s rings in more than 30 years, NASA said. The most striking feature in the image is the crisp view of the planet’s rings — some of which have not been detected since NASA’s Voyager 2

A US astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts are set to blast off to the International Space Station Wednesday on a Russian-operated flight despite soaring tensions between Moscow and Washington over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. NASA’s Frank Rubio and Russia’s Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitry Petelin are scheduled to take off from the Russia-leased Baikonur cosmodrome in

SpaceX will apply for an exemption from US sanctions against Iran in a bid to offer its satellite internet service to the country, owner Elon Musk said on Monday. “Starlink will apply for an exemption from sanctions against Iran,” Musk said in response to a tweet from a science reporter. Musk had initially announced that

Mars, by virtue of its tenuous atmosphere and proximity to our solar system’s asteroid belt, is far more vulnerable than Earth to being struck by space rocks – one of the many differences between the two planetary neighbours. Scientists are now gaining a fuller understanding of this Martian trait, with help from NASA’s robotic InSight

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, known for capturing some incredible images of the universe, has presented us with new pictures of our neighbouring planet, Mars. The telescope captured its first images and spectra of Mars on September 5. The James Webb Space Telescope, an international collaboration between NASA, ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian

A team of scientists has announced a surprising discovery – that they were able to create matter out of nothing. The experiment was carried out in January 2022, in which strong electric fields were created in a simple laboratory leveraging the unique properties of grapheme, which enabled the creation of particle-antiparticle pair from nothing at

American space agency NASA has updated its Eyes on the Solar System website, which allows space enthusiasts to explore the “universe beyond and the spacecraft exploring them”. Visitors can explore the planets, their moons, asteroids, comets and the spacecraft from 1950 to 2050. The website also allows them to simulate the landing of NASA’s spacecraft,

Blue Origin rocket has failed mid-flight, a day after its lift-off. This has caused the rocket to abort its cargo capsule to safety before crashing into the Texas desert. The rocket aimed to send NASA-funded experiments and other payloads to the edge of the space. The booster crashed within the designated hazard area. The rocket

India’s first human space-flight mission, Gaganyaan, is expected to launch in 2024, Union Minister Jitendra Singh said recently. The government had planned the space flight for 2021, but the schedule got delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The first test-flight will be followed by a female-looking spacefaring humanoid robot. The Indian Air Force (IAF) has

NASA has completed important repairs on its Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, the US space agency recently announced. The leaking fuel seals on the SLS were replaced by engineers last week. One of the fuel lines to the SLS started leaking earlier this month forcing the space agency to halt its attempt to launch Artemis

NASA is reportedly considering a third attempt at launching its Artemis I Moon rocket on September 23, according to a senior official. The US space agency could launch the Artemis I SLS-Orion spacecraft on either September 23 or on September 27. The new dates were revealed days after NASA halted the launch of the rocket for the second

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has captured in-depth details of a stellar nursery nicknamed the Tarantula Nebula. Webb’s recent image of the 30 Doradus, or Taratula Nebula, displays several never-before-seen young, with galaxies in background. The picture also reveals the composition of the nebula’s gas and dust. Located around 161,000 light-years away from us, Tarantula has

US space agency NASA has a significant impact in all areas of human life. The commercial sector has traditionally benefited from technological transfers from NASA. As part of its most recent effort to improve human life, he space agency has financed technologies that can help relieve symptoms of menopause. In a release, NASA said that