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Leap Day 2024: History, significance and some interesting facts of Feb 29

Leap Day 2024: An extra day added to the Gregorian calendar every four years is called Leap Day. Here's all you need to know about the history of this day, significance and more

Total Solar Eclipse 2024: Here's when and where to see the eclipse

Total Solar Eclipse 2024: This is great news for all solar enthusiasts as they can witness the total solar eclipse in April this year. Here's all you need to know about it

Earth's Rotation Day 2023: Date, history, importance, and more facts

January 8 is observed every year as Earth's Rotation Day. Today, the world celebrates the anniversary of French physicist Leon Foucault's 1851 proof that the Earth rotates on its axis

Perihelion Day 2024: All you need to know about the astronomical event

Perihelion Day happens toward the beginning of January. This celestial event isn't simply a fascinating fact for stargazers and researchers; it also affects our planet and its environment

The $42 mn clock set to tick once a year, keep time for next 10,000 years

Being built inside a mountain in Texas, the century hand of the 10,000-year clock advances once every 100 years, and the cuckoo will come out on the millennium

Part of Chandrayaan-3 launch vehicle makes re-entry into Earth's atmosphere

The cryogenic upper stage of the LVM3 M4 launch vehicle, which successfully injected the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft into the intended orbit on July 14 this year, made an uncontrolled re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere on Wednesday, the ISRO said. "The probable impact point was predicted over the North Pacific Ocean. The final ground track did not pass over India," the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said in a statement. This rocket body was part of the LVM-3 M4 launch vehicle, it said. It re-entered the Earth's atmosphere around 14:42 IST. The re-entry of the rocket body took place within 124 days of its launch. The post-mission orbital lifetime of the LVM3 M4 cryogenic upper stage is, thus, fully compliant with the "25-year rule" for low-Earth orbit objects as recommended by the Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee (IADC), the ISRO said. Post Chandrayaan-3 injection, the upper stage had also undergone "passivation" to remove all residual propellant and energ

Earth records its hottest 12-month stretch due to climate change: Research

As per a report from Climate Central, the planet ran nearly 2.5 degrees Fahrenheit above average from November 2022 through October 2023

'Devil Comet' 3 times bigger than Mt Everest heading towards Earth; details

It is expected that in April 2024 the comet may be visible to the naked eye

Earth's close shave: Asteroid 2023 TT8 zooms by today, reveals Nasa

3 astronauts return to Earth after a year, Rubio sets US space record

A NASA astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts returned to Earth on Wednesday after being stuck in space for just over a year. American Frank Rubio set a record for the longest US spaceflight a result of the extended stay. The trio landed in a remote area of Kazakhstan, descending in a Soyuz capsule that was rushed up as a replacement after their original ride was hit by space junk and lost all its coolant while docked to the International Space Station. What should have been a 180-day mission turned into a 371-day stay. Rubio spent more than two weeks longer in space than Mark Vande Hei, who held NASA's previous endurance record for a single spaceflight. Russia holds the world record of 437 days, set in the mid-1990s. The Soyuz capsule that brought Rubio and cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin back was a replacement launched in February. Russian engineers suspect a piece of space junk pierced the radiator of their original capsule late last year, midway through what shoul

NASA's first asteroid samples land on Earth after release from spacecraft

NASA's first asteroid samples fetched from deep space parachuted into the Utah desert Sunday to cap a seven-year journey. In a flyby of Earth, the Osiris-Rex spacecraft released the sample capsule from 63,000 miles (100,000 kilometers) out. The small capsule landed four hours later on a remote expanse of military land, as the mothership set off after another asteroid. Scientists estimate the capsule holds at least a cup of rubble from the carbon-rich asteroid known as Bennu, but won't know for sure until the container is opened. Some spilled and floated away when the spacecraft scooped up too much and rocks jammed the container's lid during collection three years ago. Japan, the only other country to bring back asteroid samples, gathered about a teaspoon in a pair of asteroid missions. The pebbles and dust delivered Sunday represent the biggest haul from beyond the moon. Preserved building blocks from the dawn of our solar system 4.5 billion years ago, the samples will help scienti

Chandrayaan-1 data suggests electrons from Earth forming water on Moon

Scientists analysing the remote sensing data from India's Chandrayaan-1 lunar mission have found that high energy electrons from the Earth may be forming water on the Moon. The team led by researchers from the University of Hawai'i (UH) at Manoa in the US discovered that these electrons in Earth's plasma sheet are contributing to weathering processes -- breaking down or dissolving of rocks and minerals -- on the Moon's surface. The research, published in the journal Nature Astronomy, found that the electrons may have aided the formation of water on the lunar body. Knowing the concentrations and distributions of water on the Moon is critical to understanding its formation and evolution, and to providing water resources for future human exploration, the researchers said. The new finding may also help explain the origin of the water ice previously discovered in the permanently shaded regions of the Moon, they said. Chandrayaan-1 played a crucial role in the discovery of water molecul

Earth outside safe operating space for humanity on most measurements: Study

Earth is exceeding its safe operating space for humanity in six of nine key measurements of its health, and two of the remaining three are headed in the wrong direction, a new study said. Earth's climate, biodiversity, land, freshwater, nutrient pollution and novel chemicals (human-made compounds like microplastics and nuclear waste) are all out of whack, a group of international scientists said in Wednesday's journal Science Advances. Only the acidity of the oceans, the health of the air and the ozone layer are within the boundaries considered safe, and both ocean and air pollution are heading in the wrong direction, the study said. We are in very bad shape, said study co-author Johan Rockstrom, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany. We show in this analysis that the planet is losing resilience and the patient is sick. In 2009, Rockstrom and other researchers created nine different broad boundary areas and used scientific measurements to judge ...

Aditya L1 successfully undergoes third earth-bound manoeuvre, says ISRO

Aditya L1 spacecraft, India's first space-based mission to study the Sun, successfully underwent its third earth-bound manoeuvre in the early hours of Sunday, ISRO said. The space agency's Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC) carried out the operation. "The third Earth-bound manoeuvre (EBN#3) is performed successfully from ISTRAC, Bengaluru. ISRO's ground stations at Mauritius, Bengaluru, SDSC-SHAR and Port Blair tracked the satellite during this operation," the Indian Space Research Organisation ISRO) said in a post on social media platform X. The new orbit attained is 296 km x 71767 km, it said, adding the next manoeuvre is scheduled on September 15, around 2 am. Aditya-L1 is the first Indian space-based observatory that will study the Sun from a halo orbit around the first Sun-Earth Lagrangian point (L1), which is located roughly 1.5 million km from the Earth. The first and second earth-bound manoeuvres were successfully performed on September 3 and 5, respectively.

4 astronauts return to Earth in SpaceX capsule to wrap up 6-month mission

Four astronauts returned to Earth early Monday after a six-month stay at the International Space Station. Their SpaceX capsule parachuted into the Atlantic off the Florida coast. Returning were NASA astronauts Stephen Bowen and Warren Woody Hoburg, Russia's Andrei Fedyaev and the United Arab Emirates' Sultan al-Neyadi, t he first person from the Arab world to spend an extended time in orbit. Before departing the space station, they said they were craving hot showers, steaming cups of coffee and the ocean air since arriving in March. Their homecoming was delayed a day because of poor weather at the splashdown locations. SpaceX launched their replacements over a week ago. Another crew switch will occur later this month with the long-awaited homecoming of two Russians and one American who have been up there an entire year. Their stay was doubled after their Soyuz capsule leaked all of its coolant and a new craft had to be launched. Between crew swaps, the space station is home to se

Space junk on Moon will rise with future missions, but who will clean it up

With more countries landing on the Moon, people back on Earth will have to think about what happens to all the landers, waste and miscellaneous debris left on the lunar surface and in orbit

NASA temporarily loses contact with Voyager 2 after entering wrong commands

NASA recently lost contact with Voyager 2, which is currently located more than 12.3 billion miles away from the Earth. It took NASA 18 hours for signals to reach Earth from that distance

NASA lab hopes to find life's building blocks in Asteroid Bennu sample

NASA will analyse the sample once it returns to earth, to help us understand the origins of the solar system. Bennu orbits the Sun at an average distance of about 105 million miles

July 2023 likely to be the warmest month on record, NASA scientist claims

He said it will be the hottest month in "hundreds, if not thousands, of years." The US space agency observed a spike in the temperature when the super El Nino event hit during the 2015-16 winter

Indian Ocean's 'gravity hole' opens doors to secrets of Earth's origin

According to a study, the 'gravity hole' took its current shape around 20 million years ago and will likely last millions more