Running horizontally could help future lunar settlers stay in shape on the Moon

Scientists have taken a clue from a carnival stunt known as the Wall of Death to help future astronauts on the moon stay healthy. But instead of riding motorcycles, moon colonists will simply run around the walls. For decades, carnival goers have been thrilled at the spectacle of stunt drivers taking motorcycles and even cars up … Read more

China blasts off on mission that could provide 1st samples of far side of the moon

China on Friday launched a lunar probe to land on the far side of the moon and return with samples that could provide insights into differences between the less-explored region and the better-known near side. It is the latest advance in China’s increasingly sophisticated space exploration program, which is now competing with the U.S., still … Read more

How Nasa managed to reestablish contact with most distant spacecraft from Earth

NEW DELHI: After five months of silence, Nasa‘s Voyager 1 spacecraft is back in touch with Earth, having overcome a perplexing communication glitch through an innovative fix. The probe, which is currently 15 billion miles away from Earth, experienced issues with its flight data system’s telemetry modulation unit in November 2023, resulting in indecipherable data … Read more

Nasa’s Voyager 1 phones home after months

WASHINGTON: Nasa’s Voyager 1 probe — the most distant man-made object in the universe — is returning usable information to ground control following months of spouting gibberish, the US space agency announced Monday.The spaceship stopped sending readable data back to Earth on November 14, 2023, even though controllers could tell it was still receiving their … Read more

No planet comes close to the life-giving properties of planet Earth — at least not yet

With the discovery of more than 5,600 planets orbiting other stars and images from robots we have sent to all the planets in our solar system, it is becoming abundantly clear that Earth is unique among worlds. Almost all of the exoplanets scientists have discovered since the 1990s fall into four main types: gas giants like Jupiter … Read more

NASA pauses Mars sample return plan until a cheaper, faster one can be developed

NASA’s plan to bring samples from Mars back to Earth is on hold until there’s a faster, cheaper way, space agency officials said Monday. Retrieving Mars soil and rocks has been on NASA’s to-do list for decades, but the date kept moving forward, as costs ballooned. A recent independent review put the total cost at … Read more

Engineers attempt to fix a computer glitch on Voyager 1

Last November, the Voyager 1 spacecraft began sending gibberish radio signals back to Earth. Engineers have now identified the problem, but trying to repair a 46-year-old device on a craft 24 billion kilometres from Earth is not easy. Voyager 1 and its twin Voyager 2 were both launched in 1977 on a reconnaissance mission to … Read more

Nasa’s quest for alien life: A single grain of ice could hold the key

NEW DELHI: Lab experiments have shown for the first time that spacecraft traversing through ice plumes in space might aid in identifying extraterrestrial life. This detection is possible even from minute portions of a cell contained within ice grains. If extraterrestrial life exists on moons such as Saturn’s Enceladus or Jupiter’s Europa, the massive geysers … Read more

Russian spacecraft Soyuz’s launch aborted seconds before take-off

NEW DELHI: The planned launch of Russia‘s Soyuz MS-25 spacecraft to the International Space Station (ISS) was abruptly canceled mere seconds before its scheduled departure on Thursday. Set for lift-off from Baikonur spaceport in Kazakhstan, the spacecraft was to transport astronauts from Russia, the United States, and Belarus.The cancellation, occurring precisely at 4:21 pm Moscow … Read more

‘Armageddon’ moment: ‘Nasa paid $1 billion to this man to stop an asteroid crashing into Earth’

NEW DELHI: The enthralling narrative of Nasa‘s billion-dollar mission to Bennu, aimed at preventing a potential asteroid collision, is meticulously chronicled in Dante Lauretta‘s book, “The Asteroid Hunter: A Scientist’s Journey to the Dawn of our Solar System.” Lauretta, a prominent figure in the field and the principal investigator of the mission, offers a first-hand … Read more