Science

One of the most worrying questions that weigh on the minds of scientists, astronomers as well as the general public is whether the Earth is threatened by a potential asteroid collision? Despite being addressed by the scientific community, this question crops up time and again. Now, a NASA scientist has tried to put all speculation

Four astronauts, three from NASA and one from the European Space Agency, arrived at the International Space Station on Thursday and docked their SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule with the orbiting laboratory to begin a six-month science mission. The rendezvous came about 21 hours after the team and its capsule were launched atop a SpaceX Falcon

NASA scientists have found evidence for a new transiting circumbinary planet. The term refers to any planet which orbits around two different stars. The evidence was received using an unprecedented technique. Researchers used NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) to discover this unique planet. With the use of TESS and its predecessor Kepler space telescope

NASA and private rocket company SpaceX launched four astronauts into orbit late on Wednesday en route to the International Space Station, including a veteran spacewalker and two younger crewmates chosen to join NASA’s future lunar missions. The SpaceX-built launch vehicle, consisting of a Crew Dragon capsule perched atop a two-stage Falcon 9 rocket, climbed into

NASA’s Ingenuity Mars helicopter has soared through the Red Planet’s skies for the 15th time. The chopper, which arrived on Mars attached to the belly of the Perseverance rover, landed within the targeted zone on the Martian surface, said NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), which manages the Ingenuity mission. Initially, when NASA was making the

NASA has shared an image of a nebula captured by its Hubble Space Telescope that looks like a deep tunnel in space. The nebula is formed by a dying star, named HD 44179, which has been shedding its outer layers for about 14,000 years. The star is similar to the Sun, but it is dying

Heinz has produced a ketchup that is becoming popular for more than just its flavour. Made from tomatoes grown in Mars-like conditions, the Marz Edition ketchup reignites the memories of Matt Damon working hard to grow potatoes in his 2015 movie The Martian. A team of 14 astrobiologists worked for months to achieve a similar

A SpaceX capsule carrying four astronauts back to Earth after a busy six months on the International Space Station landed Monday off the coast of Florida, a NASA live broadcast showed. Slowed by the Earth’s atmosphere, as well as four huge parachutes, the Dragon capsule was able to withstand the dizzying descent thanks to its

NASA’s four-member SpaceX Crew-2 mission is targeting a return to Earth on Monday, November 8. The splashdown is expected to be off the coast of Florida, USA. The Crew Dragon spacecraft, named Endeavour, was earlier scheduled to undock from the International Space Station (ISS) on November 7. However, mission teams delayed the return due to

Many of us who enjoy nature, wildlife or just being outdoors have one thing in common – we all love the sensorial experiences that the outdoors provides. Like the sight of the flowing river, the touch of cool breeze in the mountains, the smell of the forest, calls/ songs of the birds to name a

The European Space Agency (ESA) has shared a stunning wide image of one of the biggest impact basins in the Solar System, located on Mars. Hellas, with a diameter of 1,430 miles (2,300km) and a depth of over 4.3 miles (7km), is believed to have formed between 3.8 billion and 4.1 billion years ago after

Astronomers and amatuer skywatchers will get to see the longest lunar eclipse of this century this month. In two weeks from now, on November 19 (Kartik Purnima), Earth will pass between the Sun and Moon, creating a shadow on the Moon’s surface. The near-total lunar eclipse will peak just after 1:30pm IST, when the Earth

NASA is gearing up for the launch of its first planetary defence test, which will involve a spacecraft intentionally crashing into an asteroid to impact its trajectory. The US agency has filled the spacecraft with fuel, performed some final tests, and is running rehearsals for the final mission. Named Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), the

A federal judge on Thursday rejected a lawsuit by Jeff Bezos’ space company Blue Origin against the US government over NASA’s decision to award a $2.9 billion (roughly Rs. 21,559 crore) lunar lander contract to rival billionaire Elon Musk’s SpaceX. Judge Richard Hertling of the US Court of Federal Claims in Washington granted the government’s

Astronomers from India have observed an X-ray binary system in space, known as GRS 1915+105, using the AstroSat, the first dedicated Indian astronomy mission. At a distance of some 28,000 light-years away from the Earth, this system is a superluminal low-mass X-ray binary (LMXB). It was first detected in August 1992. But AstroSat observations confirmed

Agnikul Cosmos, an Indian space tech startup looking to take advantage of the massive space travel opportunity of the next decade, has been grabbing headlines in the recent times. From signing deals with Alaska Aerospace Corporation in the US, to signing an MoU with ISRO for accessing its infrastructure and technical expertise, Agnikul Cosmos has made giant leaps

The European Space Agency (ESA) has announced a new mission where human-made emissions of greenhouse gases will be tracked from space. ESA, in collaboration with the European Union’s (EU) Earth-monitoring programme Copernicus, announced this mission during the UN Climate Change Conference COP26 in Glasgow on November 2. It will incorporate a constellation of satellites called

Boston Dynamics and IBM have joined forces to deploy the popular — but controversial — robot dogs at the US National Grid sites for autonomous inspection. The Boston Dynamics robot, named Spot, will be integrated with artificial intelligence (AI) and other required features developed by IBM Research. The new robot will be initially deployed at the electric and gas utility sites in

NASA’s International Space Station (ISS) saw its first harvest of crops on October 29. The agency shared a photo on Twitter and mentioned that the station’s first harvest was chilli peppers. This harvest was a part of an ISS experiment, called Plant Habitat-04 study. Astronaut Megan McArthur, who is stationed at the ISS, posted another

The help of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been deployed by tech firms and NGOs worldwide to fight the climate change crisis. Gadgets 360 caught up with some, including the team at Sustainable Environment and Ecological Development Society (SEEDS) — a New Delhi-based NGO — and IBM India, to talk about their efforts to apply tech

NASA has signed a pact with National Geographic to help tell the story of Artemis II, the mission which will return US astronauts to the Moon after decades. The first Artemis mission, likely to be launched in February, will be an uncrewed test mission. Artemis II flight will carry astronauts around the Moon and back

A massive solar flare could create dazzling northern lights over parts of the US on Sunday, according to NASA. The space agency said a sun storm erupted on October 28 and sent a vast cloud of charged particles that should reach Earth on Halloween (Sunday, October 31). When these particles hit Earth’s atmosphere, they will

Microblogging site Twitter, which regularly tests new features ahead of their official rollout, has created a new way for some people to check out these new features before everyone else. Twitter has announced that subscribers to its paid Twitter Blue service will get early access to some new features under a new Labs banner. Like

For many, the evolution of humans is a discipline of great interest and curiosity – a way of ascertaining who we are and where we come from. Hence, finding and naming our ancestors is necessary. The practice of assigning names is of significance in science for several reasons, primarily because it helps researchers spread all

After spending nearly half a year, every year, gathering and calculating carbon emissions data on spread sheets, Salesforce.com’s climate team was fed up. So in 2017 they built an app to crunch the numbers – and now they sell it for $4,000 (roughly Rs. 3 lakh) a month. As global companies prepare pledges to help

Virtual clothing trials are the next big thing that can bring fashion and technology together. Computer scientists all around the world are trying to experiment with deep-learning techniques that can be used to virtually dress a 3D avatar (digital versions of humans). Developments in this field are being made in India too. Two researchers at

With so much research getting published every day all over the world, a super-smart search engine has become essential to help parse through seemingly endless scores of academic papers. Faced with the challenge, a technologist has found a way to unlock the world’s research papers for easier computerised analysis. He has released an index of

More than a year after NASA launched the Perseverance rover for Mars, the space agency is bringing the focus back on how its precise landing spot was decided or who chose where it should land. In an Instagram post, NASA said that the rover made the decision moments before it touched down on the surface

China has launched a military satellite that will test its “space debris mitigation technology,” the state media reported earlier this week. The satellite was launched on Sunday from the Xichang Satellite Launch Centre, Sichuan province, Southwest China. Though only a few details were available about the classified launch, some state media reports said the mission

NASA’s main workhorse for deep-space observation has faced a new technical issue this week that has forced scientists to pull it into “safe mode”. The safe mode is designed to keep the Hubble Space Telescope, which has revealed several mysteries of outer space, stable and allow scientists to work on it to address whatever problem

NASA’s Chandra X-ray telescope has found hints of what could be the first planet discovered outside our Milky Way galaxy. The possible signal discovered is located in the Messier 51 galaxy, some 28 million light-years away from Earth. NASA’s Chandra Observatory has been designed in such a way that it can detect X-ray emissions from

Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin on Monday announced it wants to launch a space station that will house up to 10 people in the second half of the decade, as the race to commercialize the cosmos heats up. “Orbital Reef,” described in a press statement as a mixed-use business park in space that will support microgravity

In 1993, Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park introduced the world to dinosaurs like never before. While researchers were interested in the reptile that occupied Earth hundreds of millions of years ago, the movie made people curious about it. Since then, technological advancements have let scientists uncover deep-buried facts about dinosaurs. Today, whatever we know about them,