Science

The SpaceX Falcon 9 vehicle may return to flight operations while the overall investigation of the anomaly during a recent Starlink mission remains open, the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said on Friday. SpaceX made the return to flight request for the workhorse vehicle on Thursday and the FAA gave approval on Friday. The agency said

Extreme heat waves are not only a growing threat to humans but also to vital pollinators like bumble bees. A recent study published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B reveals that heat waves can significantly impair bumble bees’ ability to detect the scents of flowers they depend on for food. This discovery raises

For the first time, scientists have successfully detected and measured an invisible electric field enveloping Earth. This field, known as the ambipolar field, was first theorised over 60 years ago and its discovery marks a significant advancement in our understanding of Earth’s atmospheric dynamics. Glyn Collinson, an astronomer at NASA‘s Goddard Space Flight Center, and

NASA has announced that astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov will be launching on the SpaceX Crew-9 mission to the International Space Station (ISS) no earlier than Tuesday, September 24, 2024. This update comes after changes to the mission’s crew composition. Originally, NASA astronauts Zena Cardman and Stephanie Wilson were also part of

Artificial intelligence (AI) is making waves beyond the realm of digital assistants and deepfake technology. Astronomers are now harnessing AI to achieve unprecedented precision in understanding the universe’s fundamental parameters. Researchers at the Flatiron Institute’s Center for Computational Astrophysics (CCA) in New York City have leveraged AI to calculate the five cosmological parameters that characterise

In recent years, advancements in genetic science have brought us startlingly close to the possibility of reviving extinct species such as the woolly mammoth. While this notion sparks the imagination, it also raises significant ethical, ecological, and technological concerns. In 2003, scientists achieved a fleeting success in “de-extinction” by cloning a Pyrenean ibex, a species

NASA will soon provide advanced training to Indian astronauts to send a joint mission to the International Space Station this year or shortly thereafter, US envoy to India Eric Garcetti has said. Garcetti made these remarks while speaking at the “US-India Commercial Space Conference: Unlocking Opportunities for US & Indian Space Startups,” hosted by the

Profluent, a California-based artificial intelligence (AI)-first protein design company, announced its AI model that can generate CRISPR-like proteins that do not occur in nature on Tuesday. CRISPR or Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats is a complex containing important proteins that scientists can use for precise gene editing in organisms. The company claims the usage

Boston Dynamics unveiled the next generation of its humanoid Atlas robot on Wednesday. The announcement came just a day after the company retired the hydraulic Atlas robot. The new Atlas is fully electric and comes with several upgrades over the predecessor, including a superhuman range of motion. In a video, the slender and more athletic

The first solar eclipse of 2024 is all set to darken the skies on April 8. This particular event will be a total solar eclipse, a rare occurrence on Earth. After this event, the next total solar eclipse in the same region will not be seen for two more decades. A total solar eclipse of

Elon Musk’s brain-chip startup Neuralink livestreamed on Wednesday its first patient implanted with a chip using his mind to play online chess. Noland Arbaugh, the 29-year-old patient who was paralyzed below the shoulder after a diving accident, played chess on his laptop and moved the cursor using the Neuralink device. The implant seeks to enable

India will allow 100% foreign direct investment in the manufacture of satellite systems without official approval and eased the rules for launch vehicles, a government statement said, aiming for a greater share of the global space market. India’s space ambitions got a boost when it became the first country to land a spacecraft near the

Elon Musk‘s brain-chip implant company, Neuralink, changed its location of incorporation from Delaware to Nevada, according to the business portals of both states. The development comes about a week after Musk said Tesla would hold a shareholder vote to transfer its state of incorporation to Texas from Delaware after a judge invalidated his $56 billion

Neuralink, the California-based neurotechnology company, has implanted a wireless brain chip in a human for the first time, revealed co-founder Elon Musk. The big development was revealed by Musk on January 29 via a series of posts on X (formerly known as Twitter). Neuralink has been working on creating implantable brain-computer interfaces (BCIs). Last year

The Indian Space Research Organisation’s inaugural solar mission, Aditya-L1, has reached its destination within the anticipated four-month timeframe, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Saturday. Launched on September 2 last year, the spacecraft positioned itself at Lagrange Point 1, from where it will undertake a comprehensive study of the Sun, focusing on the solar corona

ISRO will perform the final manoeuvre on Saturday to inject Aditya-L1 spacecraft — the first space-based Indian observatory to study the Sun — into its final destination orbit, some 1.5 million kilometres from the Earth. According to ISRO officials, the spacecraft will be placed in a halo orbit around Lagrange point 1 (L1) of the

ISRO on Monday successfully launched its maiden X-Ray Polarimeter Satellite that would offer several insights into celestial objects like black holes. ISRO’s ever reliable Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) in its C58 mission, placed the primary X-Ray Polarimeter satellite XPoSat into a 650 km Low Earth Orbit as intended after lifting off at the pre-fixed

The India Meteorological Department (IMD) is testing artificial intelligence (AI) to build climate models to improve weather forecasting as torrential rains, floods and droughts proliferate across the vast country, a top weather official said. Global warming has triggered more intense clashes of weather systems in India in recent years, increasing extreme weather events, which the

Stepping up collaboration, National Aeronautics and Space Administration Administrator Bill Nelson on Tuesday said the US was open to helping India build its own space station.  On a visit to India, Nelson said the US and India were working on plans to send an Indian astronaut to the International Space Station by the end of

Amazon.com said on Thursday its two prototype satellites for its planned Kuiper internet network have been operating successfully in orbit, with the project on track to start launching operational satellites by mid-2024. The Kuiper internet network is set to compete against billionaire Elon Musk‘s Starlink, the world’s largest satellite operator, to offer broadband internet service

About 5 and a 1/2 years from now, astronomers predict, an asteroid about as wide as the Empire State Building is tall will streak through space within 20,000 miles (32,200 kms) of Earth, the closest any celestial object of that size will have come to our planet in modern history. When it does, a spacecraft

Indian scientists plan to seed clouds for the first time to trigger heavy rain in some areas of New Delhi, hoping this will be enough to tackle the smog gripping the world’s most polluted capital for a week, the project’s head said on Thursday. Air quality dips in Delhi ahead of winter every year, when

Space start-up Skyroot Aerospace on Tuesday unveiled its indigenously built Vikram-1 rocket which is expected to deliver satellites to low earth orbit early next year.  Science and Technology Minister Jitendra Singh also inaugurated ‘The MAX-Q Campus’, the new headquarters of the start-up at the GMR Aerospace and Industrial Park at Mamidipally in South Hyderabad. Singh toured

Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Chairman S Somanath on Saturday announced the success of the ‘TV-D1’ (Test Vehicle Development Flight 1) in the Gaganyaan Mission. The test vehicle was launched on the second attempt after it had faced an engine ignition problem at 8:45am IST. ISRO briefly aborted the launch of the first uncrewed test flight

NASA on Wednesday gave the public a first glimpse of what scientists found inside a sealed capsule that was returned to Earth last month carrying a carbon-rich soil sample scooped from an asteroid‘s surface, including water-bearing clay minerals. A small quantity of the material collected by the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft three years ago from the near-Earth

After India’s solar mission, Aditya L1 began its journey towards Lagrange point 1 following a key manoeuvre, it has started studying energetic particles in the solar wind from space and will continue to do so for the rest of its life, a senior astrophysicist said. The study of the solar wind, the continuous flow of charged

Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk‘s brain-chip startup Neuralink said on Tuesday it has received approval from an independent review board to begin recruitment for the first human trial of its brain implant for paralysis patients. Those with paralysis due to cervical spinal cord injury or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis may qualify for the study, it said but

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) announced on Tuesday that its maiden solar mission — Aditya-L1 — has performed the Trans-Lagrangean Point 1 Insertion (TL1I) manoeuvre successfully and the spacecraft was now in a trajectory that will take it to the Sun-Earth L1 point. ISRO also informed that it marked the fifth consecutive time that

India’s Aditya-L1 solar mission spacecraft has commenced collecting scientific data to help scientists analyse particles surrounding Earth, ISRO said on Monday.  The sensors on board India’s first solar observatory have begun measuring ions and electrons at distances greater than 50,000 km from Earth, ISRO announced in a post on X.  The national space agency said

India is set to conduct a key test in its ambitious crewed space mission Gaganyaan as early as next month, the project director of the mission R Hutton told Reuters. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is currently training four astronauts and looking to expand the cohort as it aims for more future manned missions, Hutton said.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) has signed a memorandum of understanding with ISRO and IN-SPACe to support space-tech innovations through cloud computing. The collaboration with ISRO and the Indian National Space Promotion and Authorization Centre (IN-SPACe) is aimed at giving space startups, research institutes and students access to cloud technologies through AWS Activate for new solutions

Black holes, celestial objects known for their gluttony, usually eat stars unlucky enough to stray too close to them in one big gulp, annihilating them with their enormous gravitational pull. But some, it turns out, tend to snack rather than gorge. Researchers said they have observed a supermassive black hole at the center of a

Japan launched its lunar exploration spacecraft on Thursday aboard a homegrown H-IIA rocket, hoping to become the world’s fifth country to land on the Moon early next year. Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) said the rocket took off from Tanegashima Space Center in southern Japan as planned and successfully released the Smart Lander for Investigating