EXPLAINER: 4 will circle Earth on 1st SpaceX private flight
For the first time in 60 years of human spaceflight, a rocket is poised to blast into orbit with no professional astronauts on board, only four tourists......»»
Blue Origin joins SpaceX and ULA in new round of military launch contracts
"Lane 1 serves our commercial-like missions that can accept more risk." Enlarge / Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket on the launch pad for testing earlier this year. (credit: Blue Origin) After years of lobbying, protests an.....»»
Studying the changing landscape of forest management: Researchers take a humanities approach
Around 40% of forested land in the United States is privately owned, and for agencies tasked with preserving the nation's natural resources, collaborations with private landowners are not just a vast opportunity, but a necessity......»»
Study indicates Pennsylvania private forest landowners value fire as tool to manage woodlands
Fire can help shape ecosystems, and after a century of suppressing naturally occurring fire that has thrown forests out balance, some states—including Pennsylvania—are using controlled burns to help manage forests on public lands. Now, a new four.....»»
Earth from space: The heel of Italy
The Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission takes us over a section of Italy's heel in the southern part of the boot-shaped peninsula......»»
Quantum entangled photons react to Earth"s spin
A team of researchers led by Philip Walther at the University of Vienna carried out a pioneering experiment where they measured the effect of the rotation of Earth on quantum entangled photons. The work, published in Science Advances, represents a si.....»»
Rocket Report: Starship is on the clock; Virgin Galactic at a crossroads
The payloads for the first Ariane 6 launch are buttoned up for flight next month. Enlarge / The payload fairing for the first test flight of Europe's Ariane 6 rocket has been positioned around the small batch of satellites that w.....»»
NASA is considering other ways of getting its Mars samples home
In 2021, NASA's Perseverance rover landed in the Jezero Crater on Mars. For the next three years, this astrobiology mission collected soil and rock samples from the crater floor for eventual return to Earth. The analysis of these samples is expected.....»»
Astronomers discover an Earth-sized exoplanet orbiting a nearby ultracool dwarf star
An international team of astronomers reports the discovery of a new Earth-sized exoplanet that orbits an ultracool dwarf star located just 54.6 light years away. The newfound alien world, designated SPECULOOS-3 b, is slightly smaller but much hotter.....»»
Bye bye, El Nino. Cooler hurricane-helping La Nina to replace the phenomenon that adds heat to Earth
The strong El Niño weather condition that added a bit of extra heat to already record warm global temperatures is gone. It's cool flip side, La Niña, is likely to breeze in just in time for peak Atlantic hurricane season, federal meteorologists sai.....»»
Pair plasmas found in deep space can now be generated in the lab
An international team of scientists has developed a novel way to experimentally produce plasma 'fireballs' on Earth......»»
Ancient ocean slowdown warns of future climate chaos
When it comes to the ocean's response to global warming, we're not in entirely uncharted waters. A UC Riverside study shows that episodes of extreme heat in Earth's past caused the exchange of waters from the surface to the deep ocean to decline......»»
The US is losing wetlands at an accelerating rate—how the private sector can help protect these valuable resources
Wetlands aren't the most eye-catching ecosystems. They include swamps, bogs, fens and other places where soil is covered by water most of the time. But they perform a huge range of valuable services, from soaking up floodwaters to filtering out pollu.....»»
How a single atomic sensor can help track Earth"s glaciers
Earth observations are one of the most essential functions of our current fleet of satellites. Typically, each satellite specializes in one kind of remote sensing—monitoring ocean levels, for example, or watching clouds develop and move. That is pr.....»»
Longer ice-free periods may lead to smaller Hudson Bay polar bear population, research suggests
Global warming is projected to lengthen the ice-free period in the Hudson Bay, reducing the length of the resident polar bears' hunting season, according to research published in Communications Earth & Environment. Under a temperature rise of more th.....»»
Taylor Swift made "ground shaking" UK debut: Seismologists
Taylor Swift fans literally made the earth move as the US singer-songwriter began her UK tour, the British Geological Survey said on Thursday, with seismic activity recorded six kilometers (nearly four miles) away......»»
Study confirms the rotation of Earth"s inner core has slowed
University of Southern California scientists have proven that the Earth's inner core is backtracking—slowing down—in relation to the planet's surface, as shown in new research published in Nature......»»
Discovery of microfossil in China from the 518-million-year-old Qingjiang biota sheds light on adaptive evolution
Microbial sulfate reduction dating back to the Paleoarchean plays a crucial role in driving global carbon and sulfur cycles in ancient and modern Earth. Over 150 species of sulfate reducers from bacterial and archaeal phyla have been identified acros.....»»
A mission to find 10 million near-Earth asteroids every year
So far, scientists have found around 34,000 near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) that could serve as humanity's stepping stone to the stars. These balls of rock and ice hold valuable resources as we expand throughout the solar system, making them valuable rea.....»»
Parabolic flight with exoskeleton: Researchers test fine motor skills in weightlessness
Fine motor tasks under space conditions are particularly challenging and must first be trained on Earth. Scientists from the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) and the University of Duisburg-Essen (UDE) are investigating whethe.....»»
While aiming for massive gas cloud, astronomers spot differences in thickness of Milky Way Galaxy
Space may appear vast and empty, but it's full of cosmological objects that are invisible to the human eye. From our vantage point on Earth, many of these objects fall between astronomers and what they hope to observe, impacting what they find. This.....»»