Science

Jeff Bezos has asked in a post on Twitter if Elon Musk’s $44 billion cash deal to buy Twitter gives China “a bit of leverage over the town square”. The purchase of Twitter by Elon Musk has generated a debate about whether the deal is good for the social media network. In many countries, Twitter

Elon Musk clinched a deal to buy Twitter for $44 billion on Monday in a transaction that will shift control of the social media platform populated by millions of users and global leaders to the world’s richest person. Discussions over the deal, which last week appeared uncertain, accelerated over the weekend after Musk wooed Twitter

Ever wondered how the Earth and the Moon would appear when seen from a Martian orbit? NASA has shared an image that showed them together in a single frame. The image was caught by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) when the Earth was 142 million kilometres from Mars. In the image, only the visible parts

The first all-private astronaut team ever to fly aboard the International Space Station (ISS) departed the orbiting outpost on Sunday to begin a descent back to Earth, capping a two-week science mission hailed as a milestone in commercial spaceflight. A SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule carrying the four-man team from the Houston-based startup company Axiom Space

Since Pluto – the dwarf planet – was discovered in 1930, it has generated considerable interest among astronomers, primarily over its highly eccentric and inclined orbit. New research claims that it is also subject to chaotic perturbance and changes over shorter timescales. At larger timescales, the orbit appears relatively stable. What it really means is

A seismometer placed by NASA’s InSight lander on Mars has detected the two biggest marsquakes to date. According to a new study, the seismic events were of magnitude 4.2 and magnitude 4.1. Both these quakes were five times stronger than the previous largest seismic event recorded.  Researchers now hope to learn more about the interior

The Large Hadron Collider restarted Friday after a three-year break for upgrades that will allow it to smash protons together at even greater speeds, in the hope of making new ground-breaking discoveries. It will further study the Higgs boson, the existence of which it proved in 2012, and put the Standard Model of particle physics

Scientists at Europe’s physics research centre will this week fire up the 27 kilometer-long Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the machine that found the Higgs boson particle, after a shutdown for maintenance and upgrades was prolonged by COVID-19 delays. Restarting the collider is a complex procedure, and researchers at the CERN centre have champagne on hand

If you ever imagined how a solar eclipse would appear from the surface of Mars, you are in for a treat. NASA has shared a “sped-up” video that showed one of Mars’ two moons shadowing the Sun as seen from the Martian surface. The interesting video was shot by the space agency’s Perseverance rover when

SpaceX signed its first deal with an air carrier to provide in-flight wireless Internet using the Starlink satellite network, the space company said on Thursday as it jockeys with other burgeoning satellite firms to put high-speed Internet on commercial airlines. The company, owned by Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk, has been in talks for months

NASA is celebrating the 32nd anniversary of the Hubble Space Telescope (aka HST or Hubble) by sharing a stunning view of five galaxies in deep space depicted in a single image. To recall, the Hubble Space Telescope was launched on April 24, 1990, and deployed the next day. Thus, this week serves as the telescope’s

Bharti group-backed OneWeb and NewSpace India Limited (NSIL), the commercial arm of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), have entered into an agreement that will help ensure OneWeb completes its satellite launch programme, a statement said on Thursday. The first launch with NewSpace India is expected in 2022 from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC)

Amazon’s satellite venture, SpaceX’s Starlink network and other satellite firms on Wednesday won a combined $278.5 million (roughly Rs. 2120 crore) in contracts from NASA to demonstrate communications in space as the US space agency moves to replace its current satellite network in orbit with privately-built systems. NASA is increasingly looking to rely on private

NASA has further delayed the undocking of the Axiom Mission 1 (Ax-1) – the first private astronaut mission to ISS – from the International Space Station (ISS) due to bad weather conditions. The Expedition 67 and Axiom Mission 1 will have to spend extra hours aboard the International Space Station (ISS) for this reason. The

Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk tweeted a series of dashes for a missing word followed by “is the Night”, days after he offered to buy Twitter Inc for $43 billion (roughly Rs. 3,28,534 crore). The offer from Musk, who has hinted at the possibility of a hostile bid, has prompted the social media company to adopt

NASA’s Hubble telescope has captured the interstellar visitor Comet Borisov to our solar system and shared its movement as a runaway point of light in a time-lapse video. The agency said that it “was a rocky visit”. Discovered by amateur astronomer Gennady Borisov in 2019, it is the first confirmed comet to enter our solar

China will launch three more astronauts to its newest space station in June after the latest crew returned this weekend following a six-month stay in orbit, an official said Sunday. The crew of the Shenzhou 14 capsule will spend six months on the Tiangong to add two modules to the station, Hao Chun, director of

SpaceX successfully launched one of its Falcon 9 carrier rockets with a US intelligence satellite on board on Sunday, broadcasting the launch live. The launch took place at the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California at 9:13am local time (9:43pm IST). The rocket is putting into orbit the NROL-85 mission for the US National Reconnaissance Office

Three Chinese astronauts returned to Earth safely on Saturday after spending a record six months aboard China’s new space station, doubling the previous stay of the country’s longest single flight in space.The Shenzhou-13 capsule carrying astronauts Zhai Zhigang, Wang Yaping and Ye Guangfu touched down successfully at 9:56 am local time in the Dongfeng landing

NASA’s InSight Mars lander has recently shared an incredible sight. On April 10, it captured the stunning view of a sunrise on the Red Planet. InSight is NASA’s first mission to study the interior of Mars — its crust, mantle, and core — in depth. It has been on the Red Planet since late 2018.