Science

HOUSTON (Reuters) – A crew of veteran U.S. astronauts and aviators are training in Houston for a manned mission to the International Space Station aboard Boeing’s new Starliner spacecraft, which could also be used to take tourists into space on future missions. NASA Commercial Crew astronaut Sunita Williams is lowered into the water at NASA’s Neutral

A still image, taken from a video footage and released by Russian space agency Roscosmos, shows robot Skybot F-850, also known as FEDOR, inside the Russian Soyuz MS-14 spacecraft carried by Soyuz-2.1a booster after the launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan August 22, 2019. Russian space agency Roscosmos/Handout via REUTERS MOSCOW (Reuters) – A Russian

(Reuters) – Direct observations from a NASA space telescope have for the first time revealed the atmospheric void of a rocky, Earth-sized world beyond our own solar system orbiting the most common type of star in the galaxy, according to a study released on Monday. An artist’s conception shows NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope as it

SEATTLE (Reuters) – The first American spacecraft expected to land on the moon in nearly 50 years will be a robotic moon lander built by closely held Astrobotic Technology Inc and launched in two years by United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan rocket, the companies told Reuters on Monday. FILE PHOTO: A United Launch Alliance Atlas 5

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine speaks to media during a visit to NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility where engineers are preparing to add the final section to the core stage of the rocket that will power NASA’s Artemis 1 lunar mission, in New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S., August 15, 2019. REUTERS/Jonathan Bachman WASHINGTON (Reuters) – NASA Administrator Jim

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Jupiter, the solar system’s largest planet, may have been smacked head-on by an embryonic planet 10 times Earth’s mass not long after being formed, a monumental crash with apparent lasting effects on the Jovian core, scientists said on Thursday. The collision between a young Jupiter and a massive still-forming protoplanet in the

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Genetic research that reconstructed the past population dynamics of the cave bear, a prominent prehistoric denizen of Europe, implicates Homo sapiens rather than climate cooling in the Ice Age extinction of these brawny plant-loving beasts. The skull of an extinct cave bear from the Natural History Museum in Belgrade, Serbia, is seen

BEIJING (Reuters) – Chinese startup LinkSpace on Saturday completed its third test of a reusable rocket in five months, stepping up the pace in China’s race to develop a technology key to cheap space launches in an expected global boom in satellite deployment. FILE PHOTO: Linkspace’s engineers pack the reusable rocket RLV-T5, also known as

LONDON (Reuters) – Britain’s seaside towns are at war with their seagulls, urging visitors not to feed the birds in an effort to stop them snatching titbits like potato chips from tourists’ hands. Warning signs deck promenade railings from Scarborough to Broadstairs and beyond but now research from the University of Exeter has suggested an

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Space Communication said on Wednesday its Amos-17 communications satellite was launched into space and was enroute to its orbital position after separating from its SpaceX rocket. The Israeli satellite operator is counting on Amos-17, which was manufactured by Boeing and will provide communication services to Africa, to help it rebound from some

ORLANDO, Fla. (Reuters) – Elon Musk’s SpaceX is expanding its facilities in Florida to make room for the space company’s forthcoming super heavy-lift launch vehicle dubbed Starship, according to a draft of the plans seen by Reuters on Friday. FILE PHOTO: Starship prototype as seen on the day that SpaceX performs an untethered test of

FILE PHOTO: The Milky Way is seen during the Perseid shower above the Los Padres National Forest in Frazier Park, California, August 12, 2009. REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni/File Photo WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Astronomers have created the most precise map to date of the Milky Way by tracking thousands of big pulsating stars spread throughout the galaxy, demonstrating

BEIJING (Reuters) – Beijing-based startup iSpace is planning up to eight commercial rocket launches next year, after last week becoming China’s first privately funded firm to put a satellite into orbit, its executives told Reuters. FILE PHOTO: The Hyperbola-1 rocket of Chinese space company iSpace is seen before its successful launch from the Jiuquan Satellite

A complete fossil unearthed in Kootenay National Park in the Canadian Rockies of the marine creature Cambroraster falcatus, which lived 506 million years ago, showing the eyes and the body with paired swimming flaps below the large head carapace is seen in this image released by the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, July

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Scientists have mapped the genome of the Komodo dragon, the world’s largest lizard, discovering intriguing secrets behind the impressive speed and endurance these cold-blooded predators muster by ratcheting up their metabolism to mammal-like levels. FILE PHOTO: Komodo dragons walk at the Komodo National Park in Indonesia’s Komodo island October 4, 2011. REUTERS/Beawiharta/File

TEL AVIV (Reuters) – Israel’s Space Communication Ltd plans a satellite launch next weekend which it hopes will mark a rebound from a couple of major setbacks in recent years. David Pollack, CEO of Israel’s Space Communication Ltd gestures next to a model of Amos-17 satellite at the company offices in Ramat Gan, Israel July

PARIS (Reuters) – The thigh bone of a giant dinosaur was found this week by French paleontologists at an excavation site in southwestern France where remains of some of the largest animals that ever lived on land have been dug up since 2010. The two-meter long femur at the Angeac-Charente site is thought to have

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Observations of light coming from a star zipping in orbit around the humongous black hole at the center of our galaxy have provided fresh evidence backing Albert Einstein’s 1915 theory of general relativity, astronomers said on Thursday. A star known as S0-2, the blue and green object in this artist’s rendering, that

BEIJING (Reuters) – A rocket developed by iSpace put satellites into orbit after a launch from a state facility in northwestern China on Thursday, marking the first successful orbital launch by a privately funded Chinese firm. A Hyperbola-1 rocket of Chinese space company iSpace takes off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in Gansu province,

SRIHARIKOTA/BENGALURU, India (Reuters) – India launched a rocket into space on Monday in an attempt to safely land a rover on the moon, its most ambitious mission yet in the effort to establish itself as a low-cost space power. If successful, the $146 million mission will allow Indian scientists to carry out studies on the

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Milky Way, home to our sun and billions of other stars, merged with another smaller galaxy in a colossal cosmic collision roughly 10 billion years ago, scientists said on Monday based on data from the Gaia space observatory. The merger of the Milky Way progenitor galaxy and the dwarf galaxy Gaia-Enceladus

PRAGUE (Reuters) – For revelers at one Prague megaclub, gone are the days of being squashed at the bar waiting to get a watered-down cocktail. Two years after becoming the first to try a robot DJ, the five-story Karlovy Lazne Music Club has gone a step further with the launch of a robotic bartender to

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) – Capping a week of celebrations over the historic Apollo 11 mission, Vice President Mike Pence joined astronaut Buzz Aldrin on Saturday at the launch pad in Florida that sent the moonwalker and his two crew mates to space for humankind’s first steps on the lunar surface 50 years ago. Pence

VIENNA (Reuters) – European and U.N. bodies on Thursday outlined a joint push for global action on space junk, saying that debris orbiting the earth must be cleaned up as satellites launched by private companies and other new entrants are adding to the crowding. Johann-Dietrich Woerner, European Space Agency (ESA) Director General, talks to the

SEOUL, (Reuters) – In a panic after a fire has broken out and can’t remember where the fire extinguisher is, let alone how to use it? Worry no more. Now you can simply pick up a vase and throw it to douse the flames. Developed by South Korean ad agency Cheil Worldwide, a subsidiary of

(Reuters) – NASA’s flagship space launch system being built by Boeing is taking years longer than expected with cost overruns of nearly $2 billion, an audit found on Wednesday, raising questions about meeting a goal of returning humans to the moon by 2024.The General Accounting Office (GAO) identified $1.8 billion in cost overruns, including nearly

PARIS (Reuters) – Three astronauts instrumental in the groundbreaking U.S. space program of the 1960s and 70s gathered at the Paris Air Show on Tuesday to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11, the mission that first put a man on the moon. FILE PHOTO: Astronaut Walter Cunningham, Apollo 7 lunar module pilot, is photographed

LE BOURGET, France (Reuters) – The explosion that destroyed a SpaceX astronaut taxi in April “no doubt” delays NASA’s drive to return Americans to the International Space Station from U.S. soil later this year, the U.S. space agency’s chief said on Tuesday. FILE PHOTO: NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine speaks during a NASA “Apollo – Then

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Overcrowding. Violence. Infectious diseases. Environmental degradation. It may sound like the worst of modern mega-cities. A researcher excavates the ruins of Catalhoyuk, a prehistoric settlement located in south-central Turkey that was inhabited from about 9,100 to 7,950 years ago, in this photograph released from Istanbul, Turkey, June 17, 2019. Scott Haddow/Handout via

LONDON – The persistence of Congo’s Ebola outbreak and its deadly spread to Uganda in recent days show how societal issues are as crucial as scientific advances in controlling disease outbreaks, specialists in global public health say. FILE PHOTO: Mwamini Kahindo, an Ebola survivor working as a caregiver to babies who are confirmed Ebola cases,