News Science

Japan’s First Military Communications Satellite Kirameki-2 Launched from Tanegashima Space Port

On Tuesday, 24 Jan 2016, Japan launched its first military communications satellite aboard an H-IIA rocket at 0744 GMT. The lift-off took place from Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s Tanegashima Space Center in Kagoshima Prefecture. According to a spokesman for Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, the satellite successfully entered the orbit. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries builds the launcher for […]

News Science

China to Launch Its First Lunar Sample Return Mission Chang’e-5 Later This Year

China is planning to launch Chang’e-5, its lunar sample return mission, in November this year, reported state-run People’s Daily newspaper, citing the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) – the main contractor for China’s space program. According to CASC, this will be China’s first automated moon surface sampling mission and first moon take-off mission. […]

News Science

A Leopard Shark Reproduces Live Hatchlings Asexually After Being Separated from Her Mate

A leopard shark in Australia has perplexed researchers by reproducing live hatchings asexually after being separated from her mate in 2012. According to researchers, this is the first reported case of a shark switching from sexual to asexual or parthenogenetic reproduction. Leopard sharks are also known as zebra sharks (stegostoma fasciatum) and get their name […]

News Science

Methane-producing Microbes Could Survive the Low Pressure and Extremely Thin Air of Mars, Study Suggests

A new study carried out by researchers from the Arkansas Center for Space and Planetary Sciences (ACSPS) at the University of Arkansas suggests that some terrestrial organisms such as methanogens (the methane-producing microbes) could survive the extremely thin air of Mars. The detailed findings of the study, titled “Low Pressure Tolerance by Methanogens in an […]

News Science

India Poised to Play a Crucial Role in LIGO Research by Setting up the World’s Third Advanced Observatory

India is gearing up to play a crucial role in gravitational waves detection by setting up the world‘s third advanced LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory) laboratory in Aundh in Hingoli district of Maharashtra. Fred Raab, an eminent physicist and associate director for operations, LIGO Laboratory, who was at the Presidency University in Kolkata on Tuesday […]

News Science

NASA Releases New Images Captured by Juno Showing Crescent Shaped Jupiter and Its Great Red Spot

NASA has released an astonishing new picture of Jupiter, showing a crescent Jupiter, along with its iconic Great Red Spot and planet’s megastorm. Jupiter is the largest planet in our solar system and appears to astronomers as a deep red orb surrounded by layers of orange, pale yellow, and white. Jupiter’s Great Red Spot is […]

News Science

ESO Joins Hands with Breakthrough Initiatives to Upgrade Telescope in Chile to Look for Planets around Alpha Centauri

The European Southern Observatory (ESO) has partnered with Breakthrough Initiative to upgrade its Very Large Telescope (VLT) in northern Chile to better search for planets around the stars of Alpha Centuri, the closest star system to Earth. The triple-star Alpha Centauri system is located about nearly 4 light-years away from Earth, and scientists think it […]

News Science

Vera Rubin, a Pioneering Astronomer Who Worked on Dark Matter, Dies

Vera Rubin, a pioneering astronomer who worked on dark matter is no more in this world. Her son, Allan Rubin, a professor of geosciences at Princeton University, revealed that Rubin, 88, died on Dec. 25, 2016. Vera Rubin had been living in the Princeton area. She was born on July 23, 1928 in Philadelphia. Rubin […]

News Science

A Supervolcano near Naples is Stirring Again and Could Hit Half a Million People

An Italian supervolcano, located across the Bay of Naples from Vesuvius, has started stirring again, according to a team of scientists, and could hit about 500,000 people if an eruption occurs. Campi Flegrei, meaning burning fields in Italian, is a large volcanic area, with a 13-km-wide caldera which lies mostly underwater. The caldera features 24 […]

News Science

A Rainbow-headed Snake among 163 New Species Discovered in Greater Mekong

One hundred sixty three new species, including a dragon-like lizard, a tiny frog and a rainbow-headed snake, were discovered in the Greater Mekong region in 2015.  Conservation group World Wildlife Fund (WWF) gave details of these new species, which are announced each year after going through a lengthy identification process. WWF revealed that new species […]

News Science

NASA’s Solar-powered Juno Spacecraft Captures Pics of Jupiter’s ‘Pearl’

Using its onboard camera JunoCam imager, NASA’s Juno spacecraft has captured the pictures of the seventh of Jupiter‘s eight massive counter-clockwise rotating storms. The images were taken on December 11 when the spacecraft was performing its third close flyby of the planet, while being about 24,600 km from the planet. Jupiter‘s eight storms are simply […]

News Science

NASA’s OSIRIS-REx Spacecraft Getting Ready to Start Search for Earth’s “Trojan” Asteroids from Feb 9

NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is all set to start its search for hard-to-find Earth “Trojan” asteroids from Feb 9. Trojan asteroids orbit the sun and are constant companions of a specific planet. These asteroids remain near a stable point 60 degrees in front of or behind the companion planet, and never collide with it as they […]