SEATTLE/ORLANDO, Fla. (Reuters) – Stratolaunch Systems Corporation, the space company founded by late billionaire and Microsoft Corp co-founder Paul Allen, is closing operations, cutting short ambitious plans to challenge traditional aerospace companies in a new “space race,” four people familiar with the matter said on Friday. FILE PHOTO: The world’s largest airplane, built by the
Month: May 2019
WASHINGTON — The 60 satellites SpaceX launched eight days ago for its Starlink broadband megaconstellation have powered up and contacted ground stations, the company said. All 60 satellites — the first in a constellation that could one day number 12,000 — have deployed solar arrays, a SpaceX spokesperson said, and most are in the process
After hatching from fertilized eggs, clownfish larvae are ready to feast. Smaller, slower, and visually quite unlike the juvenile and adult clownfish from Finding Nemo, these larval clownfish have many challenges to overcome to grow up into adult anemone-dwelling clownfish. To achieve a hearty diet, larval clownfish mostly feed on copepods (relatives of crabs and lobsters),
Astronomers have detected the presence of ammonia mixed in with the rusty colouration of Pluto’s surface. This could have fascinating implications for the icy dwarf planet, as researchers have detailed in two new studies. Firstly, that ammonia-tainted ice hints at a salty, organic-rich ocean hiding beneath Pluto’s surface – one that may contain the right
Deep below the frozen wastelands of Antarctica, scientists have discovered ancient tectonic plate structures that are having a huge impact on melting patterns around the continent’s largest ice shelf. The hidden rock, in place for hundreds of millions of years, is controlling water flow around the gigantic Ross Ice Shelf. This shelf currently acts as
WASHINGTON — A Russian Proton rocket launched the Yamal-601 communications satellite for Gazprom Space Systems May 30, completing the first of six Proton missions planned for this year. The rocket, built and contracted by Khrunichev, launched at 1:42 p.m. Eastern from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The 5,400-kilogram satellite separated 9 hours later. Gazprom Space
In this April 12, 2018 photo, scientist Karen Xavier holds a petri dish containing a stool sample of small bacteria colonies in Denver. DNA from samples like these are extracted and sequenced to help health investigators more quickly determine the source of a food borne illness outbreak.(AP Photo/P. Solomon Banda) ASSOCIATED PRESS Friday is the
Earth is not one to sit still. For roughly 3 billion years, our planet has been perpetually recycling its ocean floor, swallowing up old oceanic crust in some areas and pouring out new seabed in others. Diamonds, it would seem, are the beautiful byproducts of all this restlessness. Tipped off by tiny traces of trapped salt,
Based on this recently released snapshot of the night sky captured by NASA’s Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER), we can safely assume Superman gets no sleep at night. Just look at that thing. The sparkling dots and tangled loops are the result of nearly two years of effort to study cosmic sources of X-rays
In the crop fields of Argentina, bees have been building nests for their young out of some strange materials. For the first time, scientists have found bee nests made entirely out of plastic waste. A lot of plastic in the form of packaging comes into farms, and often makes its way into the landscape. The
“What we observed today was successful test,” said Kent Rominger, Northrop Grumman’s vice president and capture lead for the OmegA launch system. WASHINGTON — Northrop Grumman on Thursday conducted a full-scale static fire test of the first stage of OmegA, the company’s new rocket it is developing for national security missions. Company officials called it
With swagger and audacity never seen at the time, a visiting tech industry titan and budding space entrepreneur named Elon Musk paced the hallways of the Pentagon. It was 2011 and the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) had recently reported that the United States Air Force was paying about $350 million per launch of a
We are building a coalition of nations that can help us get to the Moon quickly and sustainably. Together. We have a bold vision to go back to the Moon by 2024. As we work towards this goal, we welcome a growing list of international and commercial partners. It is the partnerships over the last
Photo Credit: NASA/ JPL-Caltech/ MSSS Drilling by Curiosity Mars rover at a region of the Red Planet called the “clay-bearing unit” has revealed the highest amounts of clay minerals ever found during the mission, NASA has said. The rover recently drilled two samples at rock targets called “Aberlady” and “Kilmarie”, the US space agency revealed
A lab-created analogue of a black hole has provided new evidence that these mysterious space objects really do emit radiation. This evidence is indirect: physicists have shown that the analogue has a temperature, which is a necessary prerequisite for the eponymous radiation predicted by Stephen Hawking. Under general relativity, a black hole is inescapable. Its
WASHINGTON — NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said the administration’s request to add $1.6 billion to the agency’s 2020 budget to start work on the Artemis lunar program was not “dead on arrival” despite a lack of action on it by House appropriators. Speaking at a NASA Advisory Council meeting May 30, Bridenstine argued that the
The United States Department of Energy (DOE) has apparently started referring to carbon dioxide as “molecules of freedom” and natural gas as “freedom gas” , according to its latest press release. In a statement announcing an increase of natural gas exports, energy officials used the surprising new terms. The statement announces the expansion of a facility in Quintana, Texas, that produces
As far as mysteries of nature go, ball lightning is one of the more perplexing. It seems there are as many potential explanations as there are sightings, but in spite of decades of intense interest, none stand out as a clear winner. One of the weirder hypotheses claims these glowing balls are nothing more than
The citizens of St. Paul Island off the coast of Alaska are used to finding the occasional seabird washed up on the shore. But until recently, dead tufted puffins were rare finds, especially during the winter months. Now, something has changed. By the time January drew to a close in 2017, the number of puffin carcasses
SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Singapore, the tiny Southeast Asian city-state, is an unlikely place for a farming revolution. An employee pollinates strawberry plants at Sustenir Agriculture’s indoor farm in Singapore May 24, 2019. REUTERS/Edgar Su With tiered fish farms, vegetable plots atop office buildings and lab-grown shrimp, the island aims to beef up its own food
HELSINKI — China remains on schedule to ready its first independent mission to Mars in time for a short launch window in mid-2020, according to a leading space official. “Mars 2020 mission spacecraft is undergoing integration,” Wang Chi, director of the National Space Science Center (NSSC) in Beijing, told SpaceNews in a rare update on
The research vessel REV REV Ocean Kjell Inge Rokke carved out his fortune by being a ruthless corporate raider in the fishing industry. He started by purchasing a 69-foot trawler in Seattle in 1982 and selling fish off a boat before returning to Norway where he built a fleet. He now owns nearly 67% of
For a species as young and puny as humans, every ancient fossil is a most extraordinary gift from our planet’s vast history. Even so, this 50-million-year-old bunch of dead fish might just be the coolest fossil we’ve ever seen. An unassuming slab of limestone from the Green River Formation in North America became the final
On May 29, 1919, a solar eclipse forever altered our conception of gravity, rewrote the laws of physics and turned a 40-year-old, wild-haired scientist into a global celebrity – the very personification of scientific genius. It was a very good day for Albert Einstein. The 1919 eclipse across South America and Africa provided direct evidence
A Canadian man has pleaded guilty to smuggling thousands of live medicinal leeches into the country, bundled up inside a reusable grocery bag, according to the Canadian government. Ippolit Bodounov will pay a US$15,000 fine for the slimy heist, and had to turn over his nearly 5,000 leeches to authorities, Environment and Climate Change Canada
When you get close to a blazing star, you can discern a region where medium-sized planets like our own icy Neptune are scarce. Known as Hot Neptunian Deserts, these rings of intense irradiation and heat are found right across the Universe – but they may not be as inhospitable as we once thought. Like Icarus
Tornadoes have been popping up every day in the US as if coming off an assembly line. They’re part of an explosion of extreme weather events, including record flooding, record cold and record heat. Wednesday brought more of the same, with tornado watches in the Midwest and Atlantic seaboard and 37 million Americans facing an
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Developers of a multi-rotor hover craft billed as the first flying vehicle to be powered by hydrogen fuel cells unveiled a full-scale model on Wednesday in Southern California, in a show-and-tell that raised some eyebrows but never left the ground. Alaka’i Technologies unveils a model of a working prototype of Skai,
WASHINGTON — NASA believes it is still possible to perform the first launch of the Space Launch System before the end of 2020 even if the agency decides to retain some version of a key static-fire test of the rocket’s core stage. Speaking at a May 28 meeting of the NASA Advisory Council’s human exploration
Researchers from Washington State University have released the first comprehensive analysis of the genetic and chemical characteristics of cannabis. The new study, led by Bernd Markus Lange, a professor at WSU’s Institute of Biological Chemistry and Director of its M.J. Murdock Metabolomics Laboratory, analyzed genetic sequences from nine commercial cannabis strains. The results are published
It looked like a scene from a sci-fi blockbuster: an astronomer in the Netherlands captured footage of a train of brightly-lit SpaceX satellites ascending through the night sky this weekend, stunning space enthusiasts across the globe. But the sight has also provoked an outcry among astronomers who say the constellation, which so far consists of
After early humans took their first fledgling steps out of Africa and began dispersing across the landmass of Eurasia, what paths did they choose to travel, and why? The answers might not be what we once thought. New research exploring this fundamental chapter of human migration reveals that routes we didn’t consider possible may have
Human bodies cannot function properly above a certain altitude. We work best at sea level, where oxygen levels are adequate for our brains and lungs. But if climbers want to summit Mount Everest, the tallest peak in the world at 29,029 feet (8,848 meters or 5.5 miles) above sea level, they have to brave what’s
WASHINGTON — As NASA prepares for a key review of the Europa Clipper mission, a report by the agency’s inspector general warns that the mission’s launch may face delays and significant cost increases. The report by NASA’s Office of Inspector General (OIG), released May 29, also said that a follow-on lander mission, which Congress has
Colorized scanning electron micrograph of Escherichia coli CC BY 2.0: NIAID / https://flic.kr/p/rg1p9H Many people don’t believe in evolution. Only one-third of Americans say it occurs through processes like natural selection and no involvement by God. But besides religion, there are several reasons why some reject the fact life evolves, such as not seeing adaptation
Let’s face it – compared to Mars, our planet is a biological paradise dripping with moisture and relative absence of toxic chemistry. If we want to know what life might look like on the Red Planet, we need to go hunting in extreme environments. Ethiopia’s Dallol geothermal area could qualify. Minerals from one of the
A strange feature on the surface of Mars has kept scientists guessing about its origin. It’s a surface deposit of a mineral which is more common in the interiors of planets. A new study shows that this interior mineral was probably brought to the surface by an ancient explosive volcano. Nili Fossae is located in
Between 1990 and 2005, the Philippines lost 32.3 percent of its forest cover. Illegal logging has historically been a huge issue for the country, but now the Philippines House of Representatives has put forward a new way of dealing with the problem: a bill that requires students to plant 10 trees each before graduating. House Bill
The realignment does not affect the Mobile User Objective System constellation. Any future narrowband satcom programs will be handled by the Air Force. WASHINGTON — The Navy has agreed to turn over the management of future narrowband communications satellites to the Air Force. “It is our intent to transfer responsibility for future narrowband capability, beyond
Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity was proved on 29 May 1919 at a total solar eclipse. Credit: F. W. Dyson, A. S. Eddington, and C. Davidson (public domain) Public domain For precisely 100 years, as of today, Albert Einstein has been a proven genius. His incredible general theory of relativity has since been fundamental to our
Humans and our primate relatives differ in many ways, but the fact we walk on two legs is one of the most obvious. Precisely how our ancestors evolved that trait is a well-debated mystery. Now, there’s a new idea. What if one of the contributing factors was giant explosions in the sky? It’s not as
Nature is constantly posing for that perfect shot. Many of us might be lucky to see it, but few are ever in the right position to capture the moment. Canadian photographer Steve Biro happened to be at the right place at just the right time. The result is a stunning image of a bald eagle
You wouldn’t ordinarily want to seek out a computer with viruses installed, but that’s exactly what the winner of a US$1.345 million auction just did – picking up a laptop crammed with the deadliest malware of our time in return for their cash. The buyer remains anonymous but we know much more about the laptop,
WASHINGTON — More than a month after a Crew Dragon spacecraft was destroyed in a test of its propulsion system, NASA and SpaceX investigators are still working to determine the cause of the accident and its implications for upcoming test flights. In a May 28 presentation to the NASA Advisory Council’s human exploration and operations
Share to facebook Share to twitter Share to linkedin iPad in bed CC BY 2.0: Johan Larsson / https://flic.kr/p/9yBrLm How does artificial light affect our biology? According to new research, humans are more sensitive than previously thought: even a little light in the evening can have a large effect on your body clock. Our internal
NASA has launched the final stage of a four-year effort to develop a national traffic management system for drones, testing them in cities for the first time beyond the operator’s line of sight as businesses look in the future to unleash the unmanned devices in droves above busy streets and buildings. Multiple drones took to
There’s no sense in sugar-coating it – Venus is a hellish place! It is the hottest planet in the Solar System, with atmospheric temperatures that are hot enough to melt lead. The air is also a toxic plume, composed predominantly of carbon dioxide and sulfuric acid rain clouds. And yet, scientists hypothesize that Venus was
WASHINGTON — Citing a need for closer collaboration amid growing global competition, leaders from the 28-member European Union and the 22-member European Space Agency convened on Tuesday their first joint space council session since 2011. The EU-ESA Space Council will seek to meet once a year going forward, Pedro Francisco Duque, Spain’s minister for science,
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