Science

Our satellites are dispassionate observers of Earth’s climate change. From their vantage point they watch as pack ice slowly loses its hold on polar oceans, ice shelfs break apart, and previously frozen parts of the planet turn green with vegetation. Now, scientists have compiled 35 years of satellite data showing that Antarctica is slowly, yet

TAMPA, Fla. — The European Investment Bank (EIB) is lending Sateliot 30 million euros ($32 million) to help the Spanish remote connectivity startup add 16 more nanosatellites to its low Earth orbit network before the end of 2025. Robert de Groot, vice president for the European Union’s investment arm, said Dec. 4 the loan underlines EIB’s

Excavations by the Kuwaiti-Polish Archaeological Mission at a site in Northern Kuwait’s Al-Subiyah desert have uncovered a bizarre-looking clay head representative of the culture of a prehistoric people who flourished in the region between 5500 and 4900 BCE. With an elongated skull, flat nose, absent mouth, and narrow, squinting eyes, the small sculpture looks well

There’s a new contender for your holiday fireplace video. This one comes from NASA, and features rocket engines and boosters to light up your days with Space Launch System holiday cheer. Say goodbye to the crackling logs in fireplace videos of Christmas past. We’ll miss the anticipation of the fire burning down to embers and

WASHINGTON — Varda Space Industries secured a $48 million contract from the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory to test military payloads on the company’s reentry capsules.  A California-based startup focused on in-space manufacturing, Varda Space developed a factory-in-orbit spacecraft — a compact, 120-kilogram satellite engineered to produce high-value materials such as pharmaceuticals in zero-gravity conditions.

A “provocative” new piece in Nature has proposed a whole new group of ancient humans – cousins of the Denisovans and Neanderthals – that once lived alongside Homo sapiens in eastern Asia more than 100,000 years ago. The brains of these extinct humans, who probably hunted horses in small groups, were much bigger than any

Venus‘s reputation as a cautionary tale of an Earth Gone Bad may have been somewhat exaggerated. We’ve thought that, before it became the toxic hellscape we know today, Venus could have once been habitable, with oceans of liquid water shimmering on its surface. New research reveals that Earth’s so-called sister planet may never have had

WASHINGTON — The new European Union commissioner responsible for space says he will focus on improving European competitiveness and security in space, including passage of a long-delayed space law. Andrius Kubilius formally started his tenure as the European Commissioner for Defence and Space on Dec. 1 after members of the European Parliament confirmed him among

When humans go to war, things can get a little sneaky. Clandestine bolt-holes and covert bases of operations are the new normal – and they’re not always able to be repurposed when war ends. Scientists flying in a NASA Gulfstream III jet to measure Arctic ice with a radar therefore got something of a surprise

We’ve known for a while that complex chemistry occurs in space. Organic molecules have been detected in cold molecular clouds, and we have even found sugars and amino acids, the so-called ‘building blocks of life,’ within several asteroids. The raw ingredients of terrestrial life are common in the Universe, and meteorites and comets may have

It’s no secret: when we savour a delicious piece of fish or a platter of seafood, we’re not just consuming valuable omega-3s and vitamin D. Alongside these benefits come less appetising elements – countless micro- and nano-plastics. These plastic particles, measuring less than 5 millimetres, enter our oceans through human waste and penetrate the food

WASHINGTON — A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on Nov. 30 launched the NROL-126 mission for the National Reconnaissance Office. The rocket lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California at 3:10 a.m. Eastern, the NRO said in a statement. Although the launch was scheduled and announced, there was no live broadcast of the liftoff

A bird’s-eye-view of South America’s Yucatán Peninsula has revealed a massive 4,000-year-old fishery in Belize’s largest inland wetland. The long, zigzagging network of human-made canals and ponds re-engineers the watery landscape into what some researchers describe as a massive fish trap, covering 42 square kilometers (16 square miles) in total. Excavations on the ground have

Popular media love talking about asteroid mining using big numbers. Many articles talk about a mission to Psyche, the largest metallic asteroid in the asteroid belt, as visiting a body worth US$10,000,000,000,000,000,000, assumedly because their authors like hitting the ‘0’ key on their keyboards a lot. But how realistic is that valuation? And what does

Every year, billions of vehicles worldwide shed an estimated 6 million tonnes of tire fragments. These tiny flakes of plastic, generated by the wear and tear of normal driving, eventually accumulate in the soil, in rivers and lakes, and even in our food. Researchers in South China recently found tire-derived chemicals in most human urine

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Space Force awarded Raytheon a $196.7 million contract extension for the Global Positioning System Next Generation Operational Control System (OCX), a critical upgrade to the GPS infrastructure that is years behind schedule. The contract, announced Nov. 27 by Space Systems Command, targets the next software upgrade to be delivered by November

Do you prefer Black Friday or Cyber Monday? The January sales or Amazon’s Prime Day? Or perhaps you like to hold out for a good old-fashioned everything-must-go shop clearance. For whatever your shopping habits, there’s a good chance that you like the idea of bagging a bargain. The days and weeks before Black Friday reflect

In 2015, David Hole was prospecting in Maryborough Regional Park near Melbourne, Australia. Armed with a metal detector, he discovered something out of the ordinary – a very heavy, reddish rock resting in some yellow clay. He took it home and tried everything to open it, sure that there was a gold nugget inside the

Microplastics and persistant materials known as ‘forever chemicals‘ are two of our most concerning modern pollution problems. Now new research has shown how their impact on the environment drastically increases when combined. A team from the University of Birmingham in the UK looked at the effects of microplastics and PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) on

HELSINKI — China has announced a strategic roadmap for advancing its Beidou positioning and navigation system by 2035, in a move which could have global implications. The country plans to complete key technology research for the next-generation Beidou system by 2025 and launch three test satellites around 2027, according to the “Beidou Satellite Navigation System

A 2,200-year-old ceramic drinking vessel has confirmed what archaeologists have long suspected: some ancient Egyptians were tripping on hallucinogens. For the first time, scientists have discovered the organic residue of psychedelic plants within an ancient Egyptian artifact, which once held a fruity, fermented sedative, sweetened with honey, tinged with possible licorice, and deliberately imbued with

Astronomers often use the Milky Way as a standard for studying how galaxies form and evolve. Since we’re inside it, astronomers can study it in detail with advanced telescopes. By examining it in different wavelengths, astronomers and astrophysicists can understand its stellar population, its gas dynamics, and its other characteristics in far more detail than

WASHINGTON — NASA estimated it would have to cancel up to four commercial lunar lander missions and delay up to four more to fly a rover mission the agency announced in July it planned to cancel. NASA announced in July its intent to cancel the Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER) mission, citing cost and

Venting when angry seems sensible. Conventional wisdom suggests expressing anger can help us quell it, like releasing steam from a pressure cooker. But this common metaphor is misleading, according to a recent meta-analytic review. Researchers at Ohio State University analyzed 154 studies on anger, finding little evidence that venting helps. In some cases, it could

There was water on Mars as early as 4.45 billion years ago, just a short time after the planet formed from the leftover dust of the growing Sun. The evidence? A tiny grain of zircon, smaller than the width of a human hair, with minerals trapped inside that could only have formed in the presence

WASHINGTON — Firefly Aerospace says it is planning a launch of its first lunar lander mission in January, meaning that none of the three commercial lander missions once slated to launch in the fourth quarter of this year will do so. Firefly announced Nov. 25 that it is planning to launch its Blue Ghost 1

There’s value in hitting your deadlines, a new study shows: work submitted late is often thought to be of lower quality, even if it’s on a par with work finished on time, and the perception of the worker becomes more negative too. Late submissions will get inferior rankings even if they only slightly miss the

The most powerful cosmic-ray electrons and positrons ever detected slamming into Earth’s atmosphere carry energies so high they can only have come from relatively close by, new research has revealed. We’re quite safe and protected down here on Earth’s surface, shielded by an atmospheric bubble, but our planet is under constant bombardment from cosmic rays.

Can you see three trees from your home, school or workplace? Is there tree canopy cover shading at least 30% of the surrounding neighbourhood? Can you find a park within 300 metres of the building? These three simple questions form the basis of the “3+30+300 rule” for greener, healthier, more heat tolerant cities. This simple

HELSINKI — Managing the growing threat of space debris requires greater urgency, with improved sensor capability, filling data gaps, economic incentives and new technologies all needed, according to a panel discussion on the issue. With approximately one million objects measuring between 1 cm and 10 cm orbiting Earth, according to ESA’s models, space debris is