Science

NASA said a gigantic asteroid is set to make a close approach to Earth this week. Scientists have determined the size of the space rock — called 2013 BO76 — to be around 200-450 metres wide, and it will be travelling at a staggering speed of 50,000kmph. Although NASA has classified the asteroid as “potentially

In a major milestone for astronomy, NASA has confirmed the existence of a massive 5,000 planets beyond our own solar system. Not so long ago, we only knew a handful of planets that revolved around our Sun, but the quest to know the world beyond always continued. NASA has now added a fresh batch of

Weeks after Moscow forced the 11th-hour cancellation of a rocket launch for British satellite venture OneWeb from Russia’s Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, the company said on Monday it has contracted with Elon Musk’s SpaceX to send its satellites into orbit. Terms of the deal with California-based SpaceX, a direct competitor of OneWeb in the burgeoning broadband

NASA has shared an image of what astronomers say is the first observation of a giant debris cloud formed by a massive collision of celestial bodies. Astronomers observed the cloud as it passed in front of its star and briefly blocked its light. Astronomers have long found evidence of collision among celestial bodies. But those

Scientists have detected a mysterious radio signal emanating from our galaxy, Milky Way, that has left them baffled. They say the signal is so rare that only one other of its kind has ever been identified. They feel the signal could be coming out of a white dwarf pulsar. A pulsar is a rotating neutron

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has been aligned to produce the first unified image of a single star, reaching a critical milestone in its journey to unravel the mysteries of the world far beyond our reach. Most traditional telescopes have a single primary mirror that collects light from distant stars. But Webb has 18 hexagonal

NASA’s next-generation moon rocket was due on Thursday to make a highly anticipated, slow-motion journey from an assembly plant to its launch pad in Florida for a final round of tests in the coming weeks that will determine how soon the spacecraft can fly. Rollout of the towering Space Launch System (SLS) rocket with its Orion

Three Russian cosmonauts blasted off to the International Space Station Friday, as Moscow’s military intervention in Ukraine brought the Kremlin’s relations with the West to their lowest point since the Soviet era. Russian space veteran Oleg Artemyev and rookies Denis Matveyev and Sergei Korsakov set off at 3:55pm GMT (9:25pm IST), a NASA live feed

SpaceX successfully launched its Falcon 9 rocket for a record-breaking 12th time on Saturday (March 19), and then returned to Earth for yet another successful touchdown. The Falcon 9 was launched into low-Earth orbit from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 12:24am ET on March 19 (9:54am IST), carrying 53 of SpaceX’s Starlink Internet

Russia will start work on its own Mars mission given that the European Space Agency (ESA) has suspended a joint project in the wake of the Ukraine invasion, Interfax news agency quoted a top official as saying on Friday. The ESA announced on Thursday that it would be impossible to continue cooperating with Russia on

Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space tourism service has postponed until March 29 a flight initially set for next week, while Saturday Night Live comic Pete Davidson will not be a passenger on the launch, the company said on Thursday. The company, in a brief notice first posted on Twitter, gave no immediate explanation for the

NASA’s massive new rocket began its first journey to a launchpad on Thursday ahead of a battery of tests that will clear it to blast off to the Moon this summer. It left the Kennedy Space Center’s Vehicle Assembly Building around 5:47pm ET (21:47 GMT) and began an 11-hour journey on a crawler-transporter to the

Eugene Parker, a pioneering American astrophysicist whose mathematical prediction that charged particles streamed from stars in a solar wind was met with disbelief before he was ultimately vindicated, has died aged 94, NASA said on Wednesday. Parker was hailed as a visionary who laid the groundwork for the field of heliophysics, the science of understanding the

An Indian-American astronaut and one of his colleagues have conducted a spacewalk to work on the International Space Station (ISS), whose services have been extended till 2030. Raja Chari, the commander of the SpaceX crew currently docked at the ISS, and flight engineer Kayla Barron walked out of the safety of the space station’s airlock

A Los Angeles-area startup founded by a veteran spaceflight robotics engineer unveiled on Thursday its full-scale, working prototype for a next-generation lunar rover that is just as fast as NASA’s old “moon buggy” but is designed to do much more. The company, Venturi Astrolab, released photos and video showing its Flexible Logistics and Exploration (FLEX)

On January 7, space scientists in Europe discovered a large asteroid that appeared to be on a collision course with Earth. They calculated that the 230-feet-wide asteroid, named 2022 AE1, was set to hit Earth on July 4, 2023. The time they had to deflect its path was too narrow to actually mount a response,

A team of physicists may have solved the mystery surrounding the matter that is swallowed by black holes. These physicists considered wormholes — theoretical tunnels with two ends at separate points in spacetime — to explain the long-held mystery. Black holes are regions in space through which no matter can pass. The gravity of a

North Korea’s latest launches appear aimed at developing and testing technology that can be used both for spy satellites and in a massive intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capable of launching multiple nuclear warheads, analysts said. North Korea deployed a new ICBM system in February 27 and March 5 test-firings, the US and South Korean officials