Israeli moon mission SpaceIL to launch on SpaceX rocket

Whether or not the moon mission succeeds, the effort will carry lasting significance to Israel and the country's nascent space industry. But if everything works as planned, Israel will become the fourth nation ever to land on the lunar surface. (Japan, India, and Europe have crashed probes into the lunar surface but not gently set down any robots.)

NASA asks public to share cloud photos to help confirm satellite data

NASA has revealed it’s using a rare strategy to help verify data from the Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System (CERES): asking the public for help. The space agency says its satellites sometimes have difficulty identifying and separating clouds, so it’s having citizen scientists submit photos of clouds from the ground in order to compare data.

Is fight against global warming mission impossible?

Anyone who tells you that dealing with climate change is simply a matter of sweeping away the obstructionism of oil companies is living in a dream world. The real obstacle is us — our vast dependence on fossil fuels and the difficulty of extricating ourselves without crippling the world economy. It's true that the Trump administration has withdrawn from the Paris climate agreement, making any transition...

The black box set to revolutionize the search for life beyond Earth

In the world's driest desert, an unassuming black box called "Espresso" is about to begin a very big mission: scouring the universe for planets like ours to find signs of life beyond Earth. Espresso, an instrument known as a spectrograph, has a humble appearance that belies its cutting-edge technology: it is the most precise instrument of its kind ever built, 10 times stronger than its most powerful...

New French Telescope Trio Will Scan the Sky for Earth-Like Planets

French researchers with the European Southern Observatory (ESO) now have new tech in their toolbox: the ExTrA telescopes at the La Silla Observatory in northern Chile.

Rocket Lab secretly launched a disco ball satellite on its latest test flight

US spaceflight startup Rocket Lab put three commercial satellites into orbit during its rocket launch this past weekend — but it turns out there was another satellite that hitched a ride on the vehicle too. The company’s Electron rocket also put into orbit a previously undisclosed satellite made by Rocket Lab’s CEO Peter Beck, called the Humanity Star. And the probe will supposedly become the “brightest...

Meteorite hunter finds 3 rocks in Hamburg Township

A grin stretched across Robert Ward’s face Thursday afternoon as he talked about the three meteorites he found in less than four hours. “It’s a really spectacular specimen,” the researcher said, showing off the largest of rocks he found on a frozen Hamburg Township lake. “Two days ago, this was hundreds of thousands of miles past the moon, and now I’m standing here holding it in my hand. It’s been a...

How Astronaut John Young Tamed the Space Shuttle

On April 12, 1981, the two-man crew of STS-1 felt like they had something to prove. Packed with a steak and egg breakfast, the two men sat inside the Space Shuttle Columbia’s cockpit, staring at the sky. This was a milestone flight for them, personally, and the tension to get underway was palpable. The rookie, Robert Crippen, had never been to space before. For the veteran commander, John Young, this was...

Scientists seek US backcountry skiers to measure snowpack

NASA's earth sciences arm wants backcountry winter enthusiasts to serve as volunteer snow measurers so it can do better job calculating how much water will end of in rivers and reservoirs in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska

New robots can see into their future | Berkeley News

UC Berkeley researchers have developed a robotic learning technology that enables robots to imagine the future of their actions so they can figure out how to manipulate objects they have never encountered before. In the future, this technology could help self-driving cars anticipate future events on the road and produce more intelligent robotic assistants in homes, but the initial prototype focuses on...

Scientists unearth remains of oldest creature ever found in the Antarctic | Zee News

The 150 million-year-old giant prehistoric sea reptile is believed to be the first of its species located in Antarctica and the oldest creature ever found on the continent.