SpaceX’s 30th robotic Dragon cargo ship is headed back home to Earth. Dragon departed from the International Space Station (ISS) today (April 28) at 1:10 p.m. EDT (1710 GMT), while the two spacecraft were flying over Thailand. It was orbital nighttime in that locale, so there were no good visuals of the moment of undocking. […]
SpaceX launched 23 more of its Starlink internet satellites to orbit on Sunday evening (April 28). The Starlink spacecraft lifted off atop a Falcon 9 rocket from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 6:08 p.m. EDT (2208 GMT). Related: Starlink satellite train: How to see and track it in the night sky The first […]
Shaping an ambitious and steady space agenda for Europe requires not only diplomatic aplomb but also a firm grounding in science and engineering. Indeed, those attributes are must-haves in working with the 22 member states of the European Space Agency (ESA). Josef Aschbacher is ESA’s director general, taking on that role in March 2021. He […]
Curious Kids is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to curiouskidsus@theconversation.com. Why can’t we throw all our trash into a volcano and burn it up? – Georgine T. It’s true that lava is hot enough to burn up some of our […]
The abandoned fieldstone walls of New England are every bit as iconic to the region as lobster pots, town greens, sap buckets and fall foliage. They seem to be everywhere – a latticework of dry, lichen-crusted stone ridges separating a patchwork of otherwise moist soils. Stone walls can be found here and there in other […]
Grizzly bears will be reintroduced to Washington state’s North Cascades mountain range, the federal government said this week — a decision that followed years of bitterly divided debate. But it may still be years before the creatures step foot in the remote and rugged landscape, given that the complicated process requires trapping, trucking and moving […]
On Episode 108 of This Week In Space, Rod and Tariq talk about the long-awaited crew flight test of Boeing’s Starliner commercial spacecraft. We’ve been waiting… and waiting… and waiting for Boeing’s Starliner to fly. First selected in 2010, along with SpaceX’s Crew Dragon, Starliner has been behind schedule for years. SpaceX got $2.6 billion […]
This article was originally published at The Conversation. The publication contributed the article to Space.com’s Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. Jonti Horner is an astronomer and astrobiologist based at the University of Southern Queensland, in Toowoomba, Queensland. Hot on the heels of the disappointing Green Comet, astronomers have just discovered a new comet with the potential to be next […]
HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) — From ancient fertilizer methods in Zimbabwe to new greenhouse technology in Somalia, farmers across the heavily agriculture-reliant African continent are looking to the past and future to respond to climate change. Africa, with the world’s youngest population, faces the worst effects of a warming planet while contributing the least to the […]
SpaceX will tie its rocket-reuse record tonight (April 27), if all goes according to plan. A Falcon 9 rocket is scheduled to launch the European Commission’s Galileo L12 mission from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida today at 8:34 p.m. EDT (0034 GMT on April 28). It will be the 20th launch for this […]
Editor’s note: A version of this story appeared in CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free here. From a speck of bone, scientists can tease out astonishing information about the past. Analysis of ancient DNA recovered from human remains has illuminated the traits and ancestry of historic individuals […]
Seasonal, spider-like features have been spotted sprouting through cracks in Mars’ surface. The European Space Agency’s Mars Express orbiter captured new images of small, dark features that resemble spiders scuttling across the Martian region known as Inca City near the Red Planet‘s south pole. This phenomenon appears when spring sunlight warms layers of carbon dioxide […]