Science

Fiber-optic cables stretch across oceans and wind their way underground to handle our communications systems, and scientists think that this vast network of infrastructure could be put to another use: observing Earth’s surface from below. Specifically, the 1.2 million kilometers (more than 745,000 miles) of existing fiber-optic cable could be combined with satellites and other

SDA said the rebranding does not reflect any change to the mission WASHINGTON — The Space Development Agency is renaming its planned network of military satellites “Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture,” the agency announced Jan. 23. SDA, a former Defense Department agency that is now part of the U.S. Space Force, previously used the name “National

There is no sea creature whose name inspires terror – rightly or wrongly – as much as the great white shark. With its sleek body optimized for hunting, its sharp teeth, and its (somewhat undeserved) reputation for enjoying human flesh, the great white (Carcharodon carcharias) is widely regarded as one of the ocean’s top predators.

Tractor beams make intuitive sense. Matter and energy interact with each other in countless ways throughout the Universe. Magnetism and gravity are both natural forces that can draw objects together, so there’s sort of a precedent. But engineering an actual tractor beam is something different. A tractor beam is a device that can move an

At 3.63 meters (12 feet) tall and 4.37 meters across, the painting known commonly as The Night Watch is Rembrandt’s largest painting. Centuries after its creation, we’re still uncovering the smallest of details in its pigments, thanks to advances in modern technology. A team of researchers from across Europe have found an unexpected molecule while

A team of astrophysicists has discovered a binary pair of ultra-cool dwarfs so close together that they look like a single star. They’re remarkable because they only take 20.5 hours to orbit each other, meaning their year is less than one Earth day. They’re also much older than similar systems. We can’t see ultra-cool dwarf

Increasingly tempestuous winds have been sweeping dust from Earth’s deserts into our air at an increasing rate since the mid-1800s. New data suggests that this uptick has masked up to 8 percent of current global warming. Using satellite data and ground measurements, researchers detected a steady increase in these microscopic airborne particles since 1850. Soil

TAMPA, Fla. — The satellite behind Europe’s next flagship space mission is ready to be sent to French Guiana for an April launch to explore three of Jupiter’s largest icy moons, manufacturer Airbus announced Jan. 20. The Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE) has been undergoing final assembly and testing for nearly a year and a

Australian rangers have killed an invasive “monster” cane toad discovered in the wilds of a coastal park – a warty brown specimen as long as a human arm and weighing 2.7 kilograms (6 pounds). The toad was spotted after a snake slithering across a track forced wildlife workers to stop as they were driving in

Night is naturally suited for paranormal activity, with less light and sound to limit the imagination. While the relationship is still murky, new research shows an interesting link between paranormal beliefs and one of the most important night-time activities for we earthly beings: sleep. In a new study, researchers found subjective measures of poorer sleep

Hydrogen is a key building block of the cosmos. Whether stripped down to its charged core, or piled into a molecule, the nature of its presence can tell you a lot about the Universe’s features on the largest of scales. For that reason astronomers are very interested in detecting signals from this element, wherever it

“We know more about the Moon than the deep sea.” This idea has been repeated for decades by scientists and science communicators, including Sir David Attenborough in the 2001 documentary series The Blue Planet. More recently, in Blue Planet II (2017) and other sources, the Moon is replaced with Mars. As deep-sea scientists, we investigated

Frank Calvelli said his push for speed and agility in procurement programs is starting to resonate WASHINGTON — As Frank Calvelli nears his first year as head of military space acquisitions, he is optimistic that his push for speed and agility in procurement programs is starting to resonate. In addition to long-term reforms, there are

On a hot day in the Australian outback, a koala hugs the cool branches of a eucalypt, while a wombat hides underground in its burrow, and a kangaroo spits on its wrists to chill its blood vessels. Nearer the coast, a fur seal on the rocks pees on its flippers. The echidna is different. It

Don’t try this at home, but beaming a laser into the sky could avert lightning strikes, according to a new study from a team of scientists who experimented with the lasers atop a Swiss mountain where a great big metal telecommunications tower stands. Physicist Aurélien Houard, from the French National Center for Scientific Research’s Applied

One of the most hotly debated questions in the history of Neanderthal research has been whether they created art. In the past few years, the consensus has become that they did, sometimes. But, like their relations at either end of the hominoid evolutionary tree, chimpanzees and Homo sapiens, Neanderthals‘ behavior varied culturally from group to

Saturn’s own orbiting winter wonderland, Enceladus, could be in the midst of a relative dry spell, according to new measures on the thickness of its snowdrifts by a team of researchers from across the US. Calculations based on the sizes of a series of depressions called tectonic pit chains suggest the deposits of ice particles

As climates around the world grow harsher and increasingly unpredictable, concerns are increasing over our world’s food security. Already, yields of staple crops like maize and wheat are dropping in low-latitude tropical regions and in dry and drying regions such as African drylands and parts of the Mediterranean. Wealthy countries are far from immune. Australia

The hottest startup in Silicon Valley right now is OpenAI, the Microsoft-backed developer of ChatGPT, a much-hyped chatbot that can write a poem, college essay, or even a line of software code. Tesla tycoon Elon Musk was an early investor in OpenAI and Microsoft is reported to be in talks to up an initial investment

For decades, open systems architectures and open standards have helped accelerate innovation to end users in aerospace and defense applications through the development of interfaces that are open, key, and well-defined. Today, space system designers and developers are truly embracing the SpaceVPX (VITA 78) standard, which leverages the OpenVPX (VITA 65.0) architecture through its slot

Sloths are surprisingly stronger than their adorably dopey expressions suggest, which makes sense given they live their lives dangling from trees literally by their bony fingernails. Puzzlingly, in spite of using all four limbs to grip onto branches, sloths seem to be extra strong on their left side compared to their right. New York Institute

When it comes to discovering lost civilizations, it’s a pretty big find: close to 1,000 previously hidden Maya settlements have been found in northern Guatemala thanks to LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) laser scanning from the air. The area that these settlements cover is vast: the buildings and structures spotted by researchers stretch across some

When it comes to finding life outside of our Solar System, planets that closely resemble Earth seem like a good place to start. We can now welcome celestial object TOI 700 e to that group of promising leads. TOI 700 e has been confirmed orbiting inside the habitable zone of its star, TOI 700. That’s

Deforestation in the Amazon is nearing the point of no return, and if this ecosystem falls, it could flip from a vast carbon sink to a gushing carbon tap. Already, some climate scientists suspect the rainforest is spewing more carbon than it’s absorbing. If the Amazon crosses a critical threshold of self-resilience, a new study

TAMPA, Fla. — Five Earth observation satellites from Japan’s Axelspace are helping NorthStar Earth and Space keep tabs on orbits ahead of the Canadian firm’s proposed Space Situational Awareness (SSA) constellation. An onboard software update has enabled the satellites to collect SSA data as they periodically travel across the dark side of the planet in

The animal world is full of delightfully odd genitals, from argonauts that detach their own sperm-bearing arm and send it off to find a female to mate with, to echidna males with four tipped penises. Some insects have even weaponized their genitals to fight predators. In another stand-out arrangement, male and female cave-dwelling barklice Neotrogla

Silently churning away at the heart of every atom in the Universe is a swirling wind of particles that physics yearns to understand. No probe, no microscope, and no X-ray machine can hope to make sense of the chaotic blur of quantum cogs whirring inside an atom, leaving physicists to theorize the best they can

After more than 200 years of being on public display, the 7-foot, 7-inch (2.31-meter) tall skeleton of ‘Irish giant’ Charles Byrne is being removed as an exhibit from the Hunterian Museum in London. Byrne had an undiagnosed benign tumor of the pituitary gland, causing an abundance of the body’s growth hormone and gigantism. The showcasing

It turns out that time travel into the past is actually relatively easy. All you need to do is make the universe rotate. The famous mathematician Kurt Gödel was a friend and neighbor of Albert Einstein at Princeton. He became incredibly curious about Einstein’s general theory of relativity, which was and continues to be our

Another year, another climate record broken. In 2022, an international team of scientists measured the hottest global ocean temperatures in human history. That makes 2022 the seventh year in a row that ocean temperatures have hit new peaks. The record is based on two international timelines of ocean heat data stretching back to the 1950s: