Science

Test pilots Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams of Boeing's new Starliner capsule were supposed to visit the International Space Station for about a week and return in mid-June, but thruster failures and helium leaks on the new spacecraft prompted NASA and Boeing to keep them up longer.NASA’s commercial crew program manager Steve Stich said mission managers are not ready to announce a return date. The goal is to bring Wilmore and Williams back aboard Starliner.Backup options are under review. SpaceX's Dragon capsule is another means of getting NASA astronauts to and from the space station.Already more than a month late getting back, two NASA astronauts will remain at the International Space Station until engineers finish working on problems plaguing their Boeing capsule, officials said Thu...

The Webb Space Telescope spotted a gas giant roughly the same diameter as Jupiter, but with six times the mass, orbiting a neighboring star, Epsilon Indi A. It might take this planet as long as 250 years to complete an orbit around its star. The planet and star are about 3.5 billion years old, 1 billion years younger than our own solar system, but still considered old and brighter than expected.The Webb telescope, launched in 2021, is the biggest and most powerful astronomical observatory ever placed in space.A super Jupiter has been spotted around a neighboring star by the Webb Space Telescope — and it has a super orbit.The planet is roughly the same diameter as Jupiter, but with six times the mass. Its atmosphere is also rich in hydrogen like Jupiter’s.One big difference: It takes th...

NASA announced it is canceling its Viper moon rover project due to high cost and launch delays.The Viper rover was meant to explore the moon's south pole in search of water.Astrobotic Technology still plans to fly its Griffin moon lander by the end of next year, but it will no longer carry a moon rover with it as initially intended.NASA said Wednesday it's canceling its water-seeking moon rover, citing cost overruns and launch delays.The Viper rover was supposed to launch in late 2023 aboard a lander provided by Astrobotic Technology, but extra testing and increased costs kept delaying the mission, threatening other projects, the space agency said.The rover had aimed to explore the moon's south pole. About $450 million had been spent so far on its development, NASA said.SCIENTISTS DISC...

An Italian-led team of scientists say they have confirmed evidence of a sizable cave on the moon not far from where Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed 55 years ago. The cave is located at the Sea of Tranquility just 250 miles from Apollo 11’s landing site and researchers suspect there are hundreds more that could house future astronauts as several nations look to create a permanent base on the lunar surface for humans. Apollo 17 in 1972 was the final flight of the Apollo program.The pit, like the more than 200 others discovered up there, was created by the collapse of a lava tube, scientists say.CHINA LAUNCHES LUNAR PROBE TO TAKE SAMPLES FROM FAR SIDE OF THE MOON Mare Tranquillitatis pit crater, where the cave was discovered, is about 330 feet deep. (NASA/GSFC/Arizona State Univers...

A newly discovered sauropod species is going on display in the Natural History Museum in Los Angeles. Its fossilized skeleton is the only one found on the planet whose bones are green, according to museum officials.The dinosaur's fossils got their unique coloration from the mineral celadonite during the fossilization process.The dinosaur lived 150 million years ago in the late Jurassic Era, making it older than Tyrannosaurus rex.The latest dinosaur being mounted at the Natural History Museum in Los Angeles is not only a member of a new species — it's also the only one found on the planet whose bones are green, according to museum officials.Named "Gnatalie" (pronounced Natalie) for the gnats that swarmed during the excavation, the long-necked, long-tailed herbivorous dinosaur's fossils ...

A new plant-eating dinosaur species described as "remarkable" and among the "largest and most ornate ever found" has been discovered during an excavation in northern Montana, researchers say. Lokiceratops rangiformis, whose discovery was first reported in the scientific journal PeerJ on Thursday, is now set to have a reconstruction of its skull go on display at the Natural History Museum of Utah. "The dinosaur, excavated from the badlands of northern Montana just a few miles from the USA-Canada border, is among the largest and most ornate ever found, with two huge blade-like horns on the back of its frill," the Museum said in a statement. "More than 78 million years ago, Lokiceratops inhabited the swamps and floodplains along the eastern shore of Laramidia," it added. "This island cont...

With the emergence of cicada broods this summer, scientists have begun collecting specimens of cicada infected with a mysterious parasitic fungus that takes over the insects and turns them into hypersexual "zombies" on amphetamine with the aim of spreading the parasite to other hosts.West Virginia University mycology professor Matt Kasson told The Associated Press that he traveled to the Morton Arboretum outside Chicago with his 9-year-old son Oliver and graduate student Angie Macias with the objective of tracking down infected cicadas.The fungus, Massospora cicadina, infects cicadas and it turns the back part of their bodies into "a chalky mess of spores," Chicago's Field Museum told Fox News Digital earlier this month.The fungus takes over a cicada's nether parts, dumping the genital...

NASA has shared the first photos taken of China's Chang'e-6 space probe captured on the far side of the moon.The images of China's sample return spacecraft were captured by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) on June 7. Chang'e-6 landed on the moon on June 1 and when the LROC passed over the site about a week later, it acquired an image showing the lander on the rim of a 55-yard crater on the moon's surface, the agency said.The LROC team said it computed the landing site coordinates at about 42 degrees south latitude, 206 degrees east longitude, at an elevation of about minus 3.27 miles. Images released by NASA and Arizona State University show the landing site situated near the southern edge of the Apollo basin on the lunar far side. JAMES WEBB TELESCOPE HELPS ENHANCE TE...

WASHINGTON – The James Webb Telescope is delivering amazing photos of space like we’ve never seen before."It’s a new window into the history of our universe," President Joe Biden said during an unveiling of the first photographs.The telescope has exceeded scientist’s expectations in what they are learning and seeing. Some of the most recent discoveries are of three galaxies that may be actively forming.NASA ADMINISTRATOR SAYS 'AT LEAST A TRILLION' OTHER PLANETS LIKE EARTH COULD EXIST IN UNIVERSE"Some of the most beautiful things that you've seen," Administrator Bill Nelson said. "We’ve discovered how stars are formed… We have pictures now of the death of stars. We're beginning to understand what black holes are, these things that are so fierce in their gravitational pull that they suck...

NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft is transmitting data again after a technical issue in November.Voyager 1 is drifting through the space between star systems on a mission to collect information about plasma waves, magnetic fields and particles.Voyager 1 is over 15 billion miles from Earth. Its twin, Voyager 2, is more than 12 billion miles away.NASA's Voyager 1, the most distant spacecraft from Earth, is sending science data again.Voyager 1's four instruments are back in business after a computer problem in November, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory said this week. The team first received meaningful information again from Voyager 1 in April, and recently commanded it to start studying its environment again.MEDICAL BREAKTHROUGHS DISCOVERED ON INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION This illustration provid...