Science

ISRO’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle PSLV-C52 blasted off from Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota at 5:59am on February 14. After the end of a 25-hour countdown, the launch vehicle carrying the Earth observation satellite EOS-04 and two co-passenger payloads — INSPIREsat-1 and INS-2TD — blasted off from the spaceport, marking the Indian space agency’s

The European Space Agency (ESA) has released a stunning photograph of the surface of Mars, demonstrating how winds sculpt the landscape. The Hooke Crater area in the Red Planet’s southern highlands is shown in this image taken from orbit by ESA and Roscosmos’ ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO). The artificial hues are due to filters

NASA’s Juno mission has spotted “pepperoni” storms on Jupiter. The space agency released the news on National Pizza Day, making the Jupiter storms all the more interesting for us. NASA released a video of the north pole of the giant planet on its Instagram handle. There we can see a dense formation of storms in

NASA’s Parker Solar probe has captured the first-ever images of Venus, the second planet from the Sun and Earth’s closest planetary neighbour, in visible light. Venus is usually smothered in thick clouds and shrouded from sight. The probe captured the images in wavelengths of the visible spectrum — the type of light that the human

Finding traces of life on other planets is one of the most intriguing and exciting aspects of astronomy. Scientists have long aspired to identify planets that may one day be habitable. With that distant goal in mind, a group of Indian researchers – two students and a professor — has found not one but 60

The James Webb Space Telescope has spotted its first star and captured a selfie, NASA announced Friday. The steps are part of the months-long process of aligning the observatory’s enormous golden mirror that astronomers hope will begin unraveling the mysteries of the early Universe by this summer. The first picture sent back of the cosmos is far

A team of astronomers has discovered a new planet orbiting Proxima Centauri, the star closest to the Sun. The candidate planet, named Proxima d, is the third detected in the system and it is among the lightest of the exoplanets discovered so far. Proxima d is only a quarter of the mass of Earth and

Bharti-backed OneWeb on Friday announced the successful deployment of 34 satellites by Arianespace from the Guiana Space Centre in Kourou, French Guiana. The latest move by the Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite communications company, brings its total in-orbit constellation to 428 satellites. In a statement, OneWeb confirmed the successful deployment of 34 satellites by Arianespace

Elon Musk said on Thursday he was “highly confident” his new SpaceX Starship, designed for voyages to the moon and Mars, will reach Earth orbit for the first time this year, despite a host of technical and regulatory hurdles yet to be overcome. The billionaire SpaceX founder and CEO addressed a throng of news media

NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover has set a record on the Red Planet. Thanks to its self-driving function, the rover has covered the greatest distance in a single Martian day, or sol, by any rover on the planet. Perseverance, which was launched on July 30, 2020, and landed on Mars on February 18, 2021, recently covered

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) raised concerns about SpaceX’s plan to deploy about 30,000 satellites for its Starlink, as have some major companies. Elon Musk’s SpaceX previously received authorisation for about 12,000 satellites to offer broadband Internet and has requested authorisation for a second-generation constellation of 30,000 satellites. “NASA has concerns with the

An aurora is a beautiful display of natural lights in the sky, usually seen near the North and South Poles at night. Scientists have long believed that aurorae are created when the solar winds interact with the Earth’s magnetic field — when streams of electrified particles emitted by the Sun are trapped in the magnetic

Elon Musk’s ambitious plan to provide low-latency broadband Internet connectivity to remote areas around the globe through a constellation of small satellites in low-Earth orbit suffered an expensive blow recently, but there’s little Musk or SpaceX could do about it. On February 3, SpaceX launched 49 satellites into orbit but a geomagnetic storm destroyed nearly

President Joe Biden’s top science adviser Eric Lander resigned, hours after the White House confirmed that an internal investigation found credible evidence that he mistreated his staff, marking the first Cabinet-level departure of the Biden administration. An internal review last year, prompted by a workplace complaint, found evidence that Lander, the director of the Office

With nowhere really to go, journalists inside the Beijing Olympics bubble are encouraged to sleep on the job. They can’t visit the village rooms where competitors are staying, but they can try out the high-tech beds athletes are sleeping in. Several corridors at the main media center are lined with “sleep rest cabins,” small pods

Reports suggest that a part of a Falcon 9 rocket safely broke down over Mexico after falling through the Earth’s atmosphere. The incident occurred five years after the SpaceX rocket had sent a satellite to space. In March 2017, this spacecraft had helped launch the EchoStar 23 mission. A video of the disintegrating rocket was

In a strange discovery, scientists have found twin asteroids that may be Earth’s newest neighbours. The asteroids, separated by about 600,000 miles, seem to have separated from a parent asteroid only a few centuries ago. The asteroids were discovered as separate entities in August 2019. However, within a month, the similarity in their orbiting patterns

NASA has begun a three-month process to align the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), so that the $10-billion (roughly Rs. 74,710 crore) observatory could start doing what it was sent for: study the universe like never before. It also recently saw the first particles of light making their way through the entire telescope. So far,