Credit: PixabayThe International Space Station has a limited lifespan, prompting NASA to invest hundreds of millions of dollars into potential successors. Among these prospects is Orbital Reef, a collaborative project between Blue Origin, led by Jeff Bezos, and Sierra Space.NASA announced on Wednesday that Orbital Reef achieved four significant milestones in its crucial technologies,...
An artist's impression of a pair of supermassive black holes that have been locked in foreplay for 3 billion yearsNOIRLab/NSF/AURA/J. daSilva/M. ZamaniWe've all experienced the regret of delaying action on someone special, but at least we can find solace in the fact that we didn't wait a quarter of all time that has ever...
Image from Odysseus showing the broken leg and the plume from the throttling engineIntuitive MachinesAs the Odysseus Moon lander approaches its final hours, an unexpected development adds a twist to its narrative: during landing, one of its legs broke due to a series of errors stemming from a missed safety procedure on Earth prior...
Ingenuity as seen from the Perseverance roverNASA/JPL-CaltechNASA has officially concluded its Ingenuity Mars helicopter mission, originally planned for a month with five flights. Surpassing expectations, the mission endured for three years, completing 72 flights before being halted due to damaged rotors after its last flight. Ingenuity, part of NASA's Perseverance rover mission, made history...
Credit: DepositphotosEstimating the quantity of black holes poses a challenge due to their indirect detectability.Nonetheless, astronomers are diligently working to ascertain the count of black holes in space. Before addressing the question, "How Many Black Holes Are There?" it's crucial to note three types: stellar, intermediate, and supermassive. Each type displays distinct properties...
THe cat laser videoNASA/JPL-CaltechNASA has elevated cat videos to a new frontier through its Psyche Deep Space Optical Communications experiment, transmitting a 15-second high-definition footage of a playful tabby across a distance of 19 million miles (31 million km) to Earth.Observing a cat pursuing a laser pointer might be endearing, but the question arises:...
Artist's concept of Voyager 1NASANASA engineers are currently addressing a newly discovered issue in one of the computers on the Voyager 1 deep space probe. This fault is hindering the 46-year-old spacecraft from sending any scientific or engineering data to Mission Control on Earth.Launched in 1977 from the Kennedy Space Center, Voyager 1, alongside...
The far side of the Moon as seen by China's Chang'e 5-T1 missionChinese National Space Agency/Chinese Academy of SciencesThe origin of a set of craters on the far side of the Moon has been clarified by a recent study from the University of Arizona, establishing that the probable cause was a discarded rocket booster...
Recent Studies Indicate the Sun is Marginally Smaller Than Official Estimates. Credit: NASA/SDO/AIAPhysicists' insistence on celestial bodies being non-perfect spheres raises questions about our understanding of their true dimensions. In the case of the Sun, renowned for its familiarity, discrepancies emerge when various methods are employed to measure its size.The International Astronomical Union, in...
Psyche Probe's Deep Space Optical Communications Sets Record for Distant Laser Data Transmission. Credit: ProleR/ShutterstockIn a groundbreaking achievement, a deep space experiment conducted aboard NASA's Psyche spacecraft has successfully transmitted a laser message to Earth from a location surpassing the Moon's distance for the first time. The achievement by the Deep Space Optical Communications...
