WASHINGTON — NASA’s most sophisticated Mars rover yet is on its way to the red planet after a successful launch July 30. A United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket lifted off from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at 7:50 a.m. Eastern. The liftoff took place on schedule with no issues
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Researchers have successfully revived tiny microbes trapped dormant in a seemingly lifeless zone of the seabed for more than 100 million years. A team of scientists from Japan and America were looking to see whether microscopic life survives in the less-than-hospitable conditions beneath the seafloor of the Pacific Ocean. “We wanted to know how long
Nearly a century after experiments confirmed that atoms, matter’s smallest building blocks, have ethereal, wave-like characteristics, physicists have just found a new way to show how mammoth-sized molecules ripple with the same uncertainty. Researchers from the University of Vienna and the University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany, put a new spin on a classic experiment to create
Dozens of US states have reported mysterious seeds showing up in packages from China and are warning citizens not to plant them because they could be an invasive species. The US Department of Agriculture said Tuesday that it was investigating the unsolicited packages of seeds reported by at least 27 states and urged anyone who
For the first time, scientists have observed that ‘megaripples’ on Mars – huge sand waves seen on the Martian surface – are moving structures, and not ancient relics stuck in place since the Red Planet’s distant past. Megaripples, which also occur in deserts on Earth, are generally larger than smaller sand ripples, and are composed
Norway’s Arctic archipelago Svalbard on Saturday recorded its highest-ever temperature, the country’s meteorological institute reported. According to scientific study, global warming in the Arctic is happening twice as fast as for the rest of the planet. For the second day in a row, the archipelago registered 21.2 degrees Celsius (70.2 Fahrenheit) in the afternoon, just
One of the narratives in the report is that the United States is at risk of being displaced by China as the world’s space superpower. WASHINGTON — A group of more than 120 experts from the U.S. military, government space agencies and the private sector issued a report July 28 calling for investments in technology
Many expecting fathers claim they’d love to take on the aching back, cramped organs, and painful contractions of their partner’s pregnancy. But so far, the male seahorse is the only vertebrate to make good on such a swap. These remarkable fish can hold more than 1,000 embryos in a ‘brood pouch’ for up to a
This stunning image captured last year by physicists at the University of Glasgow in Scotland is the first-ever photo of quantum entanglement – a phenomenon so strange, physicist Albert Einstein famously described it as ‘spooky action at a distance’. It might not look like much, but just stop and think about it for a second:
Living in the present can be a present in itself, but during a global pandemic, when the world is in crisis, reflecting only on the ‘now’ might not be your best tactic. If we want to get through this tragedy stronger than ever, psychologist Jennifer Aaker and Szu-chi Huang from Stanford University argue we need
A stunning flash of ultraviolet light from an exploding white dwarf has been detected by astronomers for only the second time, and could give researchers important clues about what spurs the demise of these ancient, spent stars. Researchers became aware of this unusual supernova – called SN2019yvq – last December, only a day after the
As plants begin to spread across melting permafrost, scientists are growing ever more worried their roots will stir microbes into unleashing vast stores of carbon. To scientists, roots are known as rhizomes, and when these tendrils extend deeper into the soil, it accelerates microbial decomposition by up to fourfold, potentially ‘priming’ the frozen ground for
US officials and scientists have begun laying the groundwork for a more secure “virtually unhackable” internet based on quantum computing technology. At a presentation Thursday, Department of Energy (DOE) officials issued a report that lays out a blueprint strategy for the development of a national quantum internet, using laws of quantum mechanics to transmit information
HELSINKI — China launched three satellites on a Long March 4B late Friday for remote sensing, novel lobster eye x-ray astronomy and commercial data acquisition. The Long March 4B rocket lifted off from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center at 11:13 p.m. Eastern Friday. The China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp., the country’s main space contractor,
Our collective pandemic experience has made us keenly aware that bats have an uncanny ability to carry around deadly viruses, but somehow still survive. There is a lot we don’t yet know about this enviable virus resistance – along with other bat abilities, such as extreme longevity – but new highly-detailed genome sequences may provide
Spiral galaxies look nice and tidy, with most of their stars and gas confined to a disc neatly arranged in swirling spiral arms. But there’s a lot more to a galaxy than what we can see, as a new image of invisible phenomena adroitly demonstrates. The image shows a galaxy called NGC 4217, around 67
Scientists have, for the first time, discovered an active leak of methane gas from the sea floor in Antarctica. It is a process that’s likely to accelerate the process of global heating. The finding was published in the peer-reviewed Proceedings of the Royal Society B scientific journal on Tuesday. Methane is powerful greenhouse gas that accelerates climate
The 21st Space Wing; the 50th Space Wing and the 460th Space Wing have been deactivated and new units have been stood up in their place. WASHINGTON — The U.S. Space Force announced on July 24 that three former U.S. Air Force space wings have been deactivated and replaced with “Space Deltas” and “Garrison” commands.
A massive survey of the world’s coral reefs has turned up a shocking decline in the populations of reef sharks. Over a three year period, almost no sharks at all were recorded at 19 percent of the reefs being monitored, meaning the predators are “functionally extinct” in up to eight nations. The cause is likely
China launched a rover to Mars on Thursday, a journey coinciding with a similar US mission as the powers take their rivalry into deep space. The two countries are taking advantage of a period when Earth and Mars are favourably aligned for a short journey, with the US spacecraft due to lift off on July
If doomsday comes, know this: precautions have been taken. On an isolated Arctic archipelago, the Svalbard Global Seed Vault – aka Norway’s ‘Doomsday Vault’ – holds over 1 million seed samples in a fortress-like bunker designed to be the most invulnerable seed bank in the world. Svalbard protects more than just seeds, though. On the
Hyvinkää, FINLAND — China’s Tianwen-1 Mars mission launched successfully Thursday, initiating a phase of deep space and interplanetary exploration. A Long March 5 rocket launched the Tianwen-1 orbiter and rover from Wenchang Satellite Launch Center at 12:41 a.m. Eastern. Successful Trans-Mars injection was confirmed around 40 minutes later by the China Aerospace Science and Technology
Dogs have an enviable sense of direction. Even in a completely unfamiliar place, our pets have an uncanny way of tracking down a shortcut. For the first time, Czech scientists have found evidence that canines can sense and navigate using Earth’s weak magnetic field. Exactly how they do this and to what extent is still
In ancient Greece, several hundred years before the common era and long before the invention of wheelchairs, some holy sanctuaries may have been specially designed with disability in mind. While ramps were not particularly common in the fourth century BCE, ancient healing temples are often ringed by these permanent stone structures. Archaeologist Debby Sneed from California
Astrophysicists on Monday published the largest-ever 3D map of the Universe, the result of an analysis of more than 4 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 Percival of the University of
Climate change is starving polar bears into extinction, according to research published Monday that predicts the apex carnivores could all but disappear within the span of a human lifetime. In some regions they are already caught in a vicious downward spiral, with shrinking sea ice cutting short the time bears have for hunting seals, scientists
SpaceX’s customer for the Anasis-2 mission was Lockheed Martin on behalf of the government of South Korea. WASHINGTON — A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on July 20 launched Anasis-2, South Korea’s first military communications satellite. The rocket lifted off at 5:30 p.m. Eastern from Cape Canaveral, Florida, Less than nine minutes after liftoff the Falcon
Some Salmonella bacteria strains have found a way of evading plant defences and sneaking their way into leafy greens – a strategy that’s effective enough to protect them against plant immune systems and from being washed off in the kitchen. It’s a classic trojan horse manoeuvre that’s both deeply worrying and impressive in its ingenuity:
The first Arab space mission to Mars blasted off Monday aboard a rocket from Japan, after weather delays set back the launch of the probe dubbed ‘Hope’. A live feed of the launch showed the rocket carrying the uncrewed probe, known as “Al-Amal” in Arabic, lifting off from the Tanegashima Space Centre in southern Japan.
We might have a problem with our roads: researchers have discovered that sunlight and rain might be able to turn certain compounds in asphalt into a potentially dangerous hydrocarbons, threating the surrounding environment and people using these routes. In particular, it’s the binder (also called asphalt cement) that’s the problem. This heavy, black glue is