Science

The secret US plan to detonate a nuclear bomb on the Moon In 1958, as Cold War tensions shaped decisions in Washington and Moscow, a study quietly examined whether a nuclear device could be exploded on the Moon. The proposal, known as Project A119, did not move beyond paper. Still, it reflected the climate of…

What will humans look like in a million years? The answer may surprise you Thinking about human appearance far into the future tends to drift into science fiction, but the question is rooted in real science. Human bodies have never been fixed. They have shifted with climate, food supply, disease, movement and technology. A million…

Astronomers have long wondered why planets orbiting two stars like the iconic Tatooine in Star Wars are so rare. You would expect them to be everywhere, really. Most stars form with planets, and a large fraction are born in pairs. Yet double-sun worlds are elusive. New research by University of Berkeley, suggests that the laws…

BENGLURU: The Nasa-Isro Synthetic Aperture Radar (Nisar) is now systematically scanning the Indian landmass, offering a new way to track one of agriculture’s most critical but invisible factors: soil moisture.Using advanced radar instruments operating in S- and L-bands, the satellite images the country every 12 days, covering wide swathes at high resolution. Scientists have demonstrated…

The International Space Station is back to full strength. Four new astronauts arrived over the weekend, sliding into orbit to replace a crew that left earlier than planned after a sudden medical emergency. It was a tense few weeks for NASA. For the first time in 65 years of human spaceflight, an astronaut had to…

This critically endangered ‘monkey-eating bird’ ranks among the largest raptors on Earth The monkey-eating bird is the common nickname for the Pithecophaga jefferyi, better known as the Philippine eagle. The name came from early reports that the bird hunted monkeys in the forests where it lives. The bird is regarded as one of the biggest…

Meet the snail that can rebuild a complete eye from scratch in just 30 days A freshwater snail that can regrow a fully formed eye is beginning to attract quiet attention from researchers studying vision loss. The golden apple snail, Pomacea canaliculata, can rebuild a complete camera-type eye even after it has been entirely removed….

There was a time when the planet was crawling with enormous dinosaurs, the next, a six-mile-wide asteroid hit, and life changed forever. Almost 66 million years ago, nearly three-quarters of all species vanished in a blink. Fires, tsunamis, scorching heat, it seems nothing stood a chance. But not everything went extinct. Some animals hung on,…

Representative image (AI-generated) The growing presence of space debris around Earth is pushing space companies to rely on artificial intelligence (AI) to protect satellites and critical missions.Even a tiny fragment of debris can cause serious damage when travelling at extremely high speeds in orbit. Experts estimate that more than a million objects measuring one centimetre…

Nicolaus Copernicus (Image source: Wikipedia) Nicolaus Copernicus was a mathematician and astronomer from the Renaissance who changed how people thought about the universe. Copernicus was born in 1473 in what is now Poland. He went to universities in Krakow, Italy, and other European cities to study math, astronomy, and medicine. Most scholars at the time…