Science

Astronomers have found a giant planet that is 10 times bigger than Jupiter and is orbiting a pair of massive, extremely hot stars, an environment previously thought too inhospitable for a planet to form. Scientists have named the planet “b Centauri (AB)b” or “b Centauri b”. The European Southern Observatory (ESO), which photographed the planet

India will launch its much-awaited human spaceflight mission in 2023, Union Science and Technology Minister Jitendra Singh said. Named Gaganyaan, the first human space mission to launch from Indian soil was initially set for August 2022, to mark 75 years of India’s independence but the coronavirus-induced pandemic forced a delay in its timeline. Singh acknowledged

Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa set out to became the first space tourist in more than a decade to travel to the International Space Station (ISS) when he blasted off on Wednesday, a voyage he sees as a dry run for his planned trip around the moon with Elon Musk’s SpaceX in 2023. The 46-year-old fashion

NASA has a number of powerful telescopes in orbit that assist scientists in better understanding the chaotic environments far away from the Earth. On Thursday, the space agency launched another telescope. Named the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer, or IXPE, the telescope will aid scientists in better understanding what’s inside a black hole and how bright

Researchers are setting up an indestructible “Black Box” for Earth to record the events which could lead to our demise. This giant structure, about the size of a bus, sits on a granite plain surrounded by mountains on the west coast of Tasmania, Australia. Just like the black boxes in aeroplanes, this steel box will

Hubble Space Telescope has often captured stunning images of mysterious events in space. It has allowed astronomers to widen their research and uncover new details. Recently, the telescope was trying to understand how young stars influenced their environment and it witnessed a shock wave of colliding luminous gases in the ‘Running Man’ Nebula. The image

NASA’s new laser technology is finally space-bound. After much anticipation and a two-year delay, the Laser Communications Relay Demonstration (LCRD) was launched today (December 8) at 5:19am EST. According to NASA’s social media updates, the LCRD was launched from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on an Atlas V rocket of the United Launch

This year’s last solar eclipse occurred last week. It was not visible from most parts of the world, including India. This eclipse was visible from Antarctica, while people in some other countries such as Australia and New Zealand were able to see a partial solar eclipse. But ever wondered how a total solar eclipse would

NASA is gearing up for the launch of its most ambitious space telescope or probe ever launched later this month. In that effort, it said engineers working on the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope have successfully completed the delicate operation to load the fuel it will use to propel itself while in space.

A site in northern Italy has been churning out dinosaur discoveries for the past 25 years. Researchers have now discovered the biggest and most complete dinosaur skeleton ever found in the country at the site. Fossils of 11 dinosaurs have been unearthed at Villaggio del Pescatore, a former limestone quarry close to the north-eastern port

A comet is expected to fly past Earth next week during its journey through our Solar System towards the Sun. The comet, named Leonard after the astronomer Gregory Leonard, who discovered it earlier this year, is likely to be bright when it makes its closest approach to Earth on December 12. In fact, the comet

Russia on Wednesday will send Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa to the International Space Station in a move marking Moscow’s return to the now booming space tourism business after a decade-long break. One of Japan’s richest men, Maezawa, 46, will blast off from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan accompanied by his assistant Yozo Hirano. On Sunday

The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated technology adoption in a stunning way. Almost every field of work and life is now connected online to their target audience or consumers. Education, too, is a booming sector with more and more students studying online and institutions trying out new ways to teach in hybrid classes. Technology adoption has

The world is transmitting more data today than ever in history. This is likely to increase almost six times between 2020 and 2025. Last year, the world generated 33 zettabytes of data and by 2025 this number could reach 175 zettabytes, far outpacing the rate of growth of facilities to store them. One zettabyte equals

As an ardent birder, nothing gives me more joy than the simple act of cleaning my binoculars (‘bins’ in birder slang). A clean pair of ‘bins’ is the most indispensable tool that a birder needs to spot and observe birds doing what they naturally do. Bird-watching or ‘birding’ is watching and observing birds and their

Fossils of armoured dinosaurs have fascinated researchers for a long time. Giving insight into a new species, researchers have now brought to light the fossils of an ankylosaur from the subantarctic region in Chile. This species had a uniquely shaped armoured tail. Named Stegouros elengassen, it featured a large flat tail and at the end

Scientists have developed a new mathematical theorem using artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning. This finding has revealed for the first time that artificial intelligence can assist in pure mathematics. Mathematicians from the universities of Oxford and Sydney teamed up with DeepMind, a Google-owned company based in London, to investigate knot theory and representation theory.

Magnets play a critical role in physics research as they help guide the path of particle beams and allow them to collide at high speeds. This collision helps researchers study the behaviour of different particles and arrive at groundbreaking discoveries. But not all magnets have the same properties. For instance, some magnets generate the required