Science

A technology that could propel crewed missions to Mars and robotic spacecraft throughout the solar system was recently put to the test at NASA‘s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. The result was a milestone that engineers and space scientists have been working toward for decades, and one that brings the prospect of humans setting…

At several hundred metres below the surface, the limestone caves around Minamidaito Island are mostly untouched by sunlight, currents, and routine marine surveys. The landscape is narrow, uneven, and difficult to navigate even with modern submersibles. During one of those deep exploratory dives last year, a remotely operated vehicle passed close to a colony of…

On Earth, a cloudy morning giving way to a clear evening is unremarkable, the kind of forecast that barely warrants a glance at the weather app. On a gas giant orbiting a star nearly 700 light-years from Earth, the same basic pattern plays out every single day, except the clouds are not made of water…

On Earth, a blazing orange and crimson horizon marks the close of day. On Mars, the planet famous for its rust-red landscapes, the sky does the opposite, turning a cool, haunting blue at dusk. The science behind it is as beautiful as the sight itself. Imagine standing on a cold, rust-coloured plain, looking west as…

The rivalry between Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk has officially reached the Moon. NASA announced on Tuesday that it had selected Bezos’s Blue Origin to carry out the first in a planned series of three uncrewed lunar missions aimed at preparing for a future Moon base, handing the company a contract worth about $230M. The…

PC: X (Representative Image) Nasa has announced an ambitious three-phase roadmap to build a permanent base on the Moon, with the space agency planning three lunar missions later this year as part of preparations for a sustained human presence beyond Earth following a successful lunar flyaround.At a press conference on Tuesday, Nasa administrator Jared Isaacman…

Michael Faraday (Image: Wikipedia) Some quotes feel heavy the moment you read them. Others seem simple at first and then quietly stay in your mind for longer than expected. This line, often attributed to Michael Faraday, belongs to the second category. It does not sound dramatic. It does not use complicated language. Still, there is…

A quiet field can look completely ordinary until you notice the pattern. Many cows and deer seem to rest or graze with their bodies lined up roughly north-south. That odd detail first drew serious scientific attention in 2008, when Sabine Begall, Hynek Burda and colleagues reported that cattle and deer across many locations often followed…

Chien-Shiung Wu (Image: Wikipedia) This quote from Chien-Shiung Wu has been floating around science circles for years, sometimes posted with a bit of humour, sometimes with admiration, and sometimes just as a passing thought people save without really explaining why. On the surface, it sounds light, almost domestic in a way, like someone complaining about…

Image: Left/Canva/Right/Wikipedia Dinosaurs have always been around in the human imagination. Whether it is through blockbusters like Jurassic Park or contemporary attempts at de-extincting animals like Woolly Mammoths, Dodos, and Dire Wolves, humans seem to retain an interest in bringing extinct life back into existence. In light of ongoing research into this possibility, there are…