Science

Astronomers have long thought that it takes millions of years for a star like our Sun to form completely. But recent observations via the world’s largest radio telescope FAST are casting doubt on this long-held belief. The new study has revealed that stars could form much faster than previously thought. Scientists studied the magnetic field

James Webb Space Telescope scientists said they have completed all major structural deployments of the $10-billion (roughly Rs. 74,000 crore) observatory in space. What now starts is the primary mission of the telescope, they added. James Webb Space Telescope was launched aboard an Ariane 5 rocket on December 25. It is so big that it

Researchers in the United Kingdom have found a colossal 180-million-year-old fossilised remains of an ichthyosaur, colloquially known as a ‘sea dragon’. The researchers describe it as one of the most significant discoveries in the region as the fossil is the biggest and most complete skeleton of its kind found in the UK. Ichthyosaurs resembled dolphins

Using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, researchers have identified a black hole having 200,000 times the mass of the Sun in Mrk 462, a dwarf galaxy with only several hundred million stars. In comparison, our Milky Way has a few hundred billion stars. The black hole was heavily buried in gas and dust in Mrk 462

Our galaxy, the Milky Way, houses the Solar System and its varied mysteries. But there are hundreds of galaxies like ours in the cosmos and all of them are hiding multiple enigmas. They arouse acute interest among scientists, who are drawn towards them because of these puzzles. One of the most interesting puzzles is how galaxies

A 1 km-long asteroid is set to zip past Earth next week. But there is no need to worry. The flyby will have a very safe clearance of 1.93 million km from Earth, meaning it would be more than 5.15 times farther away from us than the Moon. Scientists and astronomers keep a regular watch

China’s Chang’e 5 lunar lander has found the first-ever on-site evidence of water on the surface of the moon, lending new evidence to the dryness of the satellite. The study published on Saturday in the peer-reviewed journal Science Advances revealed that the lunar soil at the landing site contains less than 120 parts-per-million (ppm) water or

NASA’s new space telescope opened its huge, gold-plated, flower-shaped mirror Saturday, the final step in the observatory’s dramatic unfurling. The last portion of the 21-foot (6.5-meter) mirror swung into place at flight controllers’ command, completing the unfolding of the James Webb Space Telescope. #NASAWebb is fully deployed! ???? With the successful deployment & latching of

NASA’s Mars rover Perseverance is in the process of collecting rock samples to send back to Earth  via a future human mission to Mars. But some pebble-sized debris is creating problems for the machine. At first, things went smoothly. Perseverance successfully extracted a sample from a Martian rock, named Issole. However, while transferring the sample

NASA has shared an image of a stunning cosmic duo of galaxies, located roughly 215 million light-years away from Earth in the Pisces constellation. The image was clicked by the Hubble telescope, NASA’s current workhorse to study the mysteries of deep space. NASA said the galaxies appear to be plunging into each other, but in

Through the past week, NASA engineers have been working diligently to deploy major equipment and tools aboard James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), including its sunshield and secondary mirror. On Saturday, January 8,  the primary camera of the $10-billion (roughly Rs. 74,340 crore) space observatory will be deployed, which will study the origin of the Universe

“Space now,” was what Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa wanted to tweet for years. He finally really did it, from the International Space Station. “The space market holds so much potential,” he said Friday at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club in Tokyo, his first news conference in Japan after returning to earth before Christmas. Maezawa, who heads

We have often heard and read about giant stars dying violently in deep space. Ever imagined what kind of a sight it would be? How would a star appear as it nears its end from Earth? We may finally have an answer. In a first for astronomy, researchers were able to see in real time

James Webb Space Telescope, a day after fully tensioning the sunshield, has now completed another complex procedure. The space observatory’s secondary mirror was deployed using what a Webb engineer described as the “world’s most sophisticated tripod.” The 2.4-feet-wide mirror is located on the tips of three carbon fibre tubes which extend out from the large

James Webb Space Telescope has completed the complex process of deploying its kite-shaped sunshield. The sunshield, about the size of a tennis court, has five layers. The first three were deployed initially and the last two were done late last night. Deploying all five layers was crucial for the $10-billion (roughly Rs. 74,525 crore) space

China’s first independent interplanetary mission, Tianwen-1, pulled a new year’s surprise by clicking incredible selfies on Mars above its north pole. The images showed the mission’s solar arrays and antennas as well as a partial closeup of the orbiter. It also showed the Red Planet’s northern ice cap. Tianwen-1 released a small camera to fly

China is experimenting with an “artificial sun,” dubbed Experiential Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST), to make way for clean energy in the future. The device setup is a fusion reactor which ran successfully for almost 20 minutes at a stunning 70 million degrees Celsius in a recent test. The machine strives to utilise the power of nuclear

NASA engineers have begun a crucial phase in deploying the James Webb Space Telescope. The engineers have started to tighten the tension in its tennis court-sized sunshield. The stretching of the first three layers of the five-layer sunshield was successful and the final two layers will be deployed today, January 4, the space agency said.