When NASA’s Mars Phoenix mission successfully sampled ice from the Martian arctic regions, it made astrobiological history. This sample, along with others that followed, led scientists to realize that the Martian ice was buried under a layer of dust, although they may have overestimated its degree of dust, new findings suggest. Using a combination of … Read more
A British-built Mars rover is about to become the first spacecraft to drill two meters beneath the Martian surface in search of ancient biological traces. The ExoMars rover “Rosalind Franklin”, manufactured in Stevenage by Airbus for the European Space Agency, will be launched in 2028, and is scheduled to arrive on Mars in 2030. Scientists … Read more
Saturn is at its biggest and brightest when the ringed planet reaches opposition this weekend. The opposition occurs when Earth passes between Saturn and the Sun, bringing the planet to its closest point to Earth during the year, about 784 million miles (1.26 billion kilometers) away. This minimum distance makes Saturn appear brighter than at … Read more
NASA is moving forward with a new mission that is the first of its kind. Last week, NASA announced that it had selected the PRIMA (Probe Far-Infrared Mission for Astrophysics) mission to advance to Phase B of development. This advances the design and technological development of the project, although the mission must still undergo a … Read more
Southern California is located on one of the most active and closely watched fault networks in the United States. Earthquakes typically occur when sections of the Earth’s crust move against each other, get stuck, and slowly build up stress. When that stored energy is finally released, the result can be an earthquake. Two of the … Read more
Earth is in the midst of its fourth global coral bleaching event. Scientists expect that by 2050 the world’s oceans will have warmed so much that most reefs will suffer mass bleaching each year. A surprisingly simple invention could help protect some of them. In a study published today in the journal Frontiers in Marine … Read more
Get the key facts about this news in our 1-minute read. Radio emissions: Researchers have captured direct emissions of radio waves originating from a planet outside our Solar System. MeerKAT array: Using the South African radio telescope array, an international team successfully detected variable bursts coming from Beta Pictoris b. Not extraterrestrials: While some might … Read more
Four astronauts arrived at the International Space Station (ISS) on Thursday after launch on an eight-hour express that set a US speed record and created more history with the first black woman to lead a crew into orbit. SpaceX commander Jessica Watkins and her crew were sent to NASA after a three-week delay to repair … Read more
Under certain conditions, such as temperatures lower than deep space, which weaken bones, superconductors can conduct electricity without resistance and without the resulting loss of energy. Although they vary in their chemical composition, operating temperature ranges, and magnetic properties, superconductors are divided into two groups. First, conventional and unconventional superconductors differ in the way their … Read more
Skin cells taken from frog embryos, placed in a controlled laboratory environment, can reorganize into entirely new multicellular structures that move and perform functions that those cells never performed within the original animal. Researchers have documented this phenomenon in multiple studies, and the findings complicate a boundary that most people consider absolute. Science is real; … Read more