A rare green comet, last seen around 50,000 years ago, is due to make its closest pass by Earth. Called C/2022 E3 (ZTF), this celestial object hails from the Oort cloud at the outermost edge of the Solar System. It will come closest to Earth on February 1, within about 45 million kilometres. The icy … Read more
That was close! An asteroid approximately the size of a large SUV or bigger swung around the Earth Thursday evening missing us by just over 2,000 miles. NASA said that it was one of the closest flybys of a near-Earth object in recorded history. On Thursday, an asteroid passed by Earth in what NASA says … Read more
In humans, mucus keeps tissues moist, and it also filters the air we breathe, trapping allergens and microorganisms before they can make us sick. Nature, on the other hand, has found more creative and fun purposes for the slimy stuff. Some are brilliant—like the snot bubbles that keep Australian animals alive during heatwaves—while others solve … Read more
The downlink beams from internet satellites are also millions of times more powerful than the sensitive sources radio telescopes are trying to detect, which could hugely hinder or confuse the ability to detect signals from space. In 2021, a signal that scientists first believed was the ground-breaking discovery of a gamma-ray burst from the oldest … Read more
Sign up for a full digest of all the best opinions of the week in our Voices Dispatches email Sign up to our free weekly Voices newsletter Researchers in Antarctica have discovered one of the largest meteorites ever found on the continent. The space rock found in December 2022 weighs 7.6kg. Antarctica is a favourite … Read more
Rotating detonation rocket engine, or RDRE hot fire test at Marshall Space Flight Center. Credit: NASA As NASA takes its first steps toward establishing a long-term presence on the Moon’s surface, a team of propulsion development engineers at NASA have developed and tested NASA’s first full-scale rotating detonation rocket engine, or RDRE, an advanced rocket … Read more
Low Earth orbit was the site of a near-miss today (Jan. 27) that had the potential to create thousands of pieces of hazardous space debris. Satellite monitoring and collision detection firm LeoLabs spotted a near-miss between two defunct Soviet space objects, a rocket body and dead spy satellite, that missed one another by an incredibly … Read more
GJ 1002 b and c lie at a perfect distance from their star which could allow liquid water to form on a planet’s surface. New Delhi,UPDATED: Jan 27, 2023 15:31 IST Artist’s impression of two Earth-mass planets orbiting the star GJ 1002. Photo: Alejandro Suárez Mascareño and Inés Bonet (IAC) By India Today Web Desk: … Read more
Asteroid Ryugu – Image taken at 20km on 26 June 2018, diameter 870 m. Credit: Hayabusa2/JAXA A large international collaboration utilized the Diamond Light Source, the UK’s national synchrotron facility, to examine grains collected from a near-Earth asteroid in order to improve our understanding of the evolution of our solar system. A team of researchers … Read more
A box-truck-sized asteroid has made one of the closest approaches by a near-Earth object ever recorded, brushing past our home world at a distance of a couple of thousand miles on Thursday. Codenamed 2023 BU, the space rock is estimated to be between 11.5 and 28 feet (3.5 to 8.5 metres) across. Although it’s fairly … Read more