Science

Last year, scientists detected the most energetic gamma ray burst we’ve ever seen. A distant galaxy spat out a colossal flare in the range of a trillion electron volts (TeV), providing invaluable new insight into the physics of these incredibly energetic events. That was pretty amazing on its own – but now astrophysicists have used

Although we usually have a pretty good handle on all the different kinds of blips and blobs detected by our telescopes, it would be unwise to assume we’ve seen everything there is to see out there in the big, wide Universe. Case in point: a new kind of signal spotted by radio telescopes, which has

The annual mean global temperature is likely to be at least 1 degree Celsius above pre-industrial levels in each of the next five years, the World Meteorological Organization said Thursday. The WMO said there was a 20 percent chance that it will exceed 1.5 C above 1850 to 1900 average levels in at least one

Social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram started out as a way to connect with friends, family and people of interest. But anyone on social media these days knows it’s increasingly a divisive landscape. Undoubtedly you’ve heard reports that hackers and even foreign governments are using social media to manipulate and attack you. You

Collins Aerospace, Raytheon and TAG have to develop devices that are smaller in size and have low power consumption than the ones currently used by the military. WASHINGTON — Collins Aerospace, Raytheon and Technology Advancement Group were awarded contracts to develop Global Positioning System handheld devices for the U.S. military. The U.S. Space Force’s Space

The underwater caves along Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula contain within them a sprawling labyrinth of archaeological relics perhaps unlike anywhere else on Earth. Preserved in a vast network of flooded caverns, these inundated cenotes hold a treasure trove of Maya secrets – but as a new discovery shows, you can also find ancient artefacts dating back to

In July of 2015, Breakthrough Initiatives announced that it was embarking on a ten-year initiative to conduct the largest Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) to date. This initiative was aptly named Breakthrough Listen, which combines state-of-the-art software and data obtained by premier observatories around the world to look for signs of extraterrestrial technological activity (aka. technosignatures). In recent

Maj. Gen. Chance Saltzman wil serve as acting staff director of the Office of the Chief of Space Operations. WASHINGTON — The U.S. Space Force Pentagon headquarters will have a leaner staff structure than traditional military service headquarters and some senior staff posts will be assigned to civilians, according to a draft proposal. The Space

While bats live nearly all over the world, only some parts of our planet are blessed with flying foxes. So it’s no wonder that a recent photo of a huge fruit bat in the Philippines has gone viral on social media. “Remember when I told y’all about the Philippines having human-sized bats? Yeah, this was

There’s a new exotic subatomic particle on the atom smasher. Physicists working with CERN’s Large Hadron Collider beauty (LHCb) collaboration have found a new form of the elusive four-quark particle called a tetraquark that they have never seen before. The newly identified particle is made up of four quarks of the same flavour and is

Imagine being completely blind but still being able to see. Does that sound impossible? Well, it happens. A few years ago, a man (let’s call him Barry) suffered two strokes in quick succession. As a result, Barry was completely blind, and he walked with a stick. One day, some psychologists placed Barry in a corridor

Finding a potentially habitable exoplanet isn’t as easy as you might think. Orbiting at a temperate distance from the host star is just the first step. Size and composition also play a role – as does the level of flare activity in the star. And all of that doesn’t mean much if the system is

Earth’s oceans are simmering with the heat trapped by increasing amounts of greenhouse gases. But one patch of water in the North Atlantic is stubbornly resisting the trend, and actually dropping in temperature. This ‘cold blob‘ has been a subject of interest for climatologists ever since it was first spotted back in 2015. Unfortunately, the

DevOps plus ‘work from anywhere’ is the real endgame for satellite operators The space industry as we know it was born in the glory days of the Space Age, the 1960s. The collaboration between astronauts on the surface of the moon and Mission Control engineers in Houston was the most “remote” work ever accomplished to

Whale sharks, the majestic creatures that also happen to be the world’s largest fish, are far more gentle than the name suggests. They swim lazily around tropical waters, filter-feeding on plankton. Now, biologists have discovered the enigmatic giants have a curious trick up their sleeve – teeth-like scales adorning their eyeballs. It appears to be

If you studied algebra in high school (or you’re learning it right now), there’s a good chance you’re familiar with the quadratic formula. If not, it’s possible you repressed it. By this point, billions of us have had to learn, memorise, and implement this unwieldy algorithm in order to solve quadratic equations, but according to

We love flyover videos from other worlds. These stunning videos, created from imagery gathered by orbiting spacecraft, can give us a sense of what it would be like to fly in an airplane on another planet. This latest flyover video from the European Space Agency’s Mars Express spacecraft, provides a stunning view of one of

The coronavirus isn’t the only thing plaguing East Africa. Amid a global pandemic, people in this region of the world are also contending with another “extremely serious” threat to their lives and livelihoods: locusts. After one of the wettest years on record, these voracious insects have been gathering forces since 2019, as weather conditions allowed

A US Navy ship downed a flying drone with a “solid state laser” in the Pacific Ocean, the service branch announced on Friday. The USS Portland (LPD-27), a San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock ship, deployed its Technology Maturation Laser Weapon System Demonstrator (LWSD) against an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) last week during a demonstration, the

WASHINGTON — NASA plans to issue multiple contracts in the coming months for smallsat launch services in the second phase of a program intended to support the emerging small launch vehicle industry. NASA’s Launch Services Program released a draft request for proposals July 1 for its proposed Venture Class Launch Service (VCLS) Demonstration 2 procurement.

Disturbing reports of a mass elephant die-off have emerged from Botswana over the last two months, with more than 350 elephant carcasses spotted since May. Some of the elephants were found face down, suggesting a sudden collapse. Most of their bodies were located around water sources in the northern parts of the Okavango Delta, a

Picture in your mind the delta of a river – the way the main channel splits into smaller rivulets and tributaries. Something similar occurs in waves as they propagate through a certain kind of medium: the path of the wave splits, breaking up into smaller channels like the branches of a tree. This is called

So you want to colonize Mars, huh? Well Mars is a long ways away, and in order for a colony to function that far from Earthly support, things have to be thought out very carefully. Including how many people are needed to make it work. A new study pegs the minimum number of settlers at

Renewable energy such as wind and solar projects are already cheaper to build than it is to continue operating 40 percent of the world’s existing coal fleet, according to analysis released Tuesday. In a report outlining how the world can phase out the most polluting fuel while powering an economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic,

Synthetic gas, or syngas for short, is a crucial building block in the chemical manufacturing industry. Most people may never have heard of syngas, but every day it is used in the production of drugs, fertiliser, plastic, and biofuels. Unfortunately, even when syngas – a mix of hydrogen and carbon monoxide – is fermented to produce

WASHINGTON — Amazon Web Services is increasing its effort to sell cloud services to the space industry through the formation of a dedicated business segment called “Aerospace and Satellite Solutions.”  “AWS is committed to supporting our customers’ missions, even those outside the Earth’s atmosphere,” Teresa Carlson, vice president of worldwide public sector at AWS, said

Every second, trillions upon trillions of incredibly low-mass subatomic particles called neutrinos shoot out from the Sun and slide undetected through your body. These neutrinos are produced by the two known types of fusion reactions that happen in our Sun, and up until now scientists have only detected one group of them – the neutrinos

For over 1,000 years, the ancient Maya city of Tikal stood tall, embodying one of the largest and most important urban centres ever built by this enigmatic and enduring pre-Columbian civilisation. By the late 9th century CE however, this Maya metropolis was unravelling. Around this time, Tikal and a number of other Maya cities were abandoned,

On 2 July 2019, the Moon cast its shadow on the surface of the Earth. This time, the shadow’s path travelled across the South Pacific Ocean. It also passed over some of Argentina and Chile. For surface dwellers in the path, the Moon briefly blocked the Sun, turning night into day. But for one “eye”