Privately owned Odysseus lander makes first U.S. moon touchdown in half-century

A private lander touched down on the moon Thursday but managed just a weak signal back, as flight controllers scrambled to gain better contact with the first U.S. spacecraft to reach the lunar surface in more than 50 years. Tension mounted in the company’s command centre in Houston, as controllers awaited a signal from the spacecraft … Read more

New NASA climate satellite will keep eye on plankton, clouds. Here’s why

NASA’s newest climate satellite rocketed into orbit Thursday to survey the world’s oceans and atmosphere in never-before-seen detail. SpaceX launched the Pace satellite on its $948-million US mission before dawn from Cape Canaveral, Fla., with the Falcon rocket heading south over the Atlantic Ocean to achieve a rare polar orbit. The satellite will spend at … Read more

Iceland’s famous Blue Lagoon evacuated as volcano erupts for 3rd time

A volcano in southwestern Iceland erupted on Thursday for the third time since December, sending jets of lava into the sky and triggering the evacuation of the Blue Lagoon spa, one of the island country’s biggest tourist attractions. The eruption began at about 1 a.m. ET along a three-kilometre fissure northeast of Mount Sýlingarfell, the Icelandic Meteorological … Read more

Purple haze, don’t know why? Here’s the science behind the colourful fog seen in B.C.’s Okanagan

Some residents of British Columbia’s Okanagan Valley were briefly enveloped in shades of pink and purple this morning. In Kelowna, a pink-hued fog appeared for several minutes shortly after 7:30 a.m. PT before returning to the more standard grey. “I thought, ‘OK, what’s going on out there?’” said Lise Guyot of her reaction when she saw the world turn pink … Read more

This robotic, solar-powered plane might be NASA’s new way to explore Mars

Last week, the Ingenuity Mars helicopter made its final flight, far exceeding the expectations of a mission that began nearly three years ago. Now, NASA may be looking at a fixed-wing aircraft to hit the red planet’s skies next. In 2021 the Perseverance rover landed on Mars carrying a small helicopter under its belly named … Read more

Launch day is finally close for these students and their teensy, climate-measuring satellite

Daniel Dolomont, Muneeb Azher, Victoria Vaters and C-CORE vice-president of remote sensing Desmond Power are just a few members of the big team behind the Killick-1 cube satellite. (Submitted by Memorial University) A team of students at Memorial University is counting down to blast-off.  The group of engineers designed and built their own satellite, with a plan … Read more

Why scientists say Canada’s logging industry produces far more emissions than tallied

Canada’s forestry sector is responsible for far more greenhouse gas emissions than show up in official tallies, potentially leading to policies that aren’t in line with the country’s climate goals, a new study suggests. The peer-reviewed study, published in the academic journal Frontiers in Forests and Global Change, found that annual greenhouse gas emissions attributable … Read more

After 15 years, Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen’s wait to go to space gets a little longer

After 15 years of waiting, Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen will have to wait at least one more year before his first flight in space. NASA announced Tuesday that the launch date of the Artemis II mission to the moon, originally scheduled for later this year, has been pushed back nearly a year to September 2025.  … Read more

New study investigates threat of ‘watermelon snow’ to mountain glaciers

The Rocky Mountains conjure up images of grey rugged peaks capped with white. But within the upper reaches of the harsh mountain landscapes, a rosier hue often blooms. Watermelon snow, also known as glacial blood, is caused by algae that turns the snow a startling shade of red. The algae blooms in summer, forming on … Read more