Space is an unnatural environment for humans. We can’t survive unprotected in a pure vacuum for more than two minutes. Getting to space involves being strapped to a barely contained chemical explosion. Since 1961, fewer than 700 people have been into space. Private space companies such as SpaceX and Blue Origin hope to boost that…

Astronomers exploring the faraway universe with the James Webb Space Telescope, NASA’s most powerful telescope, have found a class of galaxies that challenges even the most skillful creatures in mimicry — like the mimic octopus. This creature can impersonate other marine animals to avoid predators. Need to be a flatfish? No problem. A sea snake?…

The shroud of gas around another galaxy has been photographed and analysed pixel by pixel for the first time. It shows that galaxies are much bigger than we thought and that the Milky Way is already interacting with our nearest galactic neighbour, the Andromeda galaxy. Researchers have published in Nature Astronomy their analysis of an…

Starliner makes its final descent underneath three fully deployed main parachutes. Credit: NASA TV UPDATE: Starship touched down in the New Mexican desert at White Sands Space Harbor at 12:01:35 a.m. EDT. The craft’s pair of drogue parachutes, three main chutes, and six airbags deployed in sequence, bringing the craft to a soft landing. Landing…

Mercury up close: the image, taken by BepiColombo’s M-CAM2, features a large ‘peak ring basin’ inside a larger crater measuring 210 km across, which is named after the famous Italian composer Antonio Vivaldi (courtesy: ESA/BepiColombo/MTM) The BepiColombo mission to Mercury – Europe’s first craft to the planet – has successfully completed its fourth gravity-assist flyby…

Sunita Williams, the renowned astronaut, is set to return to Earth, and her journey home will be accompanied by two fellow astronauts. The Economic Times reports that Williams, who has been part of the International Space Station (ISS) for an extended period, will return with astronauts Alexander Gerst of the European Space Agency (ESA) and…

New measurements taken with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have deepened the scientific controversy of the Hubble tension — suggesting it may not exist at all. For years, astronomers have found that the universe appears to be expanding at different speeds depending on where they look, a conundrum they call the Hubble tension. Some…

The troubled spacecraft is scheduled to undock on Friday for a trip back to Earth while two NASA astronauts will stay in orbit. Leaving behind the two NASA astronauts it took to the International Space Station three months ago, Boeing’s troubled Starliner spacecraft is set to begin its return to Earth on Friday evening. Six…

Hubble Space Telescope (HST), the first sophisticated optical observatory placed into orbit around Earth. Earth’s atmosphere obscures ground-based astronomers’ view of celestial objects by absorbing or distorting light rays from them. A telescope stationed in outer space is entirely above the atmosphere, however, and receives images of much greater brightness, clarity, and detail than do…

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), independent U.S. governmental agency established in 1958 for the research and development of vehicles and activities for the exploration of space within and outside Earth’s atmosphere. The organization is composed of four mission directorates: Aeronautics Research, for the development of advanced aviation technologies; Science, dealing with programs for understanding…