Science

Homegrown space sector start-up Dhruva Space has tested and space-qualified its satellite orbital deployer, setting the stage for its plans to launch indigenously built satellites soon. The Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) C53 mission that placed in orbit three foreign satellites, also proved to be a testbed for Dhruva Space’s Satellite Orbital Deployer (DSOD-1U), that

Researchers have developers a flexible implant capable of relieving pain in patients. In what could be termed as a game-changing discovery, the implant is a water-soluble and biocompatible device that can serve as an alternative to painkillers — eliminating the need for addictive medications. By wrapping around the nerves to provide cooling in the region, the

The US Federal Communications Commission on Thursday authorised Elon Musk’s SpaceX to use its Starlink satellite internet network with moving vehicles, green-lighting the company’s plan to expand broadband offerings to commercial airlines, shipping vessels and trucks. Starlink, a fast-growing constellation of internet-beaming satellites in orbit, has long sought to grow its customer base from individual

NASA is working to send a telescope up in the stratosphere using a balloon larger than a football field. The space agency has announced that it has equipped the telescope with a giant mirror which will help gather light for the instrument. The telescope will be deployed over Antarctica to study astrophysical phenomena as part of its

An uncrewed Chinese spacecraft has acquired imagery data covering all of Mars, including visuals of its south pole, after circling the planet more than 1,300 times since early last year, state media reported on Wednesday. China’s Tianwen-1 successfully reached the Red Planet in February 2021 on the country’s inaugural mission there. A robotic rover has

The European Space Agency’s (ESA) BepiColombo mission successfully completed its second flyby of Mercury, capturing 56 intricate images in the process, according to the agency. The joint project developed by the ESA and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) is tasked with examining the least explored planet in the inner solar system. During its closest approach

In what could be a major breakthrough in the study of life on other planets, scientists have reconstructed the condition in which the earliest organism on Earth must have existed. The reconstruction was done using light-capturing proteins in living microbes. The earliest life forms on Earth, including bacteria and single-celled organisms called archaea, inhabited a

NASA blasted a nanosatellite barely bigger than a microwave oven into outer space Tuesday, part of a landmark mission to return humans to the Moon. A rocket carrying the tiny Capstone module successfully launched from New Zealand’s eastern Mahia Peninsula to a deafening blast and a wash of fiery propulsion. All being well, in four months Capstone

The Indian Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACe) has started authorising Indian private firms, marking the beginning of private space sector launches in India. IN-SPACe is an autonomous, single window nodal agency; formed to promote, authorise, monitor, and supervise the space activities of Non-Governmental Private Entities (NGPEs) in India. Dhruva Space, Hyderabad, and Digantara research

When you read a sentence like this one, your past experience tells you that it’s written by a thinking, feeling human. And, in this case, there is indeed a human typing these words: [Hi, there!] But these days, some sentences that appear remarkably humanlike are actually generated by artificial intelligence systems trained on massive amounts

The Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionospheric Sounding (MARSIS) instrument on the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Mars Express spacecraft is set to get a major software upgrade that will boost its capabilities. The Mars Express was ESA’s first mission to Mars, launched on June 2, 2003 and it ran Windows 98. It has been

Scientists have managed to find signs of microbial life in one of the harshest spots on Earth, giving further hope that life may also be found in some of the unknown environments of space. In the depths of the Canadian Arctic, scientists managed to identify signs of life in the low-oxygen, super-salty waters of the

Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system and has a mass that is 2.5x more than all the other planets put together. Most would remember that Jupiter is mostly made out of helium and hydrogen. But unlike most other gas giants, there is a significant presence of metals in the planet’s composition. Scientists

A team of researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) created a human tissue model to demonstrate the functioning of nanoparticles. Cancer types like glioblastoma have a high fatality rate and treating them is difficult due to the blood-brain barrier. The barrier doesn’t allow most chemotherapy drugs to penetrate through the blood vessels around

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover has been traversing over a transitional region between a clay-rich region to a sulphate-rich region. In the process, the rover has been capturing images of rocks that had once been at the bottom of multiple stream beds on the red planet. Harkening to a distant past when water was found on

A startup in West Bengal has come out with a device that produces oxygen from water just by pressing of a switch, the founders of the technology claimed. ‘OM Redox’, the device developed by Solaire Initiatives Pvt Ltd, which is incubated in the Webel-BCC&I Tech Incubation Centre here, provides pure oxygen from water, they said.