Science

TOKYO — SpaceX says it will not be able to recover the 20 Starlink satellites left in a very low orbit after a malfunction of a Falcon 9 upper stage on a July 11 launch. In a statement July 12, the company said that the 20 satellites on the Group 9-3 launch have been unable

Performing at the absolute pinnacle of athletic endeavor can play havoc on the human body. When you push yourself beyond your limits, you can end up in a world of pain. There are the injuries, of course. And for the 14,500 or so athletes – and their staff – expected to take up residence in

NASA has invested $725,000 in a new rocket system that could solve one of the major obstacles standing in our way of sending humans to Mars: travel time. With current technology, a round-trip to the red planet would take almost two years. For astronauts, spending that much time in spaceflight comes with big health risks.

Without easy access to freshwater lakes, streams, and dams, roughly one out of every four humans depends on reservoirs beneath Earth’s surface for survival. By the end of the century, tens to hundreds of millions could be deprived of even this tenuous supply of moisture as rising temperatures risk turning shallow groundwater supplies into toxic

WASHINGTON — Booz Allen Hamilton, the U.S. defense and intelligence contractor, announced July 11 that its corporate venture capital arm, Booz Allen Ventures, has made a strategic investment in Quindar, an early-stage commercial space technology company.  The investment aims to support Quindar’s platform for automating satellite operations. Satellite owners use Quindar’s app to analyze, test

The mysterious, sudden abandonment of the ancient lost city of Cahokia by its inhabitants has been puzzling historians for a long time now – and experts have cast fresh doubt on one of the most popular theories to date. For several hundred prosperous years, Cahokia was the place to be in what is now the

One of the most sought-after objects in the Universe has just been detected right here in the Milky Way galaxy. At the center of a tightly packed, spherical cluster of stars named Omega Centauri around 17,000 light-years away, astronomers have found evidence of an intermediate-mass black hole, tipping the cosmic scales at a mass equivalent

A rare species of tree cactus has gone extinct in Florida, in what is believed to be the first species lost to sea level rise in the United States, researchers said Tuesday. The Key Largo tree cactus (Pilosocereus millspaughii) was restricted to a single small population in the Florida Keys, an archipelago off the southern

Harnessing energy from nuclear fusion – the combining of nuclei, which lie within atoms – could be instrumental in the shift towards a decarbonised global energy system. As issues of climate change and energy security are becoming increasingly salient, the promise of an apparently “clean”, “abundant” and “safe” energy source, such as fusion, is ever

TOKYO — A Japanese conglomerate has established a new subsidiary seeking to develop a module that could be installed on future commercial space stations. The new venture, called Japan LEO Shachu, Inc., is a wholly owned subsidiary of Mitsui & Co. that was formally established on July 1, its chief executive, Yudai Yamamoto, said in

From conveying precise instruction to evoking entire new worlds, words and their meanings are central to our existence as humans. But how the multitude of cells making up a human brain take abstract noises or symbols and convert them into something with meaning has long been a mystery. New techniques that can track brain activity

Since astronauts departed the lunar surface for the last time 52 years ago, time has ticked on by. Relative to us Earthlings, the Moon has pined for our return just a little longer – by roughly 1.1 seconds. It doesn’t sound like much, and neither does the 57 millionths (0.0000575) of a second that the

Scientists have uncovered a new source of hazardous “forever chemical” pollution: the rechargeable lithium-ion batteries found in most electric vehicles. Some lithium-ion battery technologies use a class of PFAS chemicals, or per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances, that helps make batteries less flammable and conduct electricity. Scientists found high levels of these PFAS in air, water, snow, soil,

WASHINGTON — MDA Space, the recently rebranded Canadian space technology firm, selected Belgium-based Aerospacelab to supply components for its new line of satellites, expanding its roster of international partners. Aerospacelab announced July 8 that it will provide more than 200 battery charge regulators for MDA Space’s Aurora satellites over a three-year period starting in 2026.

New research has found a link between the height of ceilings in exam halls and the performance of students, which might sound a bit crazy, but makes more and more sense as you think about it. While the shape of a room can’t compensate for your lack of revision or make you any smarter than

We finally know what brought light to the dark and formless void of the early Universe. According to data from the Hubble and James Webb Space Telescopes, the origins of the free-flying photons in the early cosmic dawn were small dwarf galaxies that flared to life, clearing the fog of murky hydrogen that filled intergalactic

Hopefully you’re already aware of the basic safety precautions required when it comes to fireworks – but what you might not know is the accompanying increase in air pollution that goes along with the loud bangs, pops, and fizzes, as outlined in a new study. The team behind a new study led by researchers from

Our latest research has found that clickable links on websites can often be redirected to malicious destinations. We call these “hijackable hyperlinks” and have found them by the millions across the whole of the web, including on trusted websites. Our paper, published at the 2024 Web Conference, shows that cybersecurity threats on the web can

The four volunteers who have been living and working inside NASA’s first simulated yearlong Mars habitat mission are set to exit their ground-based home on Saturday, July 6. NASA will […] The post Super Press Release Test appeared first on SpaceNews. View original source here.

The ‘cool kids’ have always been portrayed as a fun-loving, risk-taking bunch, and a new study suggests this may have some basis in fact – for adolescents back in the 90s, at least. Economist Colin Peter Green from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, with University of Sheffield health economist Luke B. Wilson and

Wherever the JWST looks in space, matter and energy are interacting in spectacular displays. The Webb reveals more detail in these interactions than any other telescope because it can see through dense gas and dust that cloak many objects. In a new image, the JWST spots a young protostar only 100,000 years old. The star

The World Meteorological Organization, which is tracking Hurricane Beryl’s deadly course through the Caribbean, told AFP that more storms with its hallmarks could be expected in the future. The WMO, the United Nations’ weather and climate agency, said the record-breaking tropical cyclone intensified rapidly, picking up energy over a warmer Atlantic Ocean and developing into

Swimmers battling for gold at this month’s Paris Olympics are banking on the latest cutting-edge swimsuits to be their secret weapon in the pool. Competitors believe innovation can be the difference in a sport where medals are sometimes decided by a mere fingertip, although the evidence is not so sure. Driven by technology that takes

Updated 8:25 p.m. Eastern with post-launch statement. TOKYO — Firefly Aerospace placed eight cubesats into orbit on a mission funded by NASA on the first flight of the company’s Alpha rocket since an upper stage malfunction more than half a year ago. The Alpha rocket lifted off from a foggy Vandenberg Space Force Base in

Scientists have identified a unique form of cell messaging occurring in the human brain, revealing just how much we still have to learn about its mysterious inner workings. Excitingly, the discovery hints that our brains might be even more powerful units of computation than we realized. Back in 2020, researchers from institutes in Germany and

The face of the Moon is famous for its grey, pockmarked complexion, but did you know that if you turn a telescope to our planet’s neighboring satellite, you will also see bright patches blemishing the surface? Ever since these quirky features known as lunar swirls were first spotted way back in the 1600s, scientists have

When Hurricane Beryl hit the Grenadine Islands on July 1, its 150 mph winds and awesome storm surge made it the earliest category 5 storm (the most destructive grade on the Saffir-Simpson hurricane wind scale) the tropical Atlantic has seen. An active hurricane season in 2024 was forecast well in advance. However, the speed at

Little more than a handful of corroded bronze wheels and heavily encrusted gears now remains of the ancient artifact called the Antikythera mechanism, leaving archaeologists to speculate over its functionality and purpose. After decades of study, it’s largely agreed that the millennia-old device was something of an analog computer capable of keeping track of celestial

HELSINKI — Chinese commercial satellite maker MinoSpace has secured more than $137 million to further its design and production aspirations. MinoSpace, also known as Beijing Weina Star Technology Co., Ltd., announced the funding June 24, now describing itself as a commercial space unicorn enterprise, having secured 1 billion yuan ($137 million). Wuxi Economic Development Zone

Whether you’re left, right or ambidextrous, “handedness” is part of our identity. But a lot of people don’t realise that we have other biases too and they are not unique to humans. My colleagues and I have published a new study that shows aligning our biases in the same way as other people may have